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Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

pacifichorticulture.org

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Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#21

Post by My_Name »

isoprophlex wrote: post #14
Aboutplants wrote: post #2

I grow rare cactus and succulents and after experimenting with Mycorrhizal inoculants I’m completely blown away with results I’ve seen. Even with soil that dries out completely between water (for extended periods of time) they still work their magic wonderfully and I see wonderful growth and survival with the roots showing the fungi growth as shown and described in this article.

Where do you get your inoculants / which do you get? I'm a mere dabbler in growing cactuses, but very curious to hear what worked for you

The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) sells little packets of mycorrhizal powder that you can put into your garden if you feel it is lacking beneficial fungi. Another more natural route is to bury a kilo of cooked white rice near a very healthy tree, where the soil is soft and 'healthy' then retrieve it after a week. It will be mouldy, but with the right type of mould. Mix that into compost, grow tomatoes in that compost, then when they are finished, chop up their roots, mix it into the compost again, add fresh compost from your compost bin to make seed compost. Mix that seed compost into whatever you want to 'infect'. Some people grow just the fungus using sprouted barley and add the mouldy sprouted barley to their compost.

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#22

Post by My_Name »

Aurornis wrote: post #4
flenserboy wrote: post #3

I have added spores to my garden for a few years, & the results have been excellent. Not only have the plants thrived, the network spread through the lawn to a further extent every year, & the grass in that zone looks much healthier than the rest of the lawn. Mostly I sprinkle a bit in with each seed or row — it does the work from that point on. Trees have shown the same pattern — we had a large, older tree go down,…

Do you mind sharing which product you use? Every time I look into this I have a hard time telling which products contain useful amounts of good strains.

The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) sells little packets of mycorrhizal powder that you can put into your garden if you feel it is lacking beneficial fungi. Another more natural route is to bury a kilo of cooked white rice near a very healthy tree, where the soil is soft and 'healthy' then retrieve it after a week. It will be mouldy, but with the right type of mould. Mix that into compost, grow tomatoes in that compost, then when they are finished, chop up their roots, mix it into the compost again, add fresh compost from your compost bin to make seed compost. Mix that seed compost into whatever you want to 'infect'. Some people grow just the fungus using sprouted barley and add the mouldy sprouted barley to their compost.

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#23

Post by anonymous_sorry »

culi wrote: post #13
canadiantim wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like the free market, but with all of the market failures, parasites and bad actors that implies too

I wouldn't say that. There's plenty of behaviors where plants and fungi act in the interest of the community as a whole. Mature forests are made of late-successional species. These species could only possibly grow after earlier succession species had "prepped the soil" (nurtured the soil ecology, transitioned the nitrogen cycle from ammonia to nitrates, etc) and provided shade to allow them to grow. Since these trees…

I think it would be be more illuminating to call it "enlightened self-interest".

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#24

Post by hnmullany »

My_Name wrote: post #20

For my work, I spent roughly a year studying the mechanism of roots, on and off. The different routes for nutrient and water uptake, transport, the different types of fungus, the differing ways plants interact with those fungi. And, of course, this is without going into the nematodes and how the plant attracts specific species by emitting tailored carbohydrate packets to both attract the nematodes and feed fungal gro…

Organic grown food is more nutritious and I'm glad we have a significant percentage of farms who have gone organic, but the yield gap is very well documented. Organic fertilizers release nutrients slowly and unpredictably and can't match artificial nitrogen for plant uptake.

E.g. a 25% average yield penalty in this meta-analysis:

Alvarez, R. (2022) ‘Comparing Productivity of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems: A Quantitative Review’, Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science, 68(14), pp. 1947–1958. doi: 10.1080/03650340.2021.1946040.

I studied the productivity benefits of adding beneficial fungi as part of my master's thesis. On average they provide a yield benefit, but it's not ubiquitous and they're far more likely to work in arid and semi-arid soils that have poor microbial diversity in their baseline. They don't tend to be as effective in temperate soils - partly because they have to compete with existing soil microbes.

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#25

Post by Aboutplants »

isoprophlex wrote: post #14
Aboutplants wrote: post #2

I grow rare cactus and succulents and after experimenting with Mycorrhizal inoculants I’m completely blown away with results I’ve seen. Even with soil that dries out completely between water (for extended periods of time) they still work their magic wonderfully and I see wonderful growth and survival with the roots showing the fungi growth as shown and described in this article.

Where do you get your inoculants / which do you get? I'm a mere dabbler in growing cactuses, but very curious to hear what worked for you

I currently use a product called MYCO+ but I’m always looking for potential other options. From what I’ve read and researched Glomus and Trichoderma strains are the most beneficial and found to populate within cactus and succulents environments. Contrary to some opinion/online advice , the bacteria can remain healthy even in a dry environment for extended periods of time. Also, if your interested in growing welwitschia mirabilis (a prized collectors plant) I have found it to be astoundingly helpful in helping them thrive (don’t ever let these plants dry out though).

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#26

Post by Aboutplants »

My_Name wrote: post #21
isoprophlex wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get your inoculants / which do you get? I'm a mere dabbler in growing cactuses, but very curious to hear what worked for you

The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) sells little packets of mycorrhizal powder that you can put into your garden if you feel it is lacking beneficial fungi. Another more natural route is to bury a kilo of cooked white rice near a very healthy tree, where the soil is soft and 'healthy' then retrieve it after a week. It will be mouldy, but with the right type of mould. Mix that into compost, grow tomatoes in that com…

An old gardeners trick when planting a tree is to go into a forest and grab a few shovel fulls of “forest floor dirt” and add that to the hole you dug for the tree. This provides that good fungi to help the roots establish. Same idea, though the practice is centuries old. Someday we will learn the lessons of our ancestors

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#28

Post by alwa »

emschwartz wrote: post #7

If you haven’t read Entangled Life: How Fungi Shape Our World, I can’t recommend it enough. https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/entangled-life

Couldn’t agree more. And for what it’s worth, its aptly-named author Merlin Sheldrake is an absolutely charming human too. As quirky iconoclastic woodland enthusiasts go.

For a taste, Joanna Steinhardt for the LA Review:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-mycophiles-plea-on-m...

I suspect some folks here might also appreciate his early-career (2011) musical collaboration with brother Cosmo Sheldrake and friends, as the Gentle Mystics:

https://gentlemystics.bandcamp.com/album/gentle-mystics

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#29

Post by nickserv »

Fairly old news at this point.

A bit more difficult is growing edible mushrooms along with the plants, for example Boletus edulis, which are symbiotic with oaks and other trees.

The difficulty lies in the waiting period, it can easily take years before any fruiting bodies appear.

Re: Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success

#30

Post by therobots927 »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #23
culi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that. There's plenty of behaviors where plants and fungi act in the interest of the community as a whole. Mature forests are made of late-successional species. These species could only possibly grow after earlier succession species had "prepped the soil" (nurtured the soil ecology, transitioned the nitrogen cycle from ammonia to nitrates, etc) and provided shade to allow them to grow. Since these trees…

I think it would be be more illuminating to call it "enlightened self-interest".

Which is a far cry away from the “free market” we see in the west.

Wild how I got downvoted for stating a pretty obvious fact. Long term planning and self sacrifice in the interest of long term community benefit which transfers to one’s future self / progeny is actually very similar to communism.

Fuck me I guess

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