White fungus on new Vic's Super Soil

Hi folks - I'm new at this. Thanks for all the excellent info and attitude here. I admittedly haven't digested it all; I got caught up reading Rumple's amazing bubble thread and some day may head that way. But for now I'm all about organic soil.

I'm setting up my environment and while working on that, I have a soil question. I mixed up a batch of Vic's Super Soil using this recipe:

1 Bale promix BX (3.8 cu ft)
8 cups Bone Meal - phosphorus source
4 cups Blood Meal - nitrogen source
1 1/3 cups Epsom salts - magnesium source
3-4 cups dolomite lime -calcium source & pH buffering. *I actually used calcitic lime, since I already had some around.
4 cups kelp meal.
9kg (25 lbs) bag pure worm castings

Promix BX, as I understand it, is already innoculated with Endomycorrhize. Recipe calls for moistening and letting sit out for two weeks or so. I have done that and the mix is on day ten. It's in a shaded, loosely covered location, though, in a kind of tarp "bin" with window screens on top. I have occasionally been watering with rain water from a rain barrel, pH around 6.8. The pH of a slurry of the soil mix plus rain water has been around 7.8 -- surprising to me but maybe I'm getting a lot of lime in the grab samples. Daytime temps here have been 60s-70s F., nightime in the 40s.

Today I noticed the surface is covered with white fuzzy growth. Mycelium, I believe, though I'm no expert. I would send a picture but don't yet have a scope or camera with macro. What are the odds this is a good fungus versus a problem? Would you experienced growers mess with it at all? I have not been turning or otherwise disturbing the soil mix, since the recipe didn't mention it. Should I try to germ some bagseed to test whether it's a fungal problem, before using the good beans?

thanks, looking forward to learning much here....

 

Many thanks, Possum and Chunk. That's a load off my mind. Which I need -- so much to learn...my goals for this grow are just to get the environment built and somewhat dialed in, to understand something about the range of genetics I have to work with, and to get a good mother or two. Perhaps a pa. But seeing your journals and all that beautiful bud you've brought into the world sure makes it hard to keep the goals modest...maybe I'll do a journal, but not until I get a little further along the path.

happy trails

Ps and also figure out Tor, which is what this line is about...

 

Update: got a cheap little scope so now have some pics of the white growth on the soil. Here is it at 160x on a dried sample. It does indeed look like Endomycorrhize, I think, comparing the pic to images you get with a google image search.

I hope so, anyway, as I think I'm close to sticking some quickly germing and nice seeds in there. Strawberry diesel, Blue Thunder, and a few single shot varieties to help with my personal environmental/botanical education project. My plan is to use drinking cups initially with a 1-2" layer of straight promix on top (no additives) where the newly germ'd seed first goes, then move to smart pots after a few weeks, if all goes well. Any reason not to do this, or better alternatives?

also, am I right in assuming "vic's super soil" was named for Vic High, and that he first offered up the recipe? is it discussed in the "grow bible" or any other reasonably available literature?

thanks...

 

Thanks, aleYarok. Very nice mix & method. Wish I had me a trailer like that; I did mine on a tarp on the ground, where mixing is a workout for an old back. I'm thinking that subcool soil version is hotter than Vic's recipe, but I will take your advice and hold it off using it until transplant....I will start with plain ProMix BX in the cups. I will be going to 3 gal smart pots, assuming all's well down the road.

gratefully yours,
Oldtime