fungal vs barcterial dominant tea

[HinduKushed_423]

Von : i'm just curious where ya get the fungus ya culture? do you take some product that has the proper ones and put it in the oat meal coffee thing ?

i got a batch of EM-1 Bokashi brewing up in the closet, it has some white fungal growth in there.

my latest idea is to take the em-1 some pom, guano and maybe some pom fruit and flower, and when i get it some fish meal. i was at the food store the other day and i saw they had some dried fish for a pretty cheap price, so i was just thinking right now i could buy some of that and grind it up in the blender and use that like fish meal in my fungal culture .

 

[Guest]

I groe michrozial fungi in a bucket. when its ready it looks like a bucket of roots in long white strings. disturb the water and the strings all dissapear.as much fun as growing MJ. The plants love this stuff.

 

[Guest]

BTW the jeffs potting mix has the fungal spores.I dont use much for the culture.

 

[judas cohen]

Von: we have similar/identical nutes and methods of using them in common. LOL

I became interested in mushroom compost when I read one of your posts several months ago. Not available locally and I don't want to pay shipping. Also, your more recent post re: high ph in MC gave me pause. I have dolomite lime for low ph, but only apple cider vinegar for ph down. I doubt it would be effective in soil for very long, but works ok for my 8.3 tap water. (Would still like to try the MC though, down the road.)

I am trying to recouncile the following: 1) Having many different and diverse strains of Fungi is a good thing. 2) Different fungi compete when first introduced until only the strong survive. Then the victors incorporate the surviving losers into their society and they all work together providing for the plant. End result is a stronger, more diverse micro-herd. another good thing. 3)Best type of fungus for helping plants is aerobic with long strands (hyphae). 4)Hyphae work best if undisturbed, they have to re-combine if soil is tilled. Then they go back to hauling P to the roots. 5)Fuzzy mold is often anaerobic and not much help to plants, generally speaking. Usually dies when exposed to sunlight and lower humidity. What survives is more plant friendly, but not as helpful as strands.

I could very well have some of the above statements partially/totally incorrect and often I would find opposed opinions from experts. Some of the info was hard to understand. (and maybe I got it backwards!) LOL

In any event, that's why I questioned your sources of fungi. I don't know if it's a problem. If it is, I don't know the answer. Stirring up the compost is a good thing and lightly disturbing the crust on a container before watering the plant is a good thing. Any disturbance beyond that seems to have an upside and a downside.

Can the micro-herd simultaneously care for the plant and fight a war? Yes, because the plant keeps growing. Would it grow better if there was no war going on? Hmmm...... Is timing when to start a war important?

Sorry about the long post. I made it as short as I know how. Anyway, the lil' soil slaves will handle it. Glad they know what they're doing, cause I'm lost much of the time! (Time for a puff of pot b4 I get a brain ache) LOL

Hindu: I read some really good stuff about the EM-1 Bokashi. Didn't understand all of it. Did you have to order the starter culture from Japan? You're the first grower I've read about that's using it. Any info you want to share would be appreciated. Even basic "Bokashi For Dummies" would help.

FWIW: POM Fruit&Flower 5-8-4 has fishmeal and bat guano in it. Also, alfalfa meal, bonemeal, fish bonemeal, bloodmeal, kelpmeal, SRP, granite rockdust, humic acid, fungi, bacteria, etc. If you want to feed the bokashi or use it as a flower fert, it's probably all you need.

Is the dried fish you're looking at SALTED? People use soy sauce in tea and that's loaded with salt. Salt in pot ferts scare me, but I'm still learning.

Octodiem:You just throw a little potting mix in water and strands grow from the mykes in the potting mix. The air pump doesn't disturb the strands? or do you use one? Sounds pretty cool!!

 

[hobosapien]

yea!

plenty of info here to mull over, although unfortunately i have no had much time for leisurely reading. I have been busting nuggets over a sever symptom which is showing in my plants....

Firstly this IS an organic grow, and you know what that means, when you DO (rarely) eff up, it is VERY bad.

the new growth on 2 of 4 is crisp and brown. i have noticed some small flies about, and read root eating bugs can present as such, but i have a feeling it is something worse.

the cause (best guess), i took a tea bag which had been used to make a strong tea solution a week ago. i forgot the actual ration but i believe there was something like a cup of POM AP 5 5 5, and a cup of WC. after about 5 days of sitting, for SOME reason i decided it might make a good top dress. well after a watering and about 12 hrs, these signs presented.

there is also spots on leaves showing necrosis which made me suspect the pests....

hmph, no more exploring, it is time to back track....

keep it GREEN.

 

[hobosapien]

PS- i see i have an unanswered PM, however my post count is insufficient to allow me access... you know i might spam someone...

apologies for the lack of a response.

keep it green.

 

[hobosapien]

hey all,

i have been making my way through the organic fanatic thread and learning a lot of technique that people around here use. one thing particularly was posted by Suby, i was hoping to elaborate on these ideas:

"Transplanting at the right ime and the right # of times will lead to a rootmass that fills the container, you don't get that at all by planting say a seedling in 2 gallons of soil.
Roots grow out and down, any of you who have transplanted healthy plants have noticed that the greatest concentration of roots in in the bottom of the pot and around the sides leaving most of the middle empty, nothing you can do about this.
What I do is use a clear beercup to root clones or seedling and when I see a fair amount of roots through the cup I tranplant to a 1 gallon container and I use Mike during transplant.

I give that 2 weeks then pop one to check the rootmass, if i see good rooting in the botton I get them in the 2 gallon containers veg those thoroughly for another 2 weeks them I flower in a 5 gallon container again using Mike at transplant."

It seems that the major benefit of a HUGE hydro trend in horticulture, is undoubtedly the speed and ease which roots grow into massive heaps which support VERY vigorous growth. suby has taken it to the soil here. a transplant PLAN, a system which encourages +roots=+buds

i have also read about folks adding clay balls as top layer, slowing transpiration>encouraging root growth in top 2" of soil (uncommon?).
i have been popping my babies lids (bad idea?) to check out those suckers, i notice a very obvious trend, while some have fulfilled the goal more successfully therefore are able to take advantage of feedings, soil biology, and grow more gracefully....

notice: roots are unique? some thick strands bolting outward. Some soft, slow and 'hairy', the feeders. are there any ways to encourage a certain kind of root growth?

how about root trimming. i have heard of it being advantageous in two main instances. 1- bonsai, after a period of 6-8 months. 2- rooted clones at first transplant (tick on SOG).

from seed would it make sense to trim 'tap' root after germination, and before first veg container?

 

[hobosapien]

hey guys!

up date on my little garden: foliar fed with maxicrop seaweed. symptoms seem to subside, no new burnt tips.(crosses fingers)

i have not pinned down the cause however.... i figure it could be a micronutrient def. however i do not have a comprehensive resource on hand....

PLUS!

i have been goiwing back through some of my links from the days i grew oysters (blue and red varieties)... Fungi Perfecti offers several doven species of mycorrhizae spores in 'tab' form, most likely a GREAT addition to a tea brew...

Fungi Perfecti has to say:"
Plant Success™ Tabs for the
Home Gardener & Landscaper
A mixture of 12 species of endo- and ectomycorrhizal fungi, Plant Revolution™ Plant Success™ Tabs are designed to help the gardener or home landscaper promote fast plant and root growth, increase nutrient and water uptake and reduce fertilizer use. Each Plant Success™ Tab consists of millions of spores of the following mycorrhizal species:
Endomycorrhiza
Glomus mosseae
Glomus intraradices
Glomus clarum
Glomus monosporus
Glomus deserticola
Glomus brasilianum
Gigaspora margarita

Ectomycorrhiza
Pisolithus tinctorus
Four species of
Rhizopogon

Exceptionally helpful for those who use commercial potting soils, which are sterilized and therefore devoid of beneficial microorganisms. Available in bottles of 150 tabs.

MGP150 $24.95 Buy
Note: this product cannot be shipped to Hawaii.
Recommended Application Chart



keep it green.

 

[hobosapien]

ok ok, this is my thread and i do believe there is some information being exchanged... so i might take this opportunity to A) get some posts in;B) get to know the folks; and C) introduce you to my garden, eventually maybe even photos.

Currently i have some Mystery mix (various breeder stock mixed up and planted...) veggin @ 18-22days, some Orange Bud seedlings (dp), and Durga mata ala paradise.

i was reading about def. symptoms and came across this:

Manganese (Mn)
Manganese is involved in the oxidation reduction process in the photosynthetic electron transport system. Biochemical research shows that this element plays a structural role in the chloroplast membrane system, and also activates numerous enzymes.
Manganese Deficiency:
Interveinal chlorosis of younger leaves, necrotic lesions and leaf shredding are typical symptom of this deficiency. High levels can cause uneven distribution of chlorophyll resulting in blotchy appearance. Restricted growth and failure to mature normally can also result.
-Mn gets locked out when the pH is too high, and when there's too much iron. Use chelated Mn.
Manganese Toxicity:
Toxicity:Chlorosis, or blotchy leaf tissue due to insufficient chlorophyll synthesis. Growth rate will slow and vigor will decline.

considering the symptom showed at Newest growth, this may fit. it looked as if it was sudden SEVERE nute burn, then kind of lightened up, from dead looking to almost pale yellow.

like i said just foliar fed w. maxicrop seaweed... we'll see.
any suggestions about good manganese products or sources?

Keep it green.

 

[jaykush]

suby has taken it to the soil here. a transplant PLAN, a system which encourages +roots=+buds

nothing wrong with having a plan. transplanting at key moments WILL give a burst in growth if done right. in veg it has a huge effect on final product/yield imo.

trimming roots is a technique for mother plants to keep them small. cutting roots at transplant on a plant you want big buds from will cause shock and lack of fresh growth. defeating the purpose.

 

[Suby]

yea!

plenty of info here to mull over, although unfortunately i have no had much time for leisurely reading. I have been busting nuggets over a sever symptom which is showing in my plants....

Firstly this IS an organic grow, and you know what that means, when you DO (rarely) eff up, it is VERY bad.

the new growth on 2 of 4 is crisp and brown. i have noticed some small flies about, and read root eating bugs can present as such, but i have a feeling it is something worse.

the cause (best guess), i took a tea bag which had been used to make a strong tea solution a week ago. i forgot the actual ration but i believe there was something like a cup of POM AP 5 5 5, and a cup of WC. after about 5 days of sitting, for SOME reason i decided it might make a good top dress. well after a watering and about 12 hrs, these signs presented.

there is also spots on leaves showing necrosis which made me suspect the pests....

hmph, no more exploring, it is time to back track....

keep it GREEN.

It sounds like you might have fungus gnats, I just had a run in with the little fuckers myself.
They have a life cycle that makes it easy to get rid of, they feed on organic material in the soil then the larvae eat the young roots of cutting or seedlings and eating foliage and atacking the stem.
Use neem oil as a foliar and a soil drench then put about 1-2 inched of sand on your existing topsoil, this crushed the eggs and exteminates the cycle.
Neem will make sure any that come back have trouble reproducing as neem is systemic and stays in the leaf tissue.
If you look closely at the leaves you might see little white worms, I mean really tiny but there, they'll be in the soil too.


Keep me posted and I'm glad my previous posts are helping you out,

Suby

 

[Suby]

This is from my friend Stich's sick plant thread...

Fungus Gnats
Fungus gnats like to feed on roots of the plants and organic matter. Adults and larvae live in moist, shady areas. The adults lay there eggs on top of the soil, near the base of the stem and takes about 4 days to hatch. The larvae will start by eating the root hairs of the plant then working their way up the plant, Fungus gnats like to eat organic matter so they will be stealing away nutrients from your plants, so its best to get rid of them completely.

If plants are outdoors, check the soil of plants before taking them back indoors for adult gnats or their larvae.

Prevent indoor entry of gnats by making sure there is no open windows open without screens on. Aug is a bad time for them as they are worst that time of the year.

Put sticky traps on the soil surface to trap the gnats

Put potato slices on the surface of the soil. The larvae like it and will be drawn to it.. After about 4 to 5 days, remove the potato slices with the larvae. To get rid of them you can do a lot of things like either use a NO pest strip, neem oil or putting sand on the surface of the soil will suffocate the eggs and get rid of them as well. Tobacco juice kills them, and works well for re-occurrences!

They can be in or on the soil and can fly. In order to get rid of them you can use neem oil, sand on the surface again kills them, and no pest strips catch the ones that fly. A chemical product called Zone works very well and is very powerful and works well in hydro!
Other Products which can be used in hydro and soil are:
Chemicals
Hot Pepper Wax,Safer Yard & Garden Insecticide (which can be used right to the day of harvest),GNATROL( used in hydro in the water as well as soil),Doc's Neem Pest Soap,Safer Sticky Stakes,TR-11000 Pyrethrum.

S

 

[muddy waters]

Nope Suby, I'm pretty sure it's not fungus gnats. It's a pH problem--the "spotting" is the giveaway. Search "pH spotting" here. Most likely, the sludge that was used as a top-dressing had an extremely acidic pH, and when top-watered, affected the rest of the substrate as well.

Fungus gnats (and I've had them about as bad as you can possibly get them, larvae exploding everywhere by the tens of thousands, eating the tops of my plants not even the roots!) will not cause the new growth of a plant to dry up and go brown. Even a pretty severe fungus gnat LARVAE infestation (after all the gnats themselves eat only decomposing organic matter; it's the larvae that are prone to eating live plant tissue, usually roots) will produce slowed growth, and some minute holes in the newest leaves. I would say it's a near impossibility that fungus gnat larvae themselves could eliminate an entire root system of an adult plant, especially given that they eat living AND dead tissue and there's much more of the latter in an organic soil mix, thus the symptoms are usually pretty moderate.

If the poster was referring to "root aphids" (my very imprecise term for a bug I only encountered after several years of growing), those are a different story, and I have seen them destroy my clones, but again the symptoms are different than necrosis at the growth tips. In my case, growth comes to a stop, petioles become deep red and all leaves progressively yellow and droop. I don't know if the plant can be revived at this point but I wasn't able to. Still have the same fuckers but they don't do much harm to adult plants, just newly rooted clones and seedlings.

Hope this helps.

Without seeing pics I'm still pretty certain the plant is succumbing to severe nutrient lockout which is completely disrupting the production of vital hormones, causing growth shoots to go necrotic.

 

[muddy waters]

I see that I may have been confusing "tips" to mean "growth tips" when it could have meant "leaf tips"... either way it seems like hobosapien is on the right path to correcting the micronute deficiency. If indeed it is Manganese, I may have been wrong about the pH being too acidic, as this chart claims, Mn (along with Fe) becomes limited in soil above 6.5.

 

[Guest]

Hey, Vonforne, could you sticky how you culture your fungi, it sounds like a great, enviromental, cheap growing aide.

 

[Suby]

Hey MW,

Fungus gnats are the first and only critters to have fucked up any of my plants so I am no expert, not by far.
It looked like lockout when the worst of it hit, splochy leaves, I had necrotic white spots on my leaves, the plant was stunted, all small plants though, it killed my mother plant and she had good roots, thank Jah I had these clones.
The leaves go on to grow out twisted and with white patches and it takes awhile to get the growth going again.

I haven't seen his recipe or his plants so I am guessing at best, Hobo give us an update and maybe some pics.

Suby

 

[hobosapien]

hells yea!

ok guys if i get a swimming pool PH meter would i be able to test the run off and get an accurate reading of soil PH?

think is, it might be a double wammy! manganese AND gnats?? there are defanitly little critters....

muddy: i appreciate the info on PH
suby: FF oF soil mix no amendments, feeding between Maxicrop fish/seaweed, and tea!

think the PH coulda thrown the soil leading to plant weakness=GNATS??

pics soon.

 

[hobosapien]

here they are, the most notably affected.
hope these help you help me! = )

keep it green.

 

[muddy waters]

hey Suby, hobosapien...

The pH and bug problems are probably independently caused and mostly unrelated, although either can provoke a general weakness in the plant's immune system. Testing pH and being careful about what goes into the substrate will more than likely take care of the symptoms described earlier.

Suby, in my opinion, fungus gnats are one of the nicer pests to have (compared to mites, thrips, root aphids, ants, etc). I'm very surprised that gnats alone could lead to the death of a full grown plant as I've had gnats for years and years and never seen that. Possible I suppose, but unlikely. I see gnats as more of a nuisance than anything, especially where one is growing inside one's residence, where they can give the house the appearance of uncleanliness.

If they indeed are gnats and gnat larvae (gnats resemble tiny mosquitoes, the larvae look like tiny little white/gray cockroaches and do not fly but scurry over the substrate and around the drainage holes if they are not on the bottom), one remedy that's worked for me is putting a 1-2cm layer of washed construction-grade sand on top of the substrate, and avoiding top-watering (fill the collection plate underneath instead) for about two weeks. This breaks the gnat life cycle but preventing reproduction. There are also beneficial nematodes that one can mail-order in the US, which go into the soil as a drench, and prey on the larvae until none are left.

 

[muddy waters]

Not much to worry about there, hobosapien. Looks like some non-pathogenic rust fungus on one of the leaves that I can see, plus perhaps a little nutrient burn (they are young plants and don't need much fertilization if the substrate already had some).

Your next move should be increasing the container size IMO.