IB.ECO B.V. | Innovative Business Ecological Concepts
Nothing is more important than the quality and nutrition of our food supply. Modern society is disconnected from the production of the food we consume. Farm modernization, soil mineral depletion, government regulation, urban sprawl, and poor understanding of plant health, are destroying the fabric of what allows us to live.
APTUS is created in order to give farmers, growers and consumers an alternative to the conventional methods of farming and food production. APTUS introduces a program for plant nutrition and biostimulation that is based on the way plants grow in nature, in their natural habitat.
Conventional agriculture has forgotten or ignores many of these natural methods. Today’s farmers are educated on using chemical nutrients and pesticides. After years of intensive (mono) crop production, today’s food processing industry has arrived at a stade where it can create very nice looking tomato’s, but unfortunately with very low mineral values and high pesiticide residues. The alternative way is better understanding how nature functions and by re-introducing the buildingblocks of life into our modern agricultural system.
APTUS promotes true plant science and gives education to farmers and growers on how to balance plant nutrition and integrate biostimulants into their nutritional program. By doing so, they can grow healthy fruits and vegetables with high nutritional values and low residues of pesticides. APTUS applies biostimulants based on silicic acid, amino-acids and microbes in order to re-introduce these buildingblocks of life. The APTUS phylosophy and formulations can be applied on a big scale in professional agriculture, but also on a smaller scale in urban agriculture and indoor cultivation.
Much like us, plants are what they eat. If you feed a plant poor nutrition, it produces poor nutritional products. And obviously, the better nutrients we feed the plant, the healthier and more nutritional the products (fruits and vegetables) will be for us.
Today our farmlands are so over-farmed with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that our soil is depeleted of almost all of its micronutrients and trace elements. Without trace elements and microbes our farmlands produce crops with little or no nutritional value at all.
We need to get back to eating healthy organic food in order to build up our immune system and fight off sickness and disease. The same goes for our plants. Proper nutrition creates a healthy and active immune system that defends plants against all threats in a natural way.
Urban Agriculture is a worldwide movement to bring the production of food closer to home and give the power of true health back to the average person.
APTUS is at the forefront of the Urban Agricultural movement and we create and supply all natural plant nutrition products that allow you to grow your own food the way nature intended. APTUS invested a lot of time and money in developing alternative nutrition programs for all kind of crops, based on soil bio-remediation, plant stimulation and proper nutrition. APTUS proved that it is possible to grow fruits and vegetables with less residues of pesticides, higher nutritional values and longer shelf-life.
The way plants assimilate nutrients, the interactions between nutrients, and the bio-availability of nutrients is widely misunderstood. Conventioal plant nutrition systems are managed as if they were a chemistry experiment. All kinds of chemical compounds for nutrition (especially N, P, K) and protection (pesticides like fungicides and insecticides) are released in the plant’s environment. Results are expected simply because all the proper chemicals are present. However, nature teaches us that the use of chemical-based nutrients and pesticides is not enough to solve existing plant problems. Typically, as more chemicals are added, more and more problems are created. This is because chemical-based nutrients typically create an imbalance in the nutrition uptake by the plant. Chemical fertilizers tend to decrease pH in plants, which induces plant weakness against pests and fungal diseases. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides also decrease micro life populations and species in the growing medium significantly. This results in poor mediums, poor mineralization and minimal plant stimulation. To fix these problems, a better understanding of nutrient uptake sequencing, nutrient interactions, and bioavailability of nutrients is essential.
Plants have different and distinct development stages: rooting, growing, shooting, blooming, fruit or flower development and maturation. Each stage requires a specific balance of nutrition and mineral uptake for maximum production. Many growers supplement with growth ‘boosters’ at the wrong development stage when the plant cannot utilize these nutrients. These unused minerals sit in the growing medium interacting with micro life and other minerals, often causing deficiencies and lockout.
APTUS organized many trials in open fields as well as in greenhouses. The main goal in these trials was creating a sustainable program for plant nutrition. Plants were grown with significantly less NPK nutrition in combination with biostimulants based on silicic acid, amino-acids and micro-biological formulations. Plant sap analyses showed improved mineralisation, higher brix and less nitrates in leafs as well as in fruits/vegetables.
Let’s stop poisoning ourseleves and stop destroying Mother Earth. Sustainable agriculture, weather hydroponics or organic soil grown, is the only thing that can save our planet and feed our population.