Propagation of store-bought bennies?

[Klompen]

Yes, the plants are very happy and I highly recommend cocoa mulch. It smells great and it works great too. There's just a few things you have to keep in mind with it.

First off, it is really loose at first and fans will even blow it around, but after it is properly watered in, it shouldn't really move at all. It forms a kind of mat. The heavy mycellium you saw in those pictures was only up at the surface because the grow bags are so big that I use them as a platform for my seedling cups. Wherever the cups sit overnight there is a big patch of fluffy white fungus under it every time.

The other thing is that I would never recommend packing it tight against the stem base. I prefer to put a little perlite around the base of the stem and then mulch up to that so there's about a 1/4" gap around the stem base and the mulch. It doesn't need more than that unless your humidity is really high.

I would also recommend some restraint in using this. Its a great product but you don't need to use a lot of it. I am finding best results by using other mulch under it and then using it as a thinner top layer. Its fine to be thick enough to properly obscure the surface of the soil, but anything over 1/2" deep is probably overkill. Just my opinion anyway...

 

[Klompen]

Much like the probiotic industry for humans, it's not what you add to the environment but what the environment will allow to prosper.

Yes, a lot of probiotic business is just fraud, but that isn't to entirely invalidate the concept. Have you ever heard of fecal transplants? Gut microbes definitely can be changed by reseeding the gut with other microbes. What works best for that is not always readily apparent though unfortunately.

What you put in definitely matters a lot, but to some degree I concur with this in some cases. I can definitely tell you that the difference in my plants given worm castings and given manure is night and day, but one fancy bagged fertilizer versus another is often not really that much of a difference.

 

[Mikell]

Ah yes trans-poo-sions. I see you are also well read in the fecal arts.

Not a whole lot of research to back up the growing number of clinics hoping to separate people from their money though. The theory seems logical but unless you change the diet, doritos/slim jims and someone elses droppings probably wont lead to weight loss.

 

[Klompen]

Not to turn this into a crappy thread..... but check out this article. I think Dr. Yu is one of the more down-to-Earth types in that particular field.

https://blogs.webmd.com/webmd-interviews/20160103/testing-a-poop-pill-for-weight-loss-2