Aug 30, 2026 · 16 min · 7 segments
In this episode, one of the pioneers of probiotic technology, Dr. Matthew Wood of Probiotic Holdings, sheds light on what efficient microbes are and what they do…
Matthew WoodGuestDiego FooterHostCo-HostHost
Some of the work that was most exciting at the time was two, two subjects really that come to mind.
One is showing an effect or seeing an effect of increasing the overall diversity index in a system, in a, in a soil or in an agricultural ecosystem.
And a diversity index is the, is like a way of measuring the amount of diversity and the level of activity of the biology in a system.
It was like in the chemical system, you have this trend over years, okay, these are long-term trends, but in the chemical-dominated system, you have this trend of reducing the diversity index over time.
And with this tool of EM cultures, we think we saw that, we, we saw back then that you can reverse that trend.
And to me, that's like really fundamental with what's happening, you know, around the world with the ecosystems.
Like, it, it might need more nitrogen during the vegetative stage, for example.
And what we saw was that in the soils that had higher populations and activity of these beneficial microbes that were, we were adding and that we were measuring with EM practices, those...
What we saw was that the microbes would increase, for example, the nitrogen in the rhizosphere around the roots at the time when the plant needed increased nitrogen.
So we saw a clear communication happening between the plant and the microbial community where they were symbiotic.
They were both helping each other in some way, and we saw that through NPK levels over the growth cycle in the plant as well as in the soil with different types of treatments.
Some of the work that was most exciting at the time was two, two subjects really that come to mind.
One is showing an effect or seeing an effect of increasing the overall diversity index in a system, in a, in a soil or in an agricultural ecosystem.
And a diversity index is the, is like a way of measuring the amount of diversity and the level of activity of the biology in a system.
It was like in the chemical system, you have this trend over years, okay, these are long-term trends, but in the chemical-dominated system, you have this trend of reducing the diversity index over time.
And with this tool of EM cultures, we think we saw that, we, we saw back then that you can reverse that trend.
And to me, that's like really fundamental with what's happening, you know, around the world with the ecosystems.
Like, it, it might need more nitrogen during the vegetative stage, for example.
And what we saw was that in the soils that had higher populations and activity of these beneficial microbes that were, we were adding and that we were measuring with EM practices, those...
What we saw was that the microbes would increase, for example, the nitrogen in the rhizosphere around the roots at the time when the plant needed increased nitrogen.
So we saw a clear communication happening between the plant and the microbial community where they were symbiotic.
They were both helping each other in some way, and we saw that through NPK levels over the growth cycle in the plant as well as in the soil with different types of treatments.
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