A supplier of mine told me he liked this Foxfarm JM fertilizer with mycorhizzae (sp?) and humic acid. Anyone used this product? Also, I am thinking of top dressing my potted JM's with EB Stone's Redwood Compost to cool the roots and retain soil moisture. Any testimonials or thoughts? Thank you.
Ask your supplier wich mycorrhiza does he use for JM. There´s endo and ecto mycorrhiza and I think only endo are useful for JM. Once the mycorrhiza and JM have made the symbiotic relation, the plant nutrients uptake is improved and therefore its health and growth. Regards
Is the product just mycorrhizal fungi? Or nutrient stuff mixed with it? Do you have any compost down now, or would this be the first mulch over bare soil?
product is 4-8-5 with mycorhizae and bacillus. this is the first mulch over bare soil. do u think this redwood compost wud be better than very small redwood bark which wud be cheaper?
Myself, I'm still somewhat skeptical about the efficacy of innoculating the soil with mychorizal fungi. Different species of fungi are symbiotic with diffferent plants and probably need certain temperature / moisture / climatic conditions to survive. If those fungi were going to persist in your soil it seems like they would already be there. And of course if they are there then adding more shouldnt do anything because their population would be limited by other factors. I like dyna gro fertilzers. All the nutrients are already in water soluble form (which is the case with most fertilizers), so you don't need extra fungi to help the plant get them. At least that's the way I've always thought of it. Am I missing something?
Todd, I like Dyna Gro too and SuperThrive but I have a thousand maples in pots 1-4 feet in diameter so liquid fertilizers are too time consuming. On my seedlings & 1 gallon maples I use dyna gro and ST but on the bigger maples I need a granular. Thanks for your input.
Todd, I think maybe it depends on what kind of soil you're dealing with. I just moved into a newly built house about a year ago, and the quality of the soil in my garden varies radically -- from virtually undisturbed woodland soil at a certain distance from the house, to highly compacted soil that seems to contain a lot of clay in some areas, to the immediate vicinity of the house which is virtually all lifeless, rocky contractor's fill that I suppose is meant to ensure good drainage around the foundation. There was meant to be a final layer of topsoil spread around, but we cut that because of budget overruns. So anyway, a lot of my garden is trying to grow in a completely unnatural medium that contains little to no organic matter and hence, I would think, few microorganisms of any kind. Much of my effort has therefore gone into trying to breathe some life into this mess, and I've been experimenting with all kinds of stuff including mycorrhizal fungi, compost, earthworms, mixes of annual wildflowers just to get some kind of roots in the ground.... Meanwhile, twenty or thirty feet away, there are these woods no doubt teeming with natural microorganisms of every kind.
Todd, There is a tremendous body of evidence that mycorrhizal fungi and other "EM" (effective microorganisms) have a huge benefit - not just in increased absorption of nutrients, but in supression of pathogens, parasites and other unwanted problems. And just because a nutrient is present in the soil doesn't mean a plant will absorb it efficiently. The symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants could be likened to other such relationships in nature, such as the ability of a cow to digest grass. Bacteria in the cows gut make that digestion possible - not the cow itself. Termites also depend on bacteria in their gut to digest cellulose from wood. We humans depend on microorganisms in our gut to digest our food too. Little surprise that plants need microorganisms to help them get the most from their environment. Also, assuming microorganisms are present in native soils in sufficient numbers and strains to be effective is - well - an assumption! We have radically altered the ecology in which most of our plants are grown. Suburbs are ecological dead zones in many respects - not only from the development of the land itself, but from the toxic chemicals and pollutants that leak from our cars and mowers, or that we spread on our lawns as weed control or insecticides. Add to this the fact that most soils are not ideal soils to start with, and you have a real need for most gardeners to improve their soils. I know in my woods, although it is largely wild and natural and has never been farmed, the soils are relatively poor. The species that thrive here have adapted to these poor, clay soils. JMs and other ornamentals are not native, and therefore lack the adaptations the local flora have developed to find and hold onto their niche. So in essence, I'm saying anything I can do to improve my soil should improve my plants at the same time. They are imports, and need help adapting to their new home. If I can do that in a natural way I much prefer it. If you would like to read some interesting info on EM, see the following links. It is so important that one of the largest nurseries in the world has completely adopted an organic approach to growing JMs using EM techniques developed in Japan. This takes a balanced approach using many species of fungi and bacteria, and eliminates the use of fungicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. Here are a few links you might find interesting: http://www.mycorrhizalproducts.com/index.php?cid=44 http://www.agriton.nl/higa.html
Does anyone feel that fertilizing before bud break is worthwhile? In containers I usually wait until the soil has warmed to around 60F and then begin dyna-gro or compost tea. In the ground I usually just give a spring compost dressing around the same time. Also can anyone report positive results with osmocote in containers? Dr. Whitcomb is a fan of the product esp the 18-6-12 formulation. (ericaceous plants) K4, If your soil is 'wild and natural' wouldn't it by definition already have a robust and harmonized biology, naturally? My understanding is that myco is most efficacious in conditions where there has been a disturbance of the natural biology or where the media is sterile.
Poetry, That might be true if my land were the Garden of Eden, but in fact its a relatively dry hill-top with poor soil only a few inches deep, then hard clay. And since I'm having to bring in soil to create raised beds, no telling what is or is not missing. I haven't had the soil tested, which I probably should. Do you think making raised beds would qualify as a "distrubance"? I think of it as an enhancement, but maybe it qualifies as both. I cut down a Hickory the other day with about a 4.5 inch caliper. Just for fun I counted the rings to see how old the tree was. The age was 35 years! This does not point to a very productive soil. I will be adding the EM to the equation this year in the raised beds and we'll see how it alters things. I figure it certainly can't hurt!! :-) Also I have a significant number of trees still in pots, and will continue to use the organic + EM stuff on them. Take care,
K4, Testing the soil seems like a no-brainer in your situation. Otherwise you'd be trying to remedy the conditions by a costly and potentially mis-directed process of elimination. Whitcomb's book has astonishing data about improvements in plant health when nutrient imbalances are corrected Cutting one tree and counting the rings wouldn't be a reliable technique for assessing the status of soil biology. I'm interested in your results using EM and Myco in containers. I didn't notice any differences using myco in containers last year. I plan on experimenting with some EM products this spring. Let's compare notes!
Poetry, Something just dawned on me as I re-read this post, after just having read some of the materials on the Myco thread and the studies you noted. Last year I used my organic Pro-Mix with Myco to re-pot all my JMs. But I also added 1/3 Miracle Grow African Violet mix and blended it together, because the MG had more bark in it, plus some time-release fert. A lot of my JMs had expolsive growth spurts (remember my Junihitoe?), and I had to re-pot a number of them twice because the roots just went wild and filled up the pots. So maybe what I was seeing is similar to what the studies were finding? It would be fun to do an experiment and try two JMs, same cultivar, size, etc. and pot one up with the Myco mix and one with the same mix but no Myco. If I can get enough of my grafts to take I'll see if I can swing it. I have quite a few Osakazuki and Bloodgood scions. Cheers!
K4 Yes it sounds like your conditions were similar to what is described in the study. I wonder if it's necessary to inoculate with a commercial product at all. Surely many of the suppliers are using myco when they pot and also native myco spores would eventually infect newcomers. I might grab a little myco and test it out on a few root pruned trees this spring. I'm going to use the 18-6-12 osmocote along with it.
there seems to be so much variation in growth rates between cultivars, seasons, locations, etc, I don't know how you folks figure out whether an adjustment or certain fertilizer is having any effect at all. I used dyna grow on 1/2 of the maples I transplanted last year, but like a dope, forgot exactly which ones I used it one. An unintended "triple blinded study" :)
I planted a tree in a raised bed last April as in 08 it was about <80 cm tall. I creating the soil out of (old) ground up trees which was called mulch at my local dump, the smell was beyond awful. I also used rock dust and a bit of sand plus dark soil. The drainage was perfect; when I was allowed to return I was surprised to see that the tree was well over a meter, it had surely double in size. I had to prune off at least 30 cm of fly away limbs shooting out in all directions, it looked like medusa. I certain did not use any chemicals, albeit I think dinagrow is good. Maples hate ammoniacal nitrogen, you know the stuff that you mix with #2 fuel oil to blow up stuff like buildings, yea acers don't like dat. If you know me you know I used the hell out of humate, and I am sure to inoculated the soil as well. This raised bed was stunningly beautiful, it was ringed with tiarella( pink skyrocket), heucherella (stop light) small variegated hostas(Moon struck)( Paradise Island),tricyrtis, and dwarf grasses, it was a very happy little bunch there. So what I am trying to say without digressing, which is par for the course these days, is that maybe drainage is far more important then we give it credit. However this is not easy to do, and considered to be back breaking work by some, did I say anything about pH. The fact that anything surveyed let alone prosper should be credited to the carbon fix and the inoculation of the mycorrhiza. I set this bed up for very fast drainage and it worked for some but not all. Due to the fact it was not watered I lost the tiarellas, the named hostas, plus the heucherellas, and a few others not named. If I used chemicals fertilizers I think it would have damaged the subterranean flora to such a degree that I don't think anything would have survied. I will miss my favorite hosta tho, that being Moon struck, it was a gem, only the size of my thumb when it fist arrived years ago. Have I retuned from the dead? I don't really know, some days I wonder. I am thinking about moving to northern Italy, that is if I can sneak through the border undetected. I sure the heck want out of virginia.
Hey Richard, Glad you got back to check out your garden. "If I used chemicals fertilizers I think it would have damaged the subterranean flora to such a degree that I don't think anything would have survied." I was thinking the same as you about the chem ferts and damaging the biology but that study derailed my theory. It only mentions the myco organisms but it seems that if myco prospered with osmocote other biologicals would as well. Any thoughts?
I would propose that we look at soil as whole. I have found that the soil structure along with its pH level are very import, moreover we should emphasize its ability to support the living components there in. Ya too formal but I don't know how to make every sentence sound like spoken words out of my mouth. So Well any ways, moving on from dat, de bacteria is a big player in all this stuff plus the other organisms, even those that feed on each other to include the invertebrates. The multicellular fungi are more advanced then bacteria, even the single celled fungi called yeast. Bacterial being of a lower level organism may be easily killed or stressed with the use of NH4NO3 ammonium nitrate, and things like super duper phosphate well you get the idea. With this understanding it could feed off a fertilizer that are mild in formulation like the hydroponic fertilizers. However these snack foods would inhibit the fungi need to live in symbioses for its survival. Fungi feeds off of everything even the living invertebrates. The complexity of fungi can be understood from our own experiences with them. A fungal infection is hell to get rid of, yet the bacterial infections are not usually difficult to control a simple sulfur antibiotics will do the trick. The beneficial bacteria and fungi would be probiotic. Is this off topic? Some years ago my mother in law was in the hospital, we were being told she was dyeing. So we jumped on the fist flight we could get for California. Upon arrival at the hospital and speaking with her doctor, I asked that if you are filling her up with antibiotic why are you not giving her probiotics. The doctor looked at me like I was mad, because he didn't even know the word. As she lay there dyeing I was able to get some probiotics for her, and the antibiotic drip removed. I tell you the truth the next day she was eating again and looked much better, she was sent home 26 hours later feeling rather well. !!!! While I am hear let me give everyone a warning, as gardeners we need to be aware that every time we put our hands into the soil, without good gloves we are exposing ourselves to potentially dangerous fungi. I try to always ware good disposable gloves when I am installing, or planting anything.!!!! The referenced study may have had better results if they did not use chemicals, plus it was not found as a results of any exhaustive search, I ran up on it with Google here and a Google there, but you may want to try this Google. http://scholar.google.com/
Ciao a voi Alex I vostri alberi interamente crescono bene, inoltre la famiglia è buona? Le mie abilità di scrittura hanno sofferto. Il minimo delle mie preoccupazioni è di scrivere bene l'italiano, il più spiacente di dire che sono.Merci de la pensée, mais j'aime beaucoup franchirais la frontière : ) Ciao molto buon! Rich
