Question. In organic growing using AACT, adding a product like Great White or Oregonism XL would be redundant, because those fungal colonies of mycorrhizae, trichoderma, ect. are being produced by the tea. True or false?
Trichoderma spores are found in almost every SOIL - now whether or not one is actually running a SOIL and not simply dumping out a bag of dirt is another story. Then there's the deal that there are 89 strains that have been identified by soil biologists and whether or not adding 2 or 3 specific spores in an existing ecosystem to achieve whatever and if that 'whatever' is beneficial is open for discussion and debate. In the world of grow store 'science' the mere fact that something is available to include in a concoction does not mean, necessarily, that there's a measurable benefit to applying this or that. Then consider than in certain situations, hi-dosing with Trichoderma spores will inhibit the activation and growth of the Mycorrhizae fungi hyphae. Lots of variables to consider. LD
Most Quality and professional Soiless mixes have The spores already innoculated in the medium. This in most cases will be enough anyway, once colonizing is present it should remain with an organic tea mix that feeds the Microbiologicals in medium.
I'm going to to make the switch from 100% bottled Canna nutes to 100% AACT. I add mycorrhizae at the time of transplant from the cloner, directly to the roots, occasionally in a drench after that. My plan is to continue that practice adding it to my tea as I did previously with my bottled mix. I am also interested in a no-till scenario. When an EM-1 solution is added, and the root system is consumed, I would assume the mycorrhizae colony remains present in the soil, waiting for the next root system to appear. If the colony is not consumed by the EM-1, would there come a point where adding more would be unnecessary? Or does the EM-1 wipe out the whole system?(Or should I just drop the whole endo/ecto program all together and rely on what was already present in the soil?)
Bunker, you really don't need em1 at all. A good soil mix will have all he enzymes needed to break down whatever, some bacterias have multiple enzymes in fact. Just mix up a nice mix wet it, and let it sit a month. Everything that needs to be done happens without us doing much. Just pick out a good mix, and go fer it. I bet you enjoy this style much more. I think of it as a step up from bottle feeding. And the soil science is addictive, lol. Living soil, fighting microbes, generations hatched, peaked, and sacked in hours. Fungus catching and eating nematodes, science fiction shit bromeister. The current myco wisdom says the spores only work when they contact roots, so it's doubtful drenches would work well. I've been skipping the mycos completely with no differences. I'm not sure what conclutions to draw from that, just threw it in there to make this even more confusing, lol. But no till may be the ticket for those spores to do their thing, who knows? MIW
word...... Same anecdotal observation here as well. Outdoors in raised beds I believe that I had increased production on tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. Not so much on other garden plants. Eh........... LD
Ok. I'll keep inoculating the transplants until my samples are gone and then take it off my to do list. While we are on the rhizosphere, I use Canna's Rhizotonic only while in the veg cycle. Skipping their basic veg nutes, and letting the soil provide that. I focus on building a large, healthy root mass, before switching to flower. Would fish hydrolyslate or fish meal serve as my root stimulator, or would nothing, and an extra week in veg be enough as a substitute? I know I'm probably off on both fish products, but I know there is something fishy(no pun intended) in their Rhizotonic. It's rare to find any ingredients on bottled nutes. They don't want you to know that the main ingredient in all their products is water.
Bunker as you hang here, you will find the majority do not use much at all from the hydro stores. Root stimulator is not really a part of our language, yet we grow plants with impressive roots, stems and flowers. One exception is dyna gro's pro tech liquid silica. It helps build thick strong stems and leaves, plus it is an emulsifier for our neem oil sprays. If you decide to go all in with a living soil grow most of the work is in the soil mix. The nutrients needed for a complete grow are added pre grow in the form of dry fertilizers, like meals. And our super duper additive is EWC/compost. Check out the stickies for details, but remember our mixes start and end here with humic content. Everything revolves around compost. There are many benefits from using compost, like disease resistance, but mainly it is our microbe supply. After we make our soil mix, we give it time for nutrient cycling to take place. Microbes do the heavy lifting so give them a little time to work their magic. Along with compost an often over looked ingredient is minerals, we use dolomite lime, rock dusts like soft rock phosphates, greensand, cal sources like oyster shell, crab shell. These minerals along with compost form a base that can take you through multiliple grows using the soil over and over, as the quality of our mix go's up our nutrient use goes down. For this to happen you need to mineralize the soil. (google that term if your curious.) Since you said you are going to make AACT, these also start with compost, either vermi compost or thermo compost seem to be the ideal kinds. The purpose of a tea is to, one break away the microbes from the compost by air bubbles, then feed those microbes with carbs for rapid population growth and to thrive. Again see the tea stickies for details. But know when we add fish or kelp meal or alfalfa meal to our tea with a carb and compost, it is not enough to feed hungry plants, or is it our purpose, it's to feed microbes in the tea. It's a change from normal thinking but it is important. So at least starting out follow proven recipes. In store bought nutes, they are usually soluble and can be taken up instantly by plants, in our grows microbes make nutrients available. In this style of growing toxicities and deficiencies disappear. Things that do not help microbes in our teas, like guano's, humic acids and such are fine in soil mixes but are no nos in this thinking. Our nutrients are already in the soil, we use microbes to make those ingredients available to the plants. The plants signal through their root exudes what they want, then specific microbes that utilize those exudes exchange what the plants want for those exudes. A healthy happy microbe population of microbes is key. Best of luck and happy holidays......MIW
I have already purchased a great deal of raw ingredients for tea making. Crab meal seems to be rather elusive to source for me. I am doing both thermal and vermicomposting. The decision I have to make now is, do I start my compost in my tumbler, then run it through my worm bin? Or do I use my tumbler to break down root mass in used soil, then amend and mix in it, adding raw ingredients to the worm bin. I'm on the fence about the no-till/top dress method. Sounds too easy.
The Bunker When one creates a thermal compost pile and goes through that process and when it is allowed to age/cure/mature (pick a term), composting worms will arrive and will begin to work the material. So adding thermal compost material to your worm bin is a great way to fix things because thermal composting is truly an art. Tumblers will give you a great material to work with for vermicomposting. Makes perfect 'bedding' to use the worm bin web site's term. HTH LD
I'm betting that there is some recycled/reused mix involved with the skipping the myco's and not noticing a difference. I'm doing the same. Once it's in there, it's in there. Either as spores, on bits of old roots, or whatever and there is no need to add more. Now, the only time I inoculate is when using 100% fresh mix and that's not all that often. Usually there is some old mix around to inoculate the fresh and to tell the truth, I have better results with recycled mix than I do with fresh, no matter how long it cooks. Wet
From what I have read via Elaine Ingrahm most weed and veggie based plants prefer a bacteria dominate soil as opposed to a fungal dominate soil. Not to suggest that the fungal portion is not important in the symbiotic relationship and absorption of Phosphorous, but the plant will thrive better with bacterial dominate teas.
Wet, you could be right, I suspect there are myco spores in most mixes anyway. but I really don't know. I just have a general idea of what's going on and understand the myco reasoning, but time after time not using a commercial inoculant shows me, at the least, buying more is not a good way to spend my funds. That's the only conclusion I can draw I guess.....MIW
Using compost teas is a shotgun approach. So it makes sense to make use of diversity and let the plants/microbes figure out the specifics. So rather than lean your teas one way or another give em choices and let them decide.....MIW
Hey there. I use a tumbler (I have two, a large one and a smaller one) for mixing bagged compost, soil blends and amendments. I am in the process of transitioning from that process to making my own compost and soil blends. Link below has pictures of my tumblers. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/920810-my-own-way-mixing-bagged-compost.html My current plan is to use my large compost tumbler to make thermo-compost. After cooking for about two weeks (or when the pile hits 70F), the entire pile will be moved into a Compost Sack to cure, while I cook up another batch. I'm assuming that two batches will fill one compost bag. You can see one of those bags at the link below, holding leaf mold compost. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/923357-black-leaf-mold-compost.html What I have been doing is using used soil mix for bedding/food for my worms, with some added goodies (rock dust, composted chicken manure, etc). Eventually I'll use fresh compost from the curing pile when I run out of the old stuff. Meanwhile I'll be using the cured compost to make up a soil mix for some no till 100 gallon pots. I'll post up a topic when I start my (first ever) thermo-compost pile, which should be very very soon. Gr8tful, this has been an issue of concern for me as well. While she may be correct (she also includes annuals, which cannabis seems to be depending on the strain) we don't know how exact this scenario is for cannabis. For instance, bamboo is a member of the grass family (I could be a bit off here) but relies on fungal assistance. I think cannabis uses more fungal help than most folks think. I know LD likes a high fungal content for his cannabis soil mixes and I do trust his expertise in these areas. I also know that fungal elements do a lot for soil texture as well as transporting nutrients and water around to the root zone. There are also plants that like an even mix (or so) of bacteria and fungus. Cannabis may be one of those plants. In the end, the plant decides what gets close to it's roots with chemical signs for the microorganisms. Until we get more research telling us exactly what is going on, it seems like the shotgun approach (hit the soil with as much fungal and bacterial elements as possible, let the roots sort it out. I call this the God approach. Kill them all and let God sort them out) is best. As LD keeps telling us: Anyone can grow bacteria. Not so much fungus. Just a wee add on from wikipedia:
Premier Horticulture Labs (part of the Pro-Mix company) is the main producer of a couple specific endo strains that are generally associated with the widest range of softwood plants. The main wholesalers of these spores buy them from Premier. Premier Horticulture's potting soil mixes come with these spores added to the base. I can't speak about the products from Sun Gro Horticulture (Sunshine Mix, Black Gold, et al.) but if it's there they'll show it on the label. LD
I just got done going over some info. on mycorrhizae yesterday. To me this is one of the most fascinating tools in the soil food web. It seems to be a really fragile organism from what I have read and are easily destroyed by rototilling, compaction of soil, sterilization etc. It would make sense to me to apply mycorrhize fungi during transplant under these circumstances. I'm still learning and can't speak from experience because I haven't grown by the soil food web premise yet. I think I read something about you can add mycorrhizae to your brewed tea after it is done brewing. I humbly stand to be corrected on anything I post as I am a newb. and haven't grown this way yet.