Trichoderma Harzianum & Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizas

[smeagol]

hey Felix .. just had a thought .. i have a wormery and i mix my old plant compost into the worm casts that i have stored as i find the dry compo absorbs the moisture of the casts .. well obviously when doing this i incorporate the root system as well which led onto me thinking that if i have innoculated said roots they will be colonised and so when i use this mix for future grows will the new root system be innoculated ?? .. phew thats confused me a bit but i think it makes sense .. wot d'ya reckon? ..

Hi Smeagol.

There's a whole bunch of useful micro organisms in worm casts, if you can collect say 2 desert spoons of fresh wormcasts you could bubble that with molasses and any bacteria in there would begin going through a population explosion. 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of molasses per litre, can shot a little seaweed extract in as well if you have it and that will help any fungi, perhaps 1 - 2ml per litre. Play around with the doses to see what works best for you.

As for whether you are inoculating your roots I honestly don't know. Probably with bacteria but don't know on the fungi

Hope that helps.

Nice one felix on the worm casts...i have a wormery so i'm gonna get on that straight away..regards the roots...think you misunderstood me...what i was trying to say was that if you have colonised your plants root system via trich application and if they are still alive when you chop i was wondering whether .. by adding the soil and root system to my stash of worm casts ( dustbin full ) whether they would then stay alive andf colonise a new plants root system when the worm casts were used for a grow ?? ..

EM2 .. which innoculant do you use please ? ..

The one I use unfortuanately is no longer available smeagol,

Regards

Cheers EM2 ... tough to track down ain't it

[Heavy Horse]

What an interesting an informative thread this is, cheers to all involved, lots of interesting reading.

If I have applied Bayers Fungus Fighter to my plants in an effort to combat LSF (8 days ago), can I assume that the Fungus Fighter will also kill of any Trich-H & Myco that I try and colonize the arial parts of the plant with? If so how long will it be before they can be drenched with Trich&myco? (If at all sad.gif )

Peter I can't get the full article, it's subscription only, but here's a precis.

Two fungicides, i.e. Bavistin [carbendazim] and Dithane M-45 [mancozeb], were tested for the effect on soil mycoflora with special reference to mycorrhizal fungi of sunflower crop. The two fungicides had different effects on soil mycoflora. Reduction of various species of soil fungi was more extensive in the first twenty days in comparison with the latter half of the experimental period. The fungicidal effect of both fungicides decreased with increase of time and it resulted in reappearance of certain fungi after a certain period of time. Regarding the effect of fungicides on sunflower growth and phosphorus content, it was found that as the concentration of the fungicides increased, the growth decreased and minimum growth was observed in 1% concentration of Bavistin and Dithane M-45. Both fungicides had deleterious effect on mycorrhizal spore number and percentage mycorrhizal root colonization.

Publisher: Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, Oil Crops Department, University of Novi Sad

As an inoculant, I always keep back some compost from a previous crop, ONLY if it has been healthy. Failing that, I've used both Agralan Revive, from a Garden Centre,and GHE Bio Magix, which was recommended for Coco. I'm going to be careful about saying how wonderful they are because I can't make any scientific comparison...different composts, plants ferts etc.

They haven't killed anything though, one day I will get round to doing an analysis of my compost flora

[withnail]

I'm getting quite pissed off at the spray gun carnage going on with the Canna product.

Anyone found a spray device that doesn't break, the pump up ones any good?

Just had my second spray gun block up on my second application with AKTrivator

The only other thing I had to hand was a spare syringe.... worked a treat

No blockages as there is no fine nozzle,precise application and little or no waste water being sprayed around my grow room.

An interesting article too heavy horse, so dithane and bavistin both affect the mycorrhizal fungi detrimentally as well as slowing down growth,on sunflowers at least.

Even more reason to pursue an inoculant based form of plant protection as opposed to a systemic diathane/fungus fighter line of attack.

e2a: Still no sign of fungus in the main room except one inherited cutting,and even that has developed no new fungal growth in the last 5 days

Edited November 22, 2007 by withnail

[Guest Dr Benways Assistant]

Just had my second spray gun block up on my second application with AKTrivator

I bought one of the pump up auto spray gun thingies and I have to say it's the best £7 I've spent in my life. Don't know how I got by without it

[oldtimer1]

If you use a trigger sprayer apart from the trichoderma blocking the mechanism, it will also shred all the trichoderma bodies making the whole exercise pointless. If you have used a trigger sprayer you have not inoculated your plants, its about the same as setting fire to the money spent on the inoculant.

The idea of spraying the plant leaves with trichoderma spores is to distribute them evenly over the entire aerial surfaces of the plant alive and in one piece, so they populated and multiply protecting the plant.

The best method of distributing trichoderma spores over the aerial surfaces of the plant, is to use a pump up sprayer. This should only be pumped up just enough for the water to break up into course droplets, with the nozzle set to a course spray pattern. This will do the least damage to soft bodied types such as trichodermas. The finer the spray nozzle and the higher the velocity of the flow the more bodies will be shredded and burst on exit.

The fungicides Heavy Horse mentions are not systemic, they are persistant and used both as leaf, seed coating and soil drenches so will damage all microflora they come into contact with. If you want to use friendly microbes just don’t use chemical controls.

Mycorrhizal fungi penetrate the plant roots so of course systemic fungicides will attack them, how long for! Who knows? Systemic fungicides will not damage most of the micro heard unless used as a soil drench, that includes trichoderma where its used to inoculate the roots.

[scoobs]

Hi All You Fun-Guys,

I have a quick question.

I have a fungus gnat problem, will I still be able to use neem oil without affecting the friendly fungii? I also have some SBPI too, should I use either of these?

UV Trap and stickys on order!

Thanks

scoobs

[Arbuscule]

Hi Scoobs,

In my limited understanding I think they might, so I've been reapplying trichoderma after applying SBPI. Boo on the fungus gnats.

All the best

Arbuscule

[scoobs]

Hi Scoobs,

In my limited understanding I think they might, so I've been reapplying trichoderma after applying SBPI. Boo on the fungus gnats.

All the best

Arbuscule

Thanks Arbuscule.... I thought that I'd got them under control... but there's zillions of the blighters now.

I didn't see any for a few days and thought that I'd cracked it...so I put one of those circular flea traps around the base yesterday... there must have been hundreds of them stuck on there today

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

Nematodes

[oldtimer1]

Scoobs, just buy some Gnat Off and use with your regular watering a couple of times. Yellow traps from the local garden centre will mop up the adults.

SBPI will kill all your friendly fungi if it gets into contact, it has quite a strong fungaciadal action. Its not a thing too use in combination with friendly microbes.

[Arbuscule]

Thank you for clarification over the use of SBPI with friendly fungi OT1. Oops, feared it may have an ill effect on the fungi.

My makeshift solution to this apprehension has been to re-apply trichoderma a couple of days after using SBPI, and to minimise the contact between the SBPI and the root zone by covering the pots with absorbent kitchen toweling to catch any run off while spraying leaves.

Is this solution likely to help? I'd like to keep using the SBPI if possible as spider mites seem to hate it. Is there any possibility of still benefiting from the friendly microherd if I'm really careful to avoid contact between the SBPI and the rhizosphere ?

Thanks in advance from a glum

Arbuscule

[scoobs]

Thanks Felix... little bug eaters on order!

Scoobs, just buy some Gnat Off and use with your regular watering a couple of times. Yellow traps from the local garden centre will mop up the adults.

SBPI will kill all your friendly fungi if it gets into contact, it has quite a strong fungaciadal action. Its not a thing too use in combination with friendly microbes.

Thanks so much for explaining that OT1... Gnat Off on order too for if all else fails!

Thanks again guys

scoobs

[oldtimer1]

SBPI, is not strong acting substance, the information on their site is not clear on how it works. It is effective against downy mildew, I tried it two years ago, on half a courgette plant that was coming down with it in the autumn, it looked weird with half a plant with totally green healthy leaves and half white with mildew.

A friend using SBPI on cannabis as a preventative against spider mite had his crop start to go down with leaf spot, he was also using a mixed aerial inoculant every 2 or 3 weeks at the same time, I told him to stop the SBPI and the leafspot did not increase or spread after that.

I think SBPI would only damage the rhizosphere micro heard if used as a drench.

Gnat Off for those who don’t know is bacillus thuringiensis var israelensis, a good biological control against shore flies, fungus gnats and mosquitos.

[scoobs]

<snip>

Gnat Off for those who don’t know is bacillus thuringiensis var israelensis, a good biological control against shore flies, fungus gnats and mosquitos.

Ahhh! Glad that you explained that OT1.......

So... I'm being a bit cheeky now, but just for future reference (and goodness knows I've had the book thrown at me!)... is there anything else that I shouldn't use whilst using and of the friendly fungii?

Thanks again you guys for all of your help!

scoobs

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

My advice would be if you are going down the organic route is to do it completely and don't use any chemicals or sprays at all unless you really really have to. Try to establish a good environment and then use biological control where applicable and only use chemicals as a last resort to save a crop.

Bit of a diversion here but there are a number of sprays available from the states that are based on fungal spores that infect pathogenic insects. They only target a specific host and once the spores have been sprayed they will remain active in the environment for some time after (we're talking days and weeks not months or years) re-infecting new outbreaks as they spring up but work well when re-applied regularly. They are not available here yet but hopefully they will one day soon be licensed for use in the EU.