Trichoderma Harzianum & Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizas

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

Not 100% sure as superphosphate is pretty damaging to the fungi but given the price of RootGrow I'd say give it a go. I've used a vintage/rock guano tea this time around on some of my Smiles and when I was chopping them the other day I had a look at the roots so see if there was any difference. All the roots looked quite healthy and there was no burning or yellowing of the roots. I'm guessing that the phosphorous is in a different format, buffered or less concentrated in guano :wink: but I haven't seen any burning yet.

[oldtimer1]

The composts that say with added JI in fact have added loam not added JI compost as such.

Super phosphate is just rock phosphate treated with sulphuric acid to make the phosphate fast release and more of it water soluble, as its part of the base fertiliser along with chalk, its acidity will be buffered, and its not likely to hurt the micro heard in a real JI or any that you add such as mycorrhizals.

[scraglor]

ah, i thought it meant that it had the JI base fertiliser in.

i've been adding rootgrow and rockdust to my compost anyway, as you say it's not expensive. can't say i've noticed a difference on my flowering plants, but they're getting blasted with co2 anyway, they grow so fast and strong i think it's be hard to notice a difference, but i've defo noticed a difference to my neglected pot bound mother plants left to fend for themselves outside, not showing any of the usual nutrient disorders, just looking a little light green from hunger, whereas usually when i torture the poor girls for this long they're suffering much much more! and i've always added rock guano to the compost for those plants, i'm putting down their health to the rootgrow and rockdust, so it seems that the guano isn't hindering it in this case anyway, can't remember where i read about their being a problem with high p ferts, i'll have a scout around

edit: ah right, read your post properly ot, so as it's the base fertiliser and the acidity's kept in check it should be fine, just no adding of fertilisers containing it? do you think guano teas are ok? i read something which unfortunately i can't find now which specifically mentioned not using rock guano teas because of the phosphate content, but i see felix you haven't had any problems, so probably nothing to worry about then

here's one of the pieces i found on it from the omri website

http://www.omri.org/superphosphate.pdf

Vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae (VAM) are symbiotic with plants and help to cycle relatively insoluble nutrients,

including phosphate. VAM have been shown to increase the availability of relatively insoluble nutrients in the soil, in

particular phosphorous, copper, and zinc. Superphospate fertilizer has been shown to suppress VAM (Amijee, et al,

1989; Vivekanandan and Fixen, 1991) and decrease the length of root that is colonized (Thomson, et al., 1992). VAM

suppression has been documented at relatively low rates of application of P-fertilizer (Clapperton, Janzen, and

Johnston, 1997)

Edited August 26, 2008 by scraglor

[I Zimbra]

the plant is in conrol and is a bit of a using bitch really, it forms a relationship with the mycorrhyzal fungi and feeds it root exudates in return for the phosphates it cycles, when the phosphorus is added to the soil in a plant avalible form for an extended period the plant doesn't use the fungi so much and cuts it's supply and the fungi starts to die back. I read somewhere that to keep the flora happy you shouldn't add nutrients with an npk higher than 10, can't remember exactly why but will find out for you.

[oldtimer1]

Superphosphate is also used as a top dressing, hoed into the top soil then watered in, also used in solution, ie added to water as a high phosphorus feed, used like this it will do a lot of damage to the micro heard. I know people who top dress onions and such like several times a year, given time and frequently used this dam stuff will make the top soil pretty sterile.

When its used in the making of JI compost all the ingredients are mixed and the compost is given time to reach a balance/stabilise, the acidity of the superphosphate will have been neutrilised. As it happens JI composts have quite a rich microflora, I think it is pretty unlikely that any residuals from reacted superphosphate are likely to inhibit or damage any added mycorrhizae.

Is you were feeding with superphosphate it would be a totally different story.

I don’t know about rock guano, but I would think it would encourage the micro heard as everything is in a natural form, even if you boil it to try and release a little more free nutrients, they are still completely in a natural form.

Look things like rock dust and mycorrhizals are just fine tuning, one helps supply macros slowly over time, the other helps extract and take them up.

You will see this most when added to poor underfertilised soil conditions, or as in your case with rootbound mums, you are to my mind seeing exactly what I would expect from healthier plants not deficient in anything. I’ve tried with out and with in split grows, with plants were more healthy, a little more sturdy and finally yielded a little more.

[Chile Head]

Nice one chickenlipsr4

Where might we buy chitosan ? Is it something that's easy to get ?

In dry conditions the spores can last for quite a long time but if the conditions are moist you will find the spores germinating fairly quickly. That's why all AM inoculants are dry, would be interesting to find out how long the spores take to germinate.

The reason digging disrupts mycorrhizas is because it breaks up the hyphae, hypha are incredibly delicate and hair thin. Disturbing the compost breaks the hypha up and the the fungi will have to regrow them.

Hey Felix - bit late with my reply maybe, but if you haven't already found a source, try home brew resources - chitosan is used as a beer and wine finings clearing agent, since it has a strong molecular +ve charge. Also used in dieting, but am guessing the amounts/pills would be very costly by comparison.

HTH!

Oh, and as for the fungi/digging thing - there's a lovely strip of A. muscaria (and pantherina) 'infected' s'birch trees nearbye here, and I used to get huge harvests, until the rabbits moved into the embankment in force - they were destroying the hyphae of the mycelial network far faster than they could grow back, even with constant re-sporing of the ground. Took only 2 seasons to drop from appr. 15lb harvests to about 3lb. Bloody rabbits ',;~{

Cheers!

',;~}

(BTW - I did the collecting in the correct manner ensuring the caps sporulated before being removed from the site).

Edited August 31, 2008 by Chile Head

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

Nice one Chile Head,

Thanks for the alternative chitosan source, will have to check that out for sure .Haven't seen any Fly Agaric's in ages.

[buddly]

oy you lot

does anyone know the correct dosage for biomate?ive read differing opinions about this from half a ml to 20ml per litre gotta keep me happy fungi happy .

ta a lot

[Chile Head]

Nice one Chile Head,

Thanks for the alternative chitosan source, will have to check that out for sure .Haven't seen any Fly Agaric's in ages.

De nada mon amigo! Been making HB since I was a kid of about 15, and before that with da poppa man when he brewed - I only stopped making wines when I quit drinking about 16 or so months ago, so anyhow - it's all deeply planted yet fresh in my mind ! (May even brew again next year, even though none would be for me - just enjoy it so much!)

Fly agaric - the head shops have taken an interest in the stuff these past 5 years or so. A. pantherina too ('Panther Caps'), and I've seen packages of dried pieces, maybe about 10 or 15g for sale in several. Total rip-off! - I keep a few dried and powdered Oz of A. m and A. p here for givaways to interested friends etc. and also as some back-up 'bush medicine' for when it will help (migraines, sleep problems, depression (esp. S. A. D. relatedc - it can work wonders!) - all in small doses of usually sub 1g dried mushroom powder)

I'm in a rural area, so we get quite a few in places here at times, but I know where to look these days wherever I am, since I learned all about them over 20 years ago, and taught myself their habbitat quite well (been into my so-called 'entheogens' for a good while, although only just started to grow 'the cactus', so mescaline is a fairly new one to me!). Mostly in the UK, for most folk, the places to look are birch stands rather than pine (for 'accessible commonality', if you will), and also, sloping ground seems to be preferred - larger birch stands along/next to rail embankments/in or outslirts of parklands and similar can be host to quite some colonies, and after seeing several on one rail journey about a decade ago and venturing back to the place at a later date, I found huge amounts in several loosely conected stands over about a 3/4 sq. mile area, and this was only about 2 1/5 miles away from a rather large town.

Damned things are so pretty and photogenic, that a 'hunt' used to cost me a fortune in camera film before the digital image era fell upon 'the common man' proper ',;~}

Cheers!

BTW felix, feel free to fire me a pm if any of this gets a li'l too off topic but still interests you, and we can always take it elsewhere if you'd rather.

[vigor]

Thanks for that Weedio! If there is one critique I have about UK420 is that the info in here has a pretty low signal to noise ratio. In other words a lot of pleasantries and chit chat intermingled with useful information.

It makes for a very pleasant, social environment but not, sometimes, for a very focused discussion. Interesting that they say to use unchlorinated water.

I couldn't find weedio's message? STONED? WHat was it about?

I've ordered carbon filters for my water system and also for showering (look for freshwatersystems on google to give a example), chlorine also effects people that are sensitive to depression/migraines/can cause strokes or make elderly dizzy after a shower etc... want to get rid of it everywhere.

Going to see if it helps the plants also.

Got a few Q's unfortunatly i don't have time to read the whole topic...

Which fungy/bacteria are you trying to get rid of?

How do i create the enviroment to get these fungy on my plants?

What can i expect to see if the fungy die? No more spreads over the plants? What happens with damaged leaves (still don't have a good microscope )?

I'm ready for some testing, might have a way to get rid of the problem worth a try.

Peace

Edited September 2, 2008 by vigor

[Felix Dzerzhinsky]

Got a few Q's unfortunatly i don't have time to read the whole topic...

Which fungy/bacteria are you trying to get rid of?

How do i create the enviroment to get these fungy on my plants?

What can i expect to see if the fungy die? No more spreads over the plants? What happens with damaged leaves (still don't have a good microscope )?

I'm ready for some testing, might have a way to get rid of the problem worth a try.

Peace

You're going to have to read it man can't just paraphrase it all in one post, it's all there my friend

[solarchild]

Aye, gwan Vigor!

Yup its a little long but there theres a lot of bloody good info in there. The info on protecting your crop against LSF is invaluble and the rest is made up of little things like increasing root development and yield, increasing nutrient uptake, getting shot of deficiencies and none of its really hard or owt! Gwan ya know ya want to.

[ben]

Hmm... well yesterday I made up some of the essence mix with the tutorial on page19 of the thread, which is awesome by the way, thankyou very much pro_libertate.

It went really great, apart from this morning I was half asleep (7:30am ) So anyway long story short I mistook a bottle of hydrogen peroxide for my wetting agent, and proceeded to add 3ml of said H2O2 into the mix... niceone

I know its pretty powerfull stuff, no idea what'll happen..

Ah something I should share too is after screwing round with a 25w aquarium heater all day, after a number of failed attempts via 40C + temps, I found the right temp to keep a litre of water and molases mix around 31 - 32 C was 19.5C(ish)on the temp knob. It's a Jager one, which is accurate to +/- 0.5°C apparently.

Edited September 4, 2008 by ben

[agito]

Does anyone know which fungi root riots contain?

[Savage]

So, i became a member of the Brew Crew lastnight, following the method posted by pro_liberate i knocked up a batch of Esscence (cheers webby).

Its very easy to set up and it bubbles away quite happily sat on a heated propagator tray. When i spray my plants i usually take them out the grow box and spray them in the bathroom so i can get full coverage, i found that the Esscence leaves sticky brown flecks and puddles everywhere, lucky for me the bathroom is tiled so i managed to get it all cleaned up easily enough. Next time i spray i think i will leave them in the grow space though i am thinking the reflective sheeting will get covered in the Esscence. Something i did notice was after the application of Esscence my plants and grow box smelled of toffee, in fact it started giving me the munchies!

I got my first dose of LSF this time last year and have been using akTRIvator to deal with it, it works quite well though i have noticed the odd spot of what looks like LSF trying to start up and this is why i went for the Esscence after hearing the good results here.

sorry about the crap pic, i think its time for a new digi camera as my cybershot seems to be about to peg it!