But isn't Peat harmful to Beneficial Bacteria?

I've been using Coco due to reading that peat is detrimental to your herds.
What's the scoop?
Happy 4/20 by the way.

nothin to it. plenty of microbes grow in straight peat

mixed with soil its great for containers

i've looked at many slides and many times seen little peat leaves acting as the hub for microbe activity

As said above, peat is awesome for microbes. It's fairly acidic though, and breaks down a lot faster than coir, which causes the peat to become even more acidic. Peat holds like 20 times it's weight in water, but coir is more like 6-7 I think. Still, each has it's definite virtues. In a soil mix, a minimum of 30% coir will make it extremely hard to over-water your plants, but peat will get waterlogged easily. So I use about that much coir or more in my mix, and yet I only use about 15% peat at most. The rest is a mix of perlite, composted organic manure, perlite, vermiculite, topsoil, fine lava rock(flush!!!!), spent cubensis substrates(coir/horse manure/gypsum), and then amended with bone meal, a smidge of epsom salts, dolomite lime, Espoma Bio-Tone StarterPlus, and a mix of Jobe's products with BioZome. I also have recycled in some of my old soil(similar mix), and used that plus a variety of other bio-starters to brew aerated compost tea on a regular basis. It's important with organics to keep chlorine/chloramine out of the water, and mix your soil up in a bin or two ahead of time where it can stay moist(not wet!) and "cook" a bit. With organic soil you can really take a very hot mix and get it full of life that keeps that nutrition from burning up the plant. Chemicals can't hold that sort of sustained nutrition in my understanding, and clearly are not as sustainable from an agricultural standpoint. I think it's good to not get too fixated on just one type of material in a substrate. Different stuff is favorable for different types of life, so if you want diversity of micro herd, make diverse substrate. That's just my philosophy on the matter. Really just read here as much as you can, there's guys way more experienced than I.

What were you reading? Whatever it was you were reading, that is false. Peat from the bogs don't have much microbes, but mixed with compost, EWC, you will get a great medium for building up your micro life.

as said above, peat is awesome for microbes. It's fairly acidic though, and breaks down a lot faster than coir, which causes the peat to become even more acidic

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only anaerobic breakdown will increase acidity. in a healthy cannabis container, the soil is mostly aerobic (we hope). as peat breaks down it loses air porosity (it gets less fluffy), but if you have something else giving structure to the mix (like the roots of a living mulch or the cannabis plant itself), it won't turn to acid muck.

OrganicBuds said:

What were you reading? Whatever it was you were reading, that is false. Peat from the bogs don't have much microbes, but mixed with compost, EWC, you will get a great medium for building up your micro life.

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Actually peat bogs are swarming with microorganisms of many many types. Sphagnum peat moss almost always is packed with microbes. The types of microbes varies with location of harvest. The following shows one that is rich in fungi with some bacteria but some has a full compliment of the three major groups (bacteria/archaea, protozoa and fungi). Looking at this video tells me I must shoot some better examples.
http://microbeorganics.com/cansphagnum1.wmv

One would not expect to find soil microbes in coconuts. Isn't that what the coco stuff is made from?

Thanks everyone, I'll toss in a bag of peat to my mix.

Coco Coir is the fibers surrounding the coconut,
so essentially coconut hair.
I believe the idea is that the coconut fibers are extremely probiotic to help the new coconut palms grow wherever.
I didn't read any proper research on the article and have no proof to this. But I do know that coconut is a very nice substrate that I will use for quite a while.

Microbeman said:

Actually peat bogs are swarming with microorganisms of many many types. Sphagnum peat moss almost always is packed with microbes. The types of microbes varies with location of harvest. The following shows one that is rich in fungi with some bacteria but some has a full compliment of the three major groups (bacteria/archaea, protozoa and fungi). Looking at this video tells me I must shoot some better examples.
http://microbeorganics.com/cansphagnum1.wmv

One would not expect to find soil microbes in coconuts. Isn't that what the coco stuff is made from?

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Where did you read that? As others have said, many microbes thrive in peat.

Don’t Confuse Sphagnum Moss With Peat Moss

One of the materials known to carry the Sporotrichosis fungus is sphagnum moss. Most frequently used by the floral industry to line wire baskets, this product is frequently being confused with sphagnum peat moss, a soil conditioner known for its ability to bind sandy soils, loosen clay soils and retain water. The difference is an important one. While there have been cases of Sporotrichosis resulting from handling sphagnum moss, there have been no cases as a result of handling sphagnum peat moss. Sphagnum moss and sphagnum peat moss are not the same product.

Sphagnum moss is the living moss that grows on top of a sphagnum bog. The fungus sporotrichum schenckii is known to live in this growing moss.

Sphagnum peat moss is the dead material that accumulates as new live material grows on top and exerts pressure on the peat moss below. The fungus is not know to live in the levels of a sphagnum bog where peat forms. Harvesters of horticultural peat moss remove the top few inches of the live sphagnum moss and only harvest the peat from the lower layer.

http://www.peatmoss.com/sporo.php

Just to reiterate what everybody else said, what you heard was false. Microbes live in peat just fine.

This doesnt mean that theres enough food for them in straight peat, though. Assorted compost and ammendments need to be added for them to thrive and do what they are meant to do. In answer to the question, though, peatr isnt going to hurt them whatsoever.

jerry.

Yea I currently use Coconut as my base,
and throw in

Perlite ~25% (I know it's dead space, please tell me of a biology-friendly perlite sub.)
EWC ~ 20%
Soil ~ 0% - 20% (I don't always use it.)
Peat ~ 1x $3 bag of Whitney Farms, I could get the measurements if anyone needs.)
Subculture-M - I'm having trouble getting this to work. I think I have to start buying R/O water in bulk, I've been boiling water and cooling it to no avail.

I'd love suggestions to media.
I have Indo Guano in bag form for flowering,
I just dose em with it once a month. Even in veg.

jerry111165 said:

Just to reiterate what everybody else said, what you heard was false. Microbes live in peat just fine.

This doesnt mean that theres enough food for them in straight peat, though. Assorted compost and ammendments need to be added for them to thrive and do what they are meant to do. In answer to the question, though, peatr isnt going to hurt them whatsoever.

jerry.

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still off a bit...

there is lots of energy in peat! look under a scope and you will see that microbes do eat peat.

that might explain why peat always turns to humus given enough time

interesting stuff

THCello said:

Yea I currently use Coconut as my base,
and throw in

Perlite ~25% (I know it's dead space, please tell me of a biology-friendly perlite sub.)
EWC ~ 20%
Soil ~ 0% - 20% (I don't always use it.)
Peat ~ 1x $3 bag of Whitney Farms, I could get the measurements if anyone needs.)
Subculture-M - I'm having trouble getting this to work. I think I have to start buying R/O water in bulk, I've been boiling water and cooling it to no avail.

I'd love suggestions to media.
I have Indo Guano in bag form for flowering,
I just dose em with it once a month. Even in veg.

Click to expand...

Use rice hulls in place of perlite. its natural and high in silicon. It will slowly break down over a few crops and it will contribute silica to your soil as it does.

Direct root contact with any powdered myco product is best. Drop it onto your rootball at transplant. When watering those types of products in, I find that adding them to the surface of the soil first and letting the water wash them down the pot to be best. Or, mix it quickly with water and get it into the pots in under 5 minutes. It really takes a lot of those powders to get things going, i much prefer AACT's for this purpose. Waste of money when you compare micro-organisms to buy them suspended in a powder.

ugmjfarmer said:

Use rice hulls in place of perlite. its natural and high in silicon. It will slowly break down over a few crops and it will contribute silica to your soil as it does.

Direct root contact with any powdered myco product is best. Drop it onto your rootball at transplant. When watering those types of products in, I find that adding them to the surface of the soil first and letting the water wash them down the pot to be best. Or, mix it quickly with water and get it into the pots in under 5 minutes. It really takes a lot of those powders to get things going, i much prefer AACT's for this purpose. Waste of money when you compare micro-organisms to buy them suspended in a powder.

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you can make a myco powder go far by using it to inoculate a bed of clover seed. then just use a bit of clover root to inoculate your cannabis.

ACT is not instead of mycorrhizae.