The Holganix Blog

As a contractor, it is a challenge to ensure that freshly installed landscapes - whether flowers, trees, shrub, sod or seed - not only survive in their new home, but they thrive. Often, contractors take healthy plant material from a greenhouse or nursery and install it in dead soil that is common in new subdivisions. That plant struggles to take root and may even die. By using a Plant Start Application, contractors ensure plants thrive.

In his tip of the month video, Holganix CEO and Founder, Barrett Ersek and Holganix National Sales Manager, Rob McCoy dive into:

1. What is a Plant Start Application and what results can you expect

2. How to conduct a Plant Start Application

3. Success stories from contractors using Plant Start Applications on trees, shrubs, sod and seed

If you are reading this blog via email, click here for Barrett’s video.

Download A Copy Of The Plant Start Directions

Click the button below to download your copy of the Plant Start Application directions.

In this blog post, Holganix National Sales Manager, Rob McCoy interviews Brian Marr on results he is seeing in Texas with hydroseeders and Holganix products. Brian Marr is the Territory Manager for Texas, Colorado and the West Coast. Watch their 2-Minute video interview below or skip the video and read the highlights. If you are reading this blog via email, click here to access the video.

Rob McCoy, Holganix National Sales Manager - Brian, we have been hearing about the hydroseeders in Texas that have been picking up the Holganix product line, can you tell me what they are seeing?

Brian Marr, Holganix Territory Representative - We have seen hydroseeders really drawn to the product line because of the quick seed germination results and because, often times hydroseeders are dealing with poor soil conditions, and Holganix products can help remedy that. Hydroseeders are also seeing reduced call backs because of the better results.

Rob McCoy, Holganix National Sales Manager - How are the hydroseeders using the Holganix products?

Brian Marr, Holganix Territory Representative - Typically, hydroseeders are using a really simple recipe. Depending on their tank size, they are combining 4.5 gallons of Holganix Bio 800 Lawn with 5 bags of Healthy Grow Infused with Holganix 7-9-5, and 2.5 gallons of Holganix Blue Sky 21-0-0 per acre. Recipes similar to this one can also be useful for landscapers doing aeration and overseeding.

James Wade, better known as Bubbah by friends has been farming his whole life. “Traditionally, I’ve been in cattle and hog production but we got into produce about eight years ago. It’s a lot of hard work, but we like it.” Bubbah is the proud owner of WW Farms in Alabama. They farm 40 acres of produce including tomato, cantaloupe, watermelon, peas, zucchini and most importantly, strawberries.

This year, another grower recommended that Bubbah use Holganix Agriculture (A Bio 800⁺ product) on his 10,000 strawberry plants and other crops. “I was told I’d increase yield and my friend was clearly a big believer in the product.” Holganix Agriculture harnesses the power of soil microbes to improve yield and build stronger, more resilient plants that can better handle stress.  

Bubbah applied the product through drip irrigation and, “our strawberries are just crazy. We saw a 20-to-25% increase in yield and the plants produced berries longer.” In fact, Bubbah confirms he has been able to pick berries approximately two weeks longer than neighboring growers. “My yields are heavier than my friends,” confirms Bubbah.

“I can also see a difference in the cucumbers and squash this year with Holganix Agriculture as compared to previous years’. They just look healthier,” explains Bubbah. And, Bubbah’s bell peppers have also been performing with Holganix Agriculture, “the size has been nice, they are just really healthy and beautiful looking peppers.”

While Bubbah has only been using Holganix Agriculture for one growing season, “I’m a believer in the product and will definitely keep using it.”  

About Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture

Holganix Agriculture is a 100% organic plant probiotic that provides over 800 species of beneficial soil microbes, microbe food and nutrient enhancers to grow healthy, resilient crops. In fact, Holganix Agriculture contains the most complete and diverse blend of beneficial microbes available on the market!

Holganix Agriculture promotes strong, extensive root systems, resulting in plants that are better able to find and use nutrients, minerals and water in your soil. By nurturing healthy plants, Holganix Agriculture helps maximize yield potential while ensuring your crop is better prepared to fight off and recover from seasonal stress.

Contractors that install plants - whether flowers, trees, shrub, sod or seed - have a challenge on their hands. In essence, they take perfectly healthy plant material from a greenhouse or nursery and install it in dead soil that is common in new subdivisions. The plant suffers from transplant shock and will either struggle to take root and adapt to its new home, or eventually it may die.

Don’t risk new plants! Use Holganix Plant Start applications to ensure your plants thrive. By using the Holganix Plant Start Applications, contractors can expect:

• Reduce transplant shock
• Grow strong roots
• Boost color

What is the Holganix Plant Start Application?

Contractors simply water their freshly installed plant in with any Holganix Bio 800⁺ product and the plant will grow strong roots, that allow the plant to not only survive, but thrive in its new home.

Watch Our Video Demonstration

Watch the below below for a demonstration on how to use Holganix Bio 800⁺ products during plant start applications. If you are reading this blog via email, click here to watch the video. 

Download A Copy Of The Plant Start Directions

Click the button below to download your copy of the Plant Start Application directions. Spanish versions of these directions are pending.

Just because the spring season has come and passed doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to grow in the fall! In fact, about 25% of your business' growth may come from the fall season. Start planning your sale and marketing initiatives now to ensure you take advantage of the fall season growth period.

 Watch the webinar below to learn about the 7.5 Ways To Grow Your Lawn and Landscape Business In Fall. Or, if you prefer to read your material, skip the video and peruse the highlights from the webinar below.

Resources From The Webinar

Looking for any of the resources mentioned during the webinar, download all of your tools below.

1. Holganix Soil Smart Program - Your turn-key, regional fertilizer program.
2. Holganix Aeration Box
3. Holganix Tree & Shrub Box
4. Grow Your Tree & Shrub Business eBook
5. Holganix Flower Box
6. Holganix Launch Box

Tip #1 - Low Hanging Fruit: Targeting Your Cancel List When Lawns Are At Their Weakest

The wonderful thing about cancelled customers is that they are already familiar with your company. Consider that just because a customer cancelled services, doesn’t mean they were an unhappy customer; many customers cancel to take advantage of a price break or discount offered by a competitor. Targeting your cancel list when lawns are at a weak point right after summer, is the perfect opportunity to bring in new sales. In fact, often if you conduct a mail campaign to cancelled customers you can expect an close rate of 2.5 - 5%; if you combine a mail campaign with a call, the close rate can reach as high as 20%.

Tip #2 - Golden Streets: Targeting Your Most Profitable Prospects

Golden streets are where your most profitable customers live. By focusing on neighbors of your most profitable customers, you acquire more profitable sales. Most golden streets are selected because they have over 100 homes in a neighborhood, usually have two working adults, and homes are at least two years old.

Tip #3 - Upsell Opportunity #1: Aeration & Overseeding

Upselling current customers on aeration and overseeding, is not only good for the customer’s turf, but it is good for your company’s wallet. Aeration and overseeding revenue can come close to or rival the revenue gained from that customer’s entire year of lawn care services. Consider also that your customers already know and trust your services, so upselling them is easier than any cold call to acquire a new customer.

Tip #4 - Guerilla Marketing: Getting Creative To Make An Impact

Guerilla marketing is about being creative and cost effective in your sales and marketing approach. An example of guerilla marketing might be throwing frisbees with your company information and an offer in a neighborhood. Watch the video for other examples of guerilla marketing.

Tip #5 - Designing a Fall Program for New Customers and DIY Homeowners

Package a fall program that you can sell to new customers and DIY homeowners that would normally conduct their own lawn care services. Specifically, target leads that you have pitched in the past but haven’t yet sold. You can also look at targeting your cancelled customers with a new fall program.

Tip #6 - Capturing Money Early With Late Season Prepays

Prepay invoices are often sent to customers to encourage them to pay in advance of services and are usually a big focus for Q1 in the lawn care industry. However, offering late season prepays doesn’t necessarily need to involve a discount. In fact, instead of a discount, try offering an additional service for free such as a flea and tick application.

Tip #7 - Upsell Opportunity #2: Plant Installation

One thing lawn and landscape professionals often don’t think about is the fall planting opportunity. Even if you aren’t installing the new landscape, your company can offer a “plant start application” of Holganix Bio 800+ product in order to ensure that the landscape doesn’t just survive, but thrive.

Tip #7.5 - Upsell Opportunity #3: Tree & Shrub Maintenance Application

Offering a tree and shrub program is another way to secure additional revenue from current customers. In fact, you can expect between 10 - 20% of your current customers to sign up for a tree and shrub program.

In today’s blog, we sit down with Holganix Agriculture President, Dr. David Stark and Holganix CEO, Barrett Ersek for a 3.5-minute interview on the results farmers are seeing with Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture. Watch the video below to hear the conversation or skip the video and read the highlights. If you are reading this blog via email, click here for the video.

Holganix – Dr. Stark, you have been working with our farmers for over two years, what are they seeing in the field?

David Stark, PhD. – Farmers are telling me that Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture is easy to use and goes down well. They are also reporting increased yield and increased rooting - everything you would expect from a Holganix farmer.

Recently, I heard from a midwest farmer growing corn that applied Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture on his worst ground; according to that farmer, it became his best performing ground. I even heard from a strawberry grower in Georgia that called our sales representative and thanked the rep for selling him Holganix. According to the strawberry grower, Holganix saved his season and he saw better yields and an earlier harvest compared to the poor harvest his neighbors’ had.

Holganix – Barrett, where do you see the microbial space in the next five years?

Barrett Ersek – It is an exciting space to be in! Today, being a farmer in America is challenging. Farmers have to be innovative and hussle in order to make a profit. Anytime Holganix can help a grower make a return on their investment in Holganix, we know we are doing our job for our farmers. We are seeing farmers make anywhere from a 4x to a 10x ROI on their use of Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture

As an industry, I’ve seen a lot of investment pour into the microbial space. I believe that over the next five years, the industry will see microbes do everything from soil health, crop yield to disease and pest control. At Holganix we intend to lead that revolution.

Want to dig into the science?

Looking to learn more about Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture, click the link below to access a more in depth video and article on the science and research behind the product.

>>Watch Our Video

“If you have healthy soil, you have healthy plants,” explains grower Mark Ringenberg of Ringenberg Nursery. “Everything about Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture just makes sense to me.”

Mark and his family run Ringenberg Nursery which focuses on growing organic certified blackberries, peppers and several varieties of squashes. As of May, 2017, Mark has utilized Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture to improve crop yield and minimize his need for fertilizers and other products.

In fact, Mark hasn’t applied any fertilizer or pesticides; his program has consisted of Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture in combination with a humic product. He applies the product through drip irrigation and through a sprayer, totaling 1.5 gallons of product over three applications.

“I started using Holganix Agriculture on our peppers and blackberry plants last year and was excited to see the reduced disease pressure,” explains Mark. That’s because Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture is focused on fortifying plant strength and building soil health resulting in reduced disease and insect pressure. “I also noticed the crops taste sweeter which makes me think that it is affecting brix index… something I know Pennsylvania farmers have also been noticing.”

This year, Mark lost his buyer for blackberries so he cut back on the crop drastically. “Since it hasn’t been a focus, I didn’t bother applying Holganix Agriculture this year and you can see the results from this year’s non-Holganix berries compared to last year’s Holganix-treated berries. In fact, the non-Holganix berries are less than half the size and they are definitely not as sweet.”

Mark has applied Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture on his squash plants and peppers this year and “they took off like a jungle! I’ve never seen anything grow like that.” The fruit setting is larger than normal and in specific, the crop yield appears to be about 30% larger than in previous years.”

In addition to applying the product on his own nursery, Mark has recommended it to his neighbors. “I have several grape growers using it and they are all claiming that they see less disease pressure. I also have it on corn, hayfields and winter wheat. We harvested the winter wheat and it was clearly healthier looking. I’m excited to hear about the yield report and how Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture helped improve it.”

“I’m a 100% believer of Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture, especially when I combine it with my humic product.” Over all, according to Mark, “it is definitely an inexpensive way of producing healthy plants.”

About Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture

Holganix Agriculture is a 100% organic plant probiotic that provides over 800 species of beneficial soil microbes, microbe food and nutrient enhancers to grow healthy, resilient crops. In fact, Holganix Bio 800⁺ Agriculture contains the most complete and diverse blend of beneficial microbes available on the market!

Holganix Agriculture promotes strong, extensive root systems, resulting in plants that are better able to find and use nutrients, minerals and water in your soil. By nurturing healthy plants, Holganix Agriculture helps maximize yield potential while ensuring your crop is better prepared to fight off and recover from seasonal stress.

It may be the middle of the summer, but it is the perfect opportunity to begin planning out your fall lawn fertilizer applications. Fall is a crucial time of the year for your lawns because the turf needs to recover from the summer stress, many regions look to do fall overseeding and many regions need the lawn to “bulk up” to prepare for winter.

Give your lawns the support they need in the fall by using the The Holganix Soil Smart Program.

The Holganix Soil Smart Program is a turn-key fertilizer program that is specifically designed for your region. Its goal is to provide predictable, green, thick lawns while minimizing the need for chemical inputs like fertilizers and pesticides - all while providing the same great results expected from using a traditional fertilizer program.

>>Skip the rest of the article and download your program here.

Depending on your region, the Soil Smart Program is built to provide specific results important for the fall season. Check out the infographic below for the three most important results a Soil Smart Program is tailored to deliver, then keep reading for a more in depth explanation on each.

Improved Summer Stress Recovery

Your lawn needs to catch its breath after undergoing the stress of hot summer conditions. The Holganix Soil Smart Program is designed to help your lawn bounce back faster! Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria found in Holganix Bio 800⁺ Lawn (a product within your Soil Smart Program) surround the crown of the turf plant and promote growth when temperatures begin to fall and moisture is made available to the plant. Ultimately this means the Holganix Soil Smart Program provides a strong start to the fall season.

Faster Seed Germination

In many regions, the fall is dedicated to aeration and overseeding. The Holganix Soil Smart Program speeds up seed germination with thanks to Holganix Bio 800⁺ Lawn and Holganix PreBiotic 2-10-20 (both products are included in your fall fertilizer rounds).

Holganix Bio 800⁺ Lawn contains soil microbes that stimulate foliage and root growth, allowing seeds to germinate and become established faster. Holganix PreBiotic 2-10-20 contains high quality sources of phosphorus and potassium; both nutrients are vital to getting new seedlings “rooted in” (no pun intended!) to new environments.

The above image was sent to us by one of our customers that decided to put Holganix Bio 800⁺ Lawn to the test and compare its results against traditional starter fertilizers. Can you guess which pot contained Holganix Bio 800⁺ Lawn? As a note, the first pot contains green seed accelerator, which may alter the appearance of its results. To learn more about the study, click here to read the article.

Preparing For Winter

Are your turf and plants REALLY ready for winter? Depending on your region, your Soil Smart Program’s fall applications are designed to help your lawns better prepare for winter. Once winter hits, your turf will be under a lot of stress to survive the season.

Your Soil Smart Program combines Holganix Bio 800⁺ Lawn with Holganix PreBiotic 2-10-20 during the fall to enhance plant hardiness, providing your lawns with a fighting chance they need to survive winter stress. To learn more about how the Holganix Soil Smart Program prepares turf for winter, read this blog. 

Download Your Soil Smart Program to Prepare for Fall

The Soil Smart Programs are:

• Turn-key and include any input needed to create a green, weed free lawn – this means herbicides, fertilizers and your Holganix plant probiotics are all included.
• Designed regionally to fit your soil and turf types.
• Reviewed by Holganix PhD agronomists.
• Provides both a quick plant response and long-term plant resilience.
• Reduces the need for chemicals so contractors are using a sustainable program.

What does your region’s Soil Smart Program look like? Click the button below to access your Soil Smart Program and start planning out your summer applications.

As a contractor, it is hard to give homeowners the thick, green lawn they are looking for in the summer. It is also hard to properly deploy labor in the summer months when services have slowed to a crawl. So, how can lawn and landscape contractors provide value to homeowners while building revenue and keeping their labor force working?

In his tip of the month video, Holganix CEO & Founder, Barrett Ersek dives into 4 methods he incorporated in his previous lawn care business during the summer months to meet demands and generate revenue. If you are reading this blog via email, click here for Barrett’s video.

Barrett’s Lawn Care Tool Box

In the above video, Barrett mentions several tools he recommends lawn and landscapers utilize to market their services to homeowners. Access those tools in the resources below.

Holganix Tree & Shrub Box

The Holganix Tree & Shrub Box contains several tools to help lawn and landscape businesses generate a tree and shrub business to compliment their turf business. Tools enclosed include but are not limited to: pricing guide, postcard designs and a video for your website. 

>>Download The Tree & Shrub Box

Summer Weather Box

The Summer Weather Box contains tools to help lawn and landscape contractors communicate to homeowners how they can help take care of the lawn during the summer. Tools enclosed include but are not limited to: homeowner letter and social media graphics. 

>>Download The Summer Weather Box

Aeration Box

The Aeration Box contains tools to helps lawn and landscape contractors upsell aeration and overseeding services to their current customer base. Tools enclosed include but are not limited to: homeowner letter, postcards and a video for your website. 

>>Download The Aeration Box