Sowing More than Seeds: The Seed Reps’ Guide to Mycorrhizal Inoculants
If you’re a seed rep today, you are selling more than seeds – you’re selling entire solutions for success. In today’s market, with biologicals making their way into the mainstream, differentiating your offerings with value-added solutions that impact a farmer’s bottom line and strengthen your relationships can make all the difference.
Farmers face a particularly challenging set of circumstances today, including degraded soils, climate stress and high input costs. They’re looking for solutions that deliver resilience, yield and clear ROI. With compromised soil conditions often leading to poor emergence and replant headaches, anything that improves root structure and nutrient availability is valuable. This is where mycorrhizal inoculants come into the picture.
The Fungi-Phosphorus Connection
Two key variables – early root development and efficient nutrient uptake – are fundamentally interconnected; one is necessary for the other to come to fruition. Without strong root structure, nutrient uptake will be poor and your farmers’ investment in phosphorus (P) fertilizer goes to waste. In fact, 80% of applied dry phosphorus can get chemically locked up and become unavailable to plants. This means a significant portion of a farmer’s fertilizer spend goes underutilized – a major loss in ROI.
Mycorrhizal fungi provide a unique solution. Mycorrhizae have been nature’s original root connectors for millennia, helping ancient plants migrate from prehistoric seas to today’s land masses. Today, mycorrhizal fungi simply come in an easy-to-apply granular formula: mycorrhizal inoculants. They extend the root zone by up to 100 times, dramatically increasing the surface area for nutrient absorption to unlock and mobilize phosphorus and other vital nutrients, making them available to the plant immediately. Pairing quality seed with a mycorrhizal inoculant ensures that farmers get the most out of their P budget, maximizing ROI and yield.
Mycorrhizal Fungi: The Queen of Biologicals
Not all biologicals are the same. Unlike bacteria, which primarily aid nutrient conversion, mycorrhizal fungi synergize with roots to form a living, physical network. This symbiosis is the core of their value, as improved root architecture then enhances nutrient uptake and overall plant resilience, especially in stressed soils. Designed with farmers in mind, Rootella® mycorrhizal inoculants are particularly suited for seed treatments. Easy to apply as a liquid or dry, as a wettable powder or as a slurry, they fit into all existing seed treatment methods. They are shelf-stable for years with no refrigeration required, yet still deliver exceptionally high spore counts, with one of the highest concentrations on the market.
Rootella brings the unique strengths of mycorrhizal fungi to seed treatment in a formulation that is user-friendly, farmer-centric, and truly powerful.
The Rootella® Resilience Advantage
Rootella also offers competitive advantages for seed reps looking to enhance their sales packages.
- Value-added product: Rootella offers a new biological mode of action that improves root structure and unlocks phosphorus availability,directly addressing common pain points like poor root development and high input spend.
- Farmer-first formulation: Rootella is user-friendly and highly concentrated, with a long shelf life and no special storage considerations like refrigeration. Applicable in liquid and dry formulations, it integrates with existing treatment equipment.
- ROI and Resilience: Rootella is a low-cost investment that offers high-value ROI. It can be applied right at the beginning of the season so farmers who want to avoid applying liquid biologicals in-season have a front-loaded, low risk option.
- Short-term cost for long-term investment: Mycorrhizae deliver a long-term investment in soil health. Even when the fungi die off, the organic matter they exude is sequestered in soil permanently, improving tilth and fertility.
With biologicals becoming standard cultivation protocol, and growing interest and provincial support for regenerative agriculture and biological adoption, mycorrhizal inoculants can be easily positioned as both a root zone-strengthening input and the foundation of sustainable soil health.
The Bottom Line for Seed Sales
Including mycorrhizal inoculants in your portfolio isn’t just about selling another product. It’s about delivering a foundational soil health solution that builds trust, resilience and ROI. With Rootella naturally positioned as a cost-effective, highly potent risk management input, you both help farmers protect their investments during challenging seasons and strengthen your role as a partner in success.
Get in touch!
Reach out to Dana Schofield to learn more about adding mycorrhizae to your portfolio. Equip your growers with a product that adds value, protects roots, and builds resilience, season after season.
