with the target host upon contact with the target host the change in ph and moisture activates the dormant bacteria to remain 100 alive freeze dried bacteria must be kept free of water activity kept out of direct ultra violet light and maintained in temperatures less than 110 u00b0 f the best place to meet all of these criteria is to keep the bacteria in liquid nitrogen or a freezer if kept frozen the bacteria will remain alive and viable for many years unfortunately if you want to apply these bacteria to agricultural needs the bacteria must be taken out of the freezer and put into other types of carriers in doing so the bacteria are inadvertently exposed to ambient water activity manufacturers have used oils for their residual effect and as a carrier for the freeze dried bacteria under the assumption that oil would protect the bacteria from ambient moistures thereby extending the life span of the bacteria however when the bacteria are placed in a feed grade mineral oil the bacteria quickly die off in about 30 days another noted problem is that the bacteria in oil based carriers quickly settle out since the bacteria are non soluble in oil in developing the product described in this application applicant realized the problems with putting freeze dried bacteria in an oil based carrier testing showed that the bacteria in a feed grade mineral oil had a very short life span as seen in fig1 in fig1 a one log die off represents.