The sequoia is still small, my Western White Pine is spectacular and mature. I miss oranges, lemons, avacado, palm trees, and bouganvillea plants. I missed the pines smell when I lived where I could have all those. Torrey pines grow in SoCal really well, but they don't have the classic Northwest smell for some reason.
MM A certain company in Oregon has applied for a ruling on selling Ericoid mycorrhiza by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the organic farming certifier. This is the first week of January and let's say that it's approved before the end of the month which would be the normal cycle. By April Fool's Day expect to see announcements from the grow store crowd about this necessary and important product. Like clockwork.......... LD
I have abstact for a journal, although written in 1994, it still contains some interesting results. CAN FERTILIZATION OF SOIL SELECT LESS MUTUALISTIC MYCORRHIZAE? NANCY COLLINS JOHNSON2 Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 USA Abstract: It has been noted previously that nutrient-stressed plants generally release more soluble carbohydrate in root exudates and consequently support more mycorrhizae than plants supplied with ample nutrients. Fertilization may select strains of vesicular- arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi that are inferior mutualists if the same characteristics that make a VAM fungus successful in roots with a lowered carbohydrate content also reduce the benefits that the fungus provides a host plant. This two-phase study experi- mentally tests the hypothesis that fertilizing low-nutrient soil selects VAM fungi that are inferior mutualists. The first phase examines the effects of chemical fertilizers on the species composition of VAM fungal communities in long-term field plots. The second phase mea- sures the effects of VAM fungal assemblages from fertilized and unfertilized plots on big bluestem grass grown in a greenhouse. The field results indicate that 8 yr of fertilization altered the species composition of VAM fungal communities. Relative abundance of Gi- gaspora gigantea, Gigaspora margarita, Scutellispora calospora, and Glomus occultum decreased while Glomus intraradix increased in response to fertilization. Results from the greenhouse experiment show that big bluestem colonized with VAM fungi from fertilized soil were smaller after 1 mo and produced fewer inflorescences at 3 mo than big bluestem colonized with VAM fungi from unfertilized soil. Fungal structures within big bluestem roots suggest that VAM fungi from fertilized soil exerted a higher net carbon cost on their host than VAM fungi from unfertilized soil. VAM fungi from fertilized soil produced fewer hyphae and arbuscules (and consequently provided their host with less inorganic nutrients from the soil) and produced as many vesicles (and thus provisioned their own storage structures at the same level) as fungi from unfertilized soil. These results support the hypothesis that fertilization selects VAM fungi that are inferior mutualists
Here is the more info on the journal article, in case anyone would like to read the journal in its entirety Can Fertilization of Soil Select Less Mutualistic Mycorrhizae? Author(s): Nancy Collins JohnsonSource: Ecological Applications, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 749-757Published by: Ecological Society of AmericaStable