4 ms·
Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success
- Aboutplants 6mo agoI grow rare cactus and succulents and after experimenting with Mycorrhizal inoculants I’m completely blown away with results I’ve seen. Even with soil that dries out completely between water (for extended periods of time) they still work their magic wonderfully and I see wonderful growth and survival with the roots showing the fungi growth as shown and described in this article.
- isoprophlex 6mo agoWhere do you get your inoculants / which do you get? I'm a mere dabbler in growing cactuses, but very curious to hear what worked for you
- My_Name 6mo agoThe RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) sells little packets of mycorrhizal powder that you can put into your garden if you feel it is lacking beneficial fungi. Another more natural route is to bury a kilo of cooked white rice near a very healthy tree, where the soil is soft and 'healthy' then retrieve it after a week. It will be mouldy, but with the right type of mould. Mix that into compost, grow tomatoes in that compost, then when they are finished, chop up their roots, mix it into the compost again, add fresh compost from your compost bin to make seed compost. Mix that seed compost into whatever you want to 'infect'. Some people grow just the fungus using sprouted barley and add the mouldy sprouted barley to their compost.
- Aboutplants 6mo agoAn old gardeners trick when planting a tree is to go into a forest and grab a few shovel fulls of “forest floor dirt” and add that to the hole you dug for the tree. This provides that good fungi to help the roots establish. Same idea, though the practice is centuries old. Someday we will learn the lessons of our ancestors
- Aboutplants 6mo agoI currently use a product called MYCO+ but I’m always looking for potential other options. From what I’ve read and researched Glomus and Trichoderma strains are the most beneficial and found to populate within cactus and succulents environments. Contrary to some opinion/online advice , the bacteria can remain healthy even in a dry environment for extended periods of time. Also, if your interested in growing welwitschia mirabilis (a prized collectors plant) I have found it to be astoundingly helpful in helping them thrive (don’t ever let these plants dry out though).
- flenserboy 6mo agoI have added spores to my garden for a few years, & the results have been excellent. Not only have the plants thrived, the network spread through the lawn to a further extent every year, & the grass in that zone looks much healthier than the rest of the lawn. Mostly I sprinkle a bit in with each seed or row — it does the work from that point on. Trees have shown the same pattern — we had a large, older tree go down, one which had quite a bit of fungus growing around it, & the trees planted near the old site did well while new trees on the other side of the yard did not, even with significant, regular watering.
- Aurornis 6mo agoDo you mind sharing which product you use? Every time I look into this I have a hard time telling which products contain useful amounts of good strains.
- flenserboy 6mo agoNo problem! Myco Bliss has worked well for me.
- willio58 6mo agofwiw I got one of the first products listed on amazon when you search mycorrhizal fungi and I'm seeing the same effects stated by the grandparent comment
- My_Name 6mo agoThe RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) sells little packets of mycorrhizal powder that you can put into your garden if you feel it is lacking beneficial fungi. Another more natural route is to bury a kilo of cooked white rice near a very healthy tree, where the soil is soft and 'healthy' then retrieve it after a week. It will be mouldy, but with the right type of mould. Mix that into compost, grow tomatoes in that compost, then when they are finished, chop up their roots, mix it into the compost again, add fresh compost from your compost bin to make seed compost. Mix that seed compost into whatever you want to 'infect'. Some people grow just the fungus using sprouted barley and add the mouldy sprouted barley to their compost.
- emschwartz 6mo agoIf you haven’t read Entangled Life: How Fungi Shape Our World, I can’t recommend it enough. https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/entangled-life https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/entangled-life
- culi 6mo agoAs someone who's read a lot of pop sci on this topic as well as published research I went into this book expecting the tropes I've become very familiar with. Merlin Sheldrake actually brought some refreshing and unique takes and I walked away actually learning some new things. It's become my goto introductory book to get people interested in the world of fungi
- alwa 6mo agoCouldn’t agree more. And for what it’s worth, its aptly-named author Merlin Sheldrake is an absolutely charming human too. As quirky iconoclastic woodland enthusiasts go. For a taste, Joanna Steinhardt for the LA Review: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-mycophiles-plea-on-merlin-sheldrakes-entangled-life/ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-mycophiles-plea-on-m... I suspect some folks here might also appreciate his early-career (2011) musical collaboration with brother Cosmo Sheldrake and friends, as the Gentle Mystics: https://gentlemystics.bandcamp.com/album/gentle-mystics https://gentlemystics.bandcamp.com/album/gentle-mystics
- quantumink 6mo agoCosmo is his brother, wow! (have deeply adored his solo work since discovering it last year) Aaah, it all connects - a web within a web indeed... I have got some weekend reading and listening to get to now - thank you all kindly. As a contribution wanted to mention Paul Stamets and his works - it's all somehow about fungi (and bees sometimes!), and all deeply fascinating
- therobots927 6mo agoSounds like communism to me.
- canadiantim 6mo agoIt's more like the free market, but with all of the market failures, parasites and bad actors that implies too
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- culi 6mo agoI wouldn't say that. There's plenty of behaviors where plants and fungi act in the interest of the community as a whole. Mature forests are made of late-successional species. These species could only possibly grow after earlier succession species had "prepped the soil" (nurtured the soil ecology, transitioned the nitrogen cycle from ammonia to nitrates, etc) and provided shade to allow them to grow. Since these trees are dependent on the well being of so many other species there is plenty of incentive for them to act in ways that we might call "selfless"
- anonymous_sorry 6mo agoI think it would be be more illuminating to call it "enlightened self-interest".
- therobots927 6mo agoWhich is a far cry away from the “free market” we see in the west. Wild how I got downvoted for stating a pretty obvious fact. Long term planning and self sacrifice in the interest of long term community benefit which transfers to one’s future self / progeny is actually very similar to communism. Fuck me I guess
- culi 6mo agoAh yes, the old "rule utilitarianism collapses into act utilitarianism" I don't completely agree but it's a better position that what's currently dominant
- 8eye 6mo agoI like how Ohio state university created a shiitake mushroom memristor. Fungi are fascinating
- DivingForGold 6mo agoAlthough mycorrhizal fungi have their place in plant ecosystems, in commercial horticultural production their benefit is typically outweighed by fertilizers, which result in considerably faster growth and crop cycles. We have trialed and encountered significant results with other "natural" products, such as harpin proteins for ~20% increased plant growth, entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana for insect pest control, and Prestop (Lalstop G46) Gliocladium catenulatum (Strain J1446) for preventing pathogenic root fungus. Note that fertilizer applications are not synergistic with mycorrhizal fungi, fertilizer applications typically prevent the benefits of mycorrhizal fungi, plants no longer need to rely on mycorrhizal fungi for nutrients. I have noticed an "explosion" of fertilizer and supposedly growth enhancing products touting their microbial benefits with labels that show long lists of various beneficial microorganisms, but it's mostly just marketing hype.
- jnmandal 6mo agoIt is extremely early days for these offerings. Synthetic ferts are a relatively mature technique and the related product offerings (which are now effectively commoditized) had state-subsidized R&D for several decades. Mycorrhizal inputs have had a hundredth of the R&D and only been used commercially for a few years at best. Its not really a fair comparison. This is like comparing PDAs to desktop computers in 1991, and surmising that mobile devices are just marketing hype.
- goda90 6mo agoRegenerative agriculture advocates would argue that cultivating a permanent mycorrhizal fungi ecosystem in fields will lead to longer term yields and few if any inputs in the end. Adding a fungal product into a system that wasn't already conducive to natural growth seems like a recipe for minimal benefit. For anyone not familiar, look up Gabe Brown's talks on growing soil.
- ch4s3 6mo ago> would argue that cultivating a permanent mycorrhizal fungi ecosystem in fields will lead to longer term yields and few if any inputs in the end They should show up with data. My other concern is that regenerative farming advocates always seem to leave out labor inputs.
- My_Name 6mo agoFor my work, I spent roughly a year studying the mechanism of roots, on and off. The different routes for nutrient and water uptake, transport, the different types of fungus, the differing ways plants interact with those fungi. And, of course, this is without going into the nematodes and how the plant attracts specific species by emitting tailored carbohydrate packets to both attract the nematodes and feed fungal growth right at the root surface. The very last piece is the ions put out by the roots to electrically attract specific elements, like potassium, nitrogen etc. It takes hardly any artificial fertiliser (10g per sq meter) to eliminate beneficial fungus from the soil, at which point you are basically running an open air hydro system and have to artificially add nutrients and adjust pH. It takes upwards of 3-5 years to start getting proper results from organic farming methods when switching back and basically involves adding years of organic material to kickstart the organic cycle. It is totally possible to get comparable results to fertiliser based farming when farming organically, you just need to focus on 'growing' the soil, not just providing nutrient to the plants. In my opinion the former is farming, the latter is hydroponic production. Both have their benefits, it's just that one leaves behind barren soil and the other enriches the soil and is part of a natural cycle that leaves the soil exceptionally fertile. The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) sells little packets of mycorrhizal powder that you can put into your garden if you feel it is lacking beneficial fungi. Another more natural route is to bury a kilo of cooked white rice near a very healthy tree, where the soil is soft and 'healthy' then retrieve it after a week. It will be mouldy, but with the right type of mould. Mix that into compost, grow tomatoes in that compost, then when they are finished, chop up their roots, mix it into the compost again, add fresh compost from your compost bin to make seed compost. Mix that seed compost into whatever you want to 'infect'. Some people grow just the fungus using sprouted barley and add the mouldy sprouted barley to their compost.
- hnmullany 6mo agoOrganic grown food is more nutritious and I'm glad we have a significant percentage of farms who have gone organic, but the yield gap is very well documented. Organic fertilizers release nutrients slowly and unpredictably and can't match artificial nitrogen for plant uptake. E.g. a 25% average yield penalty in this meta-analysis: Alvarez, R. (2022) ‘Comparing Productivity of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems: A Quantitative Review’, Archives of Agronomy and Soil Science, 68(14), pp. 1947–1958. doi: 10.1080/03650340.2021.1946040. I studied the productivity benefits of adding beneficial fungi as part of my master's thesis. On average they provide a yield benefit, but it's not ubiquitous and they're far more likely to work in arid and semi-arid soils that have poor microbial diversity in their baseline. They don't tend to be as effective in temperate soils - partly because they have to compete with existing soil microbes.
- aaron695 6mo ago[dead]
- nickserv 6mo agoFairly old news at this point. A bit more difficult is growing edible mushrooms along with the plants, for example Boletus edulis, which are symbiotic with oaks and other trees. The difficulty lies in the waiting period, it can easily take years before any fruiting bodies appear.
- tastyfreeze 6mo agoThis topic is endlessly fascinating. Facilitating interactions between fungi, bacteria and plant roots in the root zone is my goal as a gardener. All I have to do is feed the soil properly to maintain a general balance between fungi and bacteria and the plants will thrive. Mycorrhizae physically join with plant roots and make a partnership. Bacteria are both fed by and consumed by plants. The whole soil ecosystem continually builds nitrogen and carbon in the soil. I live in a rain forest. Every winter washes the soil clean of the majority of nitrogen that was built up the previous summer. To keep a raised bed alive I have to amend with bulk compost in the fall and spring. Without the fall amendment the soil starves and the spring amendment is less effective. That was until I added biochar(innoculated charcoal) to my beds. The charcoal prevents nutrients from being washed out of the soil when there are no plants replenishing it. In beds amended with biochar I get higher production and lower inputs. Biochar can help reduce inputs on chemical farms too. But, the combination of healthy living soil and biochar, for me, makes gardening easy. I am more concerned with whether a plant has enough sun than anything else these days.