yes
Teaming with Microbes
- Thread starter h.h.
- Start date
yes
I'd say the science is evolving.
Interesting conversation here. I am thinking back to when I did not know about mycos at all, and still grew decent herb. It is hard to gauge the benefit, or if it is cost effective to buy and use them. I remain skeptical but still use them.....scrappy
Interesting conversation here. I am thinking back to when I did not know about mycos at all, and still grew decent herb. It is hard to gauge the benefit, or if it is cost effective to buy and use them. I remain skeptical but still use them.....scrappy
Yo; so long yer not breeding fusarium.
C
CT Guy
I'm sure MM will chime in, but the research I've seen (and I'm doing this from memory) showed that the plant is able to change it's exudates within hours, meaning it's highly efficient at controlling microbial populations within it's rhizosphere.
And yes, you can throw off the balance. Too much of anything is never a good idea, but it's really when you start getting pathogens or anaerobic organisms in high quantities that you risk plant health. I'm not saying all anaerobes are bad, many can be quite beneficial, but if you were to brew up a bad batch of tea you could risk damaging/weakening your plant.
That being said, a brew that comes our highly bacterial or fungal, while maintaining aerobic conditions is probably not going to have any negative effects and will still provide good benefit to the plant.
I still maintain that a balanced tea containing all sets of organisms (bacteria/archea, fungal hyphae, protozoa) offers the best of all worlds, providing nutrient cycling (the most important benefit of ACT), microbial diversity, and allowing the plant full control over it's rhizosphere.
EDIT: Ahhhhh...just realized your question was in relation to direct application of nutrients/"foods" to the soil. Then the answer is most definitely yes. You can cause bacterial blooms in the soil through the addition of too many sugars. Too much of anything is never a good idea. Nature needs a balance, and the rhizosphere is a complex environment of biological and chemical reactions that we've really only scratched the surface of understanding.
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The first question is a little hard to understand but I'm guessing you wonder how adept the plant is at controlling the microbial based nutrient uptake. If so, the answer is; it depends on too many variables to clearly answer but in a natural growing environment with sufficient organic matter, this is handled quite nicely by the plant.
For the second question, certainly a concentrate that would feed only one species applied in excess could throw off the microbial balance and open the door to pathogens; exactly what happens with chems and is why they need to keep using various poisons to keep disease in check. Some people try to tack these foods down too much though. For example molasses feeds bacteria and fungi, as does oat flour and wheat bran and fish hydrolysate.
B
Butte_Creek
ct guy- no that was perfect. it was a two part question, which you answered both. thank you. interesting. balance and diversity then is most important, as long as it's beneficial. and yeah, anaerobes like EM1 are beneficial for example.
microbeman-yes you got it. yeah, i was specifically speaking of a plant grown in vermicompost without any chems/salts, purely organic. and it sounds like both you and ct guy believe the plant has quite the control over the microbial population in it's rhizosphere, as long as you don't go overboard with chem/salts and or foods that primarily feed either bacteria or fungi. ok, yeah molasses seems to be always paired with bacteria food on this website, over looking that fungi also feed.
so worry less about wether your ACT or compost is bacteria or fungi dominated, and more about maintaining diversity, which in hand more efficiently protects the rhizosphere and phyllosphere from pathogens; at least with cannabis.
microbeman-yes you got it. yeah, i was specifically speaking of a plant grown in vermicompost without any chems/salts, purely organic. and it sounds like both you and ct guy believe the plant has quite the control over the microbial population in it's rhizosphere, as long as you don't go overboard with chem/salts and or foods that primarily feed either bacteria or fungi. ok, yeah molasses seems to be always paired with bacteria food on this website, over looking that fungi also feed.
so worry less about wether your ACT or compost is bacteria or fungi dominated, and more about maintaining diversity, which in hand more efficiently protects the rhizosphere and phyllosphere from pathogens; at least with cannabis.
and I believe the way Jeff puts it, is that fungi have a stabilizing effect on the nutrient cycle, so that there is not a boom and bust in bacterial/archeal population/predation, but a more balanced system.
Paul Tukey, in his organic lawn care manual, explains that weeds prefer the boom and bust, and are messengers telling you about the soil (dandelions=low calcium, clover = low N, and so on).
Paul Tukey, in his organic lawn care manual, explains that weeds prefer the boom and bust, and are messengers telling you about the soil (dandelions=low calcium, clover = low N, and so on).
Just finished another short one on Compost Tea Making by Marc Remillard. A good companion piece to Teaming. Nice interview at the end as well.
Downloaded Kindle on the computer. Don't have a tablet, but the quick access, though limited, is addicting. Now "How to be a Worm Farmer" or some scnlick like that
Downloaded Kindle on the computer. Don't have a tablet, but the quick access, though limited, is addicting. Now "How to be a Worm Farmer" or some scnlick like that
When pulling roots when they have what I want to say is a fuzzy layer of soil hanging from it that I associate with mycorrhizae. Is this somewhat correct? I know there are other factors as well. I can pretty well tell which corn stalks it will be on by how they grow. Pulling some cabbage that is at least 9 months showed the same characteristics. in the rhizosphere. Perhaps bi annuals, allowed time are also infected.
Not root hairs. I've thought maybe exuding a lot of sugar perhaps. Something is causing the dirt to bond.where it shakes off with a little effort. Even the appearance of the dirt is different.
Brassicas don't form a relationship from what I've read as well, but then, who leaves them in the ground for any extended period?
Seems the experts are always quoting other experts until we get someone like MM actually looking.
Brassicas don't form a relationship from what I've read as well, but then, who leaves them in the ground for any extended period?
Seems the experts are always quoting other experts until we get someone like MM actually looking.
hyphae can't be seen with the naked eye.
There may be mycelia, but not likely mycorrhizal, unless you have just made a discovery.
I imagine Kale is actually trying to favor bacteria.
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no, it's mycorrhizal infection if it is mycorrhizal infection. Sorry, but you can't arbitrarily redefine words.
"myco" means fungus, "rhizae" means roots
It's a fungus that acts like a part of the root system. A given specie of fungus can only infect the hosts that have evolved to associate with it. You are completely misunderstanding the relationship, or rather, you are inventing your own relationships. Very confusing hh, you are making me dizzy!
The ones we are after are arbuscular mycorrhizae. You can't tell with your eyes or even with a scope, unless you use a dye and make slides. I don't even have the gear to prepare a sample.
A given plant in living soil is interacting with billions of organisms. Only a tiny, tiny fraction of those beneficial relationships are mycorrhizal fungi
GoneRooty
Member
Quite right, and of those billions of interactions, we're still learning about most of them.
As for the mycelium on the kale, maybe it has something to do with the dark septate endophytes that MM has been studying? Maybe the DSE are the mycorrhizae for the plants that don't benefit from the traditional mycorrhizal realtionships? Maybe brassicas don't form mycorrhizal relationships with endo or ecto, but with DSE's?
very intriguing, eh?
