[mad librettist]

now if i understand correctly, the visible growth is most likely an expression of the ectomycorrhiza put in the soil but it offers me some insight to the a few factors including if my soil is supporting fungal growth and how that growth is cycling

again, no. you have mold, not mycorrhizae. Those are not fruiting bodies. They are patches of mold. You have saprophytic fungi imperfecti. They do not produce fruiting bodies, aka mushrooms. They are living off the nutrients and water present in your soil.

white mold is harmless.

white mold is not mycorrhizal.


If you had shrooms about to fruit the mat of hyphae would be very easy to see/feel.









The issue is not symbiosis, it's simply time. Starting from a spore takes a long time and won't help your growth rates or really protect from pathogens by the time you harvest. (in other words most people waste money on spores)

I get the same results with Espoma and FoxFarm bagged nutrients with mycorrhizae and my brother who has the same soil mix gets the same results with Dr.Earth guano with mycorrhizae.

I am using Happy Frog 0-5-0 guano in small quantities now for the same result.

V

[Weird]

Originally Posted by mad librettist

again, no. you have mold, not mycorrhizae. Those are not fruiting bodies. They are patches of mold. You have saprophytic fungi imperfecti. They do not produce fruiting bodies, aka mushrooms. They are living off the nutrients and water present in your soil.

white mold is harmless.

white mold is not mycorrhizal.


If you had shrooms about to fruit the mat of hyphae would be very easy to see/feel.

ok thanks for clearing this up.

The issue is not symbiosis, it's simply time. Starting from a spore takes a long time and won't help your growth rates or really protect from pathogens by the time you harvest. (in other words most people waste money on spores)

isn't this the reasoning behind inoculating the soil before you use it?

references of on farm propagation of am fungus incoculum detail collecting spores at the end of host plants life cycle as a mycorrhizal inoculant for next season planting soils

so id i understand instead of harvesting spores and inoculating another container with it your trying to relocate living AM to a different root mass

dont you want to keep the root mass of the donor plant alive and how much faster is inoculating the soil with even hypha than spore innculation?

is it fast enough to make a difference regardless?

but since you made me question my fungal dominant soil cooking (which i am happy with as far as results) technique, i have been reading about AM myco and I think you can do what your proposing with a hybrid of your existing techniques

let me expalin

regardless of how you introduce it, myco needs time to propagate

but you would think a living established myco should reproduce faster than from spore

it appears the best carrier for living AM myco hyphal network is a living root system

so why not grow those AM companion plants in window sill containers and populate them with the ground cover living mulch plants you use in other containers and then cycle them into the grow containers for the pot

let the living mulch cover plants bet he carrier for the AM hyphal network

[mad librettist]

let the living mulch cover plants bet he carrier for the AM hyphal network
__________________

lol you can just follow my living mulch thread, be a hippy organic grower like me, and take advantage of a living mycorrhizal NETWORK of species.

I am trying to offer something to people not necessarily willing to keep a living mulch under artificial lighting, but interested in using mycorrhizal associations to support cannabis

dont you want to keep the root mass of the donor plant alive and how much faster is inoculating the soil with even hypha than spore innculation?

much, much faster, AFAIK

[Weird]

Originally Posted by mad librettist

lol you can just follow my living mulch thread, be a hippy organic grower like me, and take advantage of a living mycorrhizal NETWORK of species.

i could ...

I am trying to offer something to people not necessarily willing to keep a living mulch under artificial lighting, but interested in using mycorrhizal associations to support cannabis

i appreciate the effort, so much so i would like for it to make sense and be practical

most people growing in artificial conditions are using every square inch for cannabis so the biggest objection to living mulch is probably the loss of indoor grow space

if i am going to the effort of growing myco compatible plants so i can have access to live AM myco its not to save money on powders or to save effort its for the benefit of fresh inoculates

every technique i am reading about inoculation requires end of life cycle spore harvesting or co planting.

it seems if you are growing myco companion plants spreading their roots into a container you want to inoculate is not as effective as co planting them, unless your suggesting co planting the companion plant(seems they would be overly competitive for resource vs living mulch cover) it wasn't very clear

so why not add some of the living ground cover or mulch as a suggested carrier to that plant in the window

much, much faster, AFAIK

[mad librettist]

the fungus is able to colonize many, many different species.

with clover and cannabis, they have glomus intraradices in common.


so you just pull a plug of clover out from your tray in the window, and drop it in next to your seedling/cut.

when the roots grow into the colonized clover roots, they will also be colonized, and as the cannabis roots fill the medium they will be mycorrhizal.

that's the idea, at least.

to do the same with spores is not practical. the medium will first be colonized by non-mycorrhizal cannabis, then colonization will happen later on, only it doesn't have until later on. spores only germinate in the presence of roots.

[dizzlekush]

Originally Posted by mad librettist

spores only germinate in the presence of roots.

In reality the spores only germinate when the roots exude Strigolactones. When strigolactones can be somewhat effectively condensed or manufactured and become available for purchase (which might be quite some time from now) theoretically you can start growing AM with strigolactones and proper carbohydrate analogs in culture dishes and possibly soil, but its possible that the strigolactones will be too expensive for purchase, however it takes unfathomably small amounts of strigolactones for such effects to be achieved (were talking parts per trillion here IIRC).

[mad librettist]

Originally Posted by dizzlekush

In reality the spores only germinate when the roots exude Strigolactones. When strigolactones can be somewhat effectively condensed or manufactured and become available for purchase (which might be quite some time from now) theoretically you can start growing AM with strigolactones and proper carbohydrate analogs in culture dishes and possibly soil, but its possible that the strigolactones will be too expensive for purchase, however it takes unfathomably small amounts of strigolactones for such effects to be achieved (were talking parts per trillion here IIRC).

they germinate, then what?

it's an obligate symbiote

[Weird]

https://invam.caf.wvu.edu/index.html -- interesting international AM site


culture methods



aeroponic

https://invam.caf.wvu.edu/methods/cultures/aeroponic.htm

transplant

https://invam.caf.wvu.edu/methods/cul...transplant.htm




index to other culture methods

https://invam.caf.wvu.edu/methods/cultures/cultindex.htm

[dizzlekush]

Originally Posted by mad librettist

they germinate, then what?

it's an obligate symbiote

I thought it was implied, ill go into greater detail then.

Strigolactones initiate germination of AM, increase mitochondrial activity and density of AM, increase cell proliferation of AM (growth), and promote pre-symbiotic branching of AM. This naturally occurs in the rhizosphere as a/the plant starts lacking nitrogen and/or phosphorous and exudes specific strigolactones into the rhizosphere, or when certain environmental cues happen. The entire process usually unfurls in a 4-6 week period. One could essentially sidestep this whole 4-6 week natural forming of symbiosis by doing this process yourself, as i previously mentioned, saving your plants 4-6 weeks of work/waiting...

Again this is all just theory, im not aware of strigolactones ever being concentrated or synthesized and utilized in any sort of experimentation. We're pretty slow when it comes to strigolactone research ATM. We've known about them for over 15 years and have thought they were detrimental to plant growth for more than half the time we've been aware of them (because they were exuded by witches weed). Only ~7 years ago we discovered that they had beneficial aspects , and only 4 years ago did we find out that they are one of the essential groups of phytohormones in all (terrestrial at least) plants.