This garden thrived during a season of drought with a boost from 4G Soil Solutions
4G Soil Restoration is a Business Ally of Certified Naturally Grown with an unlikely history. Their chief product is a soil amendment that improves microbial activity, which in turn boosts crop resilience, quality, and abundance.
We spoke with one of the company’s representatives, Tom Wafford, to get the inside story on how the evolution of their product arose from a seemingly unrelated industry.
CNG: How did 4G Soil Restoration get started?
Tom Wafford (TW): In the 1990’s I was involved with a group of industrial odor control distributors. Our distributors were from Holland, England, Chile, New Zealand, Hawaii and four of us were from the United States. We treated landfills, waste water plants, transfer stations, waste to energy plants, turkey barns (high ammonia), and compost to name a few areas.
We started concentrating on compost, feeding the bacteria with our nutrient package. One of the compost projects we treated was at Purdue University and through testing it was found that we increased the bacteria in the compost 10 fold. The product we were using then was a nutrient package only, but it has evolved considerably over the years. Today we feel with Growth Burst we have a more complete package, with 25 varieties of aerobic bacteria and fungi in their own nutrient package of a molasses base, including products from the ocean.
I have personally used Growth Burst on many different applications and have seen great results.
CNG: What are 4G Soil Restoration’s core values?
(TW): We want the soils to get back to the way they were created, healthy, vibrant, full of energy, full of earth worms ~ the ideal environment for plant life. We want the food we grow to be nutrient dense and grown in a pathogen free environment to guard against food poisoning. We believe that we can grow food that is safe.
CNG: How did 4G Soil Restoration make the decision to support CNG as a business ally?
(TW): I was contacted by CNG before the PASA conference. I looked at your site and saw your network and was impressed with what I saw! I like that you’re helping promote CNG for many reasons. One of them is that to become certified organic, many hoops must be jumped through. Some of them can be almost unrealistic, expensive and everybody doesn’t need to be certified organic. I wanted to become a part of this organization. It’s also another way to promote this wonderful product.
CNG: How does CNG support 4G Soil Restoration’s customers?
(TW): Mainly by introducing Growth Burst and its benefits to your network of farmers, gardeners and individuals. Also, encouraging people to grow naturally and not use petro-chemicals while helping educate the public about the importance of healthy soils.
CNG: What are some exciting developments at 4G Soil Restoration our CNG community can look forward to?
(TW): More pictures and testimonies of how Growth Burst has benefited crops, pastures, gardens, berries, fruit, flowers, yards, trees etc. It is being used in greenhouses for the first time. We just had a lab test done on the two main herbicides in agent orange. After 2 weeks 2,4-D was reduced 94.1% and 2,4-T was reduced 74.8%. We have also done testing on glyphosate and have eliminated it from the soil. We will be doing further testing on glyphosate to find the time frame of removing it from the soil.
CNG: If you had a magic agricultural wand, how would you use it to improve farm systems in North America?
(TW): I would have the use of lime drastically reduced or eliminated. Lime can compact the soil, doesn’t let the soil get proper aeration, and can kill some good bacteria. Growth Burst helps to balance the PH (whether acidic or alkaline) and makes it possible to reduce use of petrochemical nitrogen fertilizers. If herbicides are used, the application of Growth Burst can remove residual amounts from the soil.
CNG: Is there anything else CNG farmers and beekeepers should know?
(TW): We are getting high germination results and 30 to 40% greater dry matter at harvest with no lime used, with at least 50% less fertilizers and nitrogen. Growth Burst is very bee friendly, and is approved by Washington State Dept. of Agriculture for use on certified organic operations.
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