Making a tea with mycorrhizae?

[marali]

damn good thinking fista. My first reaction/answer to your question? Forever. I'm sure we can find several ways of keeping myco population in a happy mood. Here is my idea. beside leaving roots of mj behind, growing some suitable cultures (cover crops) and letting them die would also make a happy and diverse environment for mycos to live, survive and multiply. As i know you are using cover crops fista, so you shouldn't have any problems... More diverse dead roots should help a lot...

This is just my thinking. My knowledge of organics is still really limited, but man, things are so clear now.

 

[Suby]

That is a damn good question, I was wondering the same thing.
I chop up the small roots when I soil recycle so I'm curious.

 

[marali]

we should compare two different containers with re-used soil (already introduced with myco). One container with fresh inoculum and one without. Growing clovers for instance for a period of two weeks or smth. Chop and leaving roots behind. Then sow again with only one container (same one) getting fresh inoculum.

 

[MrFista]

I'll do an experiment. Can you guys/gals help me work out how set it up. I don't have time to do it this grow as I think I should get the fungi directly from fungi perfecti so I know I've got the right stuff, and snail mail is forever when you live on the other side of the world...

Yes I use cover crops, and in pots it's a bit of a PITA. If I can skip this step, growing with mycos just got easier. My 'mycos' came from soil under local grasses, this is also why I must buy product, so you have a better chance of repeating what worked by getting the same product. Of course soil is going to be a major variable.

I have 6 pots, they take all of the groundroom so this is the number I will use.

I imagine first I would run a grow of clones of the same strain in all 6. All 6 pots would be innoculated for this grow.

Then it comes close to harvest. Ideas and input welcome! When I say nutrients I'm talking dolomite blood bone kelp alfalfa castings compost - the stuff we use, organic, keeping fungi alive nutrients....

Pot 1. Plant is pulled out, nutrients added back in, and soil recycled a few weeks then replanted with non innoculated clone.

Pot 2. Plant is pulled out, nutrients added back in, and soil recycled then replanted with an innoculated plant.

Pot 3. Plant is cut and rootmass left in soil for (x time), nutrients are watered in at harvest. Replanted directly into (mostly undisturbed) pot, with innoculated clone.

Pot 4. Plant is cut and rootmass left in soil for (x time), then nutrients are tilled in, soil is left to mature, then replanted with innoculated clone.

Pots 5 and 6 are repeats of 3 and 4 with non innoculated clones.

As fungi are responsible for glomalin production, which binds the soil to retain porosity/aeration, I hope to determine if no till methods can be used in pots without cover cropping. Cover cropping includes mulching back in, which adds to soil disturbances. The nutrition lost by not cover cropping could easily be replaced with compost. And of course, this experiment will help answer my first question, if we can get mycos to sporulate in our pots by leaving the roots in for a time.

Should help answer a few other questions too.

Pots 4 and 6 will be harvested 'early' (has the additional period after leaving roots in, where nutes are tilled in and soil matures) and all other pots harvested 'late' so the second grow can all be planted simultaneously.

Ideas?

 

[jaykush]

sorry was in the process of moving didnt see this post.

There are various methods used by different mycorrhiza spore suppliers. Some just grow plants in containers, pull the plant out at a certain stage, chop off some of the roots as the carrier of mycorrhizal spores. Then they re-pot the plant for a future repeat. NOT THE BEST!

thanks for the info that is what i figured. i used to do this when i first started messing with mycorrhizae cultures, like said its not the best but it does work.

[/QUOTE]The method in the article utilizes grass species which go dormant at a cold temperature. This dormancy signals the associated mycorrhiza to sporulate and the root system may be dried and chopped up for a source of mycorrhiza spores. These spores can be stored 'indefinitely' in dry form and used as your inoculant at planting time. You can do this yourself at home. At least that's my understanding.[/QUOTE]

ahhh i like the use of non native grasses that cant handle the local climate. great idea! this is basically what i do except use all kinds of grasses not just one species, mainly natives that i collected myself, but they usually start top die around mid to late summer when the rain gets low to non existant, im assuming this makes them sporulate like you said. imo this would be the best option. its worked for me for a few years now, i will probly be starting a new one since i moved so ill try to get pics and the process written down.

 

[marali]

that would be great jay. You were(are) working with outdoor "traps"?

I'm growing grasses and clovers in one container with more thatn 6 gallons of soil. I figured it out that that's going to be too much. It's not going to dry up here soon enough when i will need to kill the plants and get the final stuff. i will go for more containers and less soil in each one, one gallon probably.

this thread can be renamed to Mycorrhizae. a lot of new infos in this thread already.

edit: converted to gallons for you guys.

 

[jaykush]

i was at my old place. have to start from scratch here. but i got a lot of other things on the to do list first.

how deep is the container you are using? if you know the species of grass or clover. some grasses don't need very deep soil, some of the ones i was working with were very shallow rooted grasses compared to some. i had them in a small raised bed about 6-8 inches tall and 2x2ft( sort of like the pictures in the links above, as thats where i got the idea). then when i needed it i would just take the walls off and cut the rootball in pieces and into transplants with seedlings most likely. and also start a new bed of course so i can have more later.

what is the soil consist of you have it in as well? 6 gallons shouldn't take too long to dry out thats for sure. no more than a week and a half with plants.

 

[marali]

Soil depth is 5 inches.

Perennial ryegrass
Timothy hay
Red and white clover
Festuca pratensis

Soil is from local woods, nettle patches mostly. Some leaf mold too. Plenty of small root material in the mix, i think i'm good...

btw, do you also mix inoculum in the medium, seedling mixes or do you only make a layer like in the sdt link?

 

[jaykush]

its 5 inches and your worried it wont dry out in time? must be some pretty thick stuff.

and yea sometimes i do a layer right under the seedling so the tap root grows through the area infected with spores. or plant pre sprouted seed in the inoculated layer. i dont always do this though, plants grow fine without mycorrhizae as long as your shit is done right, and lots and lots of compost/compost tea. it depends on how lazy i am at the time really. some days all i do is put the seed in the ground and forget about it. plus i use the inoculates on veggies and herbs as well as nugs.

 

[marali]

hehe lol. You're right, but it's just that the room where container is placed got really high humidity and the temps are low. Well we'll see. i'll leave it now as it is, give it two 18w fluoros for better growth. I also didn't give any water for now, and i'm not planning to. Again, we'll see.

My plan is to use it in a soil bed in a layer just beneath the germination layer, so when the seeds sprout the roots will pass the layer of inoculum and get infected.

I hear you on compost, it's just the best.

 

[jaykush]

ahhhh i see, i was just curious as to why 6 gallons of soil would take so long to dry up. and then i got an answer lol.

let us know how it comes out

haha yea compost owns all!!!!!