Digestibility Is The Key
by Ken Quandt, Regional Sales Manager

Organic fertilizers provide food for soil microbes and the soil microbes provide nutrients for the plants. The food for the soil microbes is contained in proteins that are made up of amino acids. The fertilizer that contains the highest level of amino acids will provide the most nutrition for the plants. It is well documented that Nature Safe provides higher levels of amino acids than any other organic product available today. Most Nature Safe products contain between five and ten times more energy from amino acids than any of our competitors.

More important than the amino acids is how easily and completely the soil microbes can digest the proteins. If you could look at proteins under a high-resolution microscope, you would see striated fibers that are wound around each other very tightly. When these fibers are heated, they begin to slowly pull apart. The more they pull apart, the more tender and digestible the proteins become. However, if too much heat is used, the striated fibers begin to mesh back together again and the digestibility is reduced. It is similar to cooking a good steak on a charcoal grill. When it is raw, the steak will be tough and it would be difficult to take a bite out of it. As the steak cooks on the grill, it becomes more tender. When it reaches just the right point, it will be a nice tender piece of meat. However, if you leave it on the grill too long it will overcook and get tough. That’s because the steak got too hot and the proteins that had pulled apart at the lower temperatures meshed tightly back together again. The more tightly the fibers in the proteins mesh together, the more indigestible the protein becomes for both animals and soil microbes. Sewage sludge fertilizers have only about half their nutrients actually available because they are subjected to extreme heat, up to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit for sterilization.

Proteins must be carefully processed and monitored throughout their processing period to make sure they are digestible. The proteins used in Nature Safe Fertilizers are the most digestible because they are the same proteins that are used in the best selling premium pet foods on the market. Almost all of the premium pet food companies rely on Griffin Industries, Nature Safe’s parent company, to supply the most digestible proteins so that the animals eating their products derive the maximum amount of energy from them. These companies choose proteins processed by Griffin Industries because we consistently guarantee the quality of our proteins. When these highly digestible proteins are used in Nature Safe Fertilizers, they provide superior levels of nutrition for the soil microbes.

Nature Safe is the only company that manufactures all of the components that go into an organic fertilizer. Other companies that manufacture meal-based organic fertilizers purchase their proteins on the open market and have no control over processing or digestibility. If a customer purchases $10.00 worth of fertilizer from XYZ Company, he may only get $5.00 worth of nutrients for his plants because many of the nutrients are tied up in hard to digest forms. With Nature Safe, he can count on getting his full $10.00 worth of nutrients because our proteins completely digest in 30 to 45 days.

The proteins that are difficult to digest in competitive products can create problems for turf managers. Many of the proteins will eventually break down but at inopportune times. These hard to digest proteins accumulate in the soil and create a residual supply of nutrients that will sometimes start to release during extremely hot weather. That is why some organic fertilizers have a reputation for “exploding” during heat spells. Since all the nutrients in Nature Safe are completely digested in a predictable length of time, there are never any long-term residual nutrients left to cause growth surges during hot spells.

Other products may cost a little less per bag, but they cannot come close to providing the same level of consistent nutrition that Nature Safe delivers month after month, year after year.