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Re: [compost_tea] Re: Mycorrhiza



When you read something that says mycorrhizal fungi didn't work, or if you read that compost tea didn't work, you have to start being a detective.

Why didn't it work?

Often it takes very little besides reading the paper a touch more closely to figure it out.  With compost tea, they didn't say anything about aerating to get rid  of the chlorine in their water.  Ho,ho.  

Or they mention that the water has a pH of 8.5 - yep, they didn't make compost tea.  How dare they say that compost tea doesn't work?  The problem is that they don't know how to make compost tea.

Same with mycorrhizal fungi.  If you don't apply the spores into the root vicintiy, especially on trees, how can you expect the spores to work?  

If you apply the VAM spores as a drench to the soil surface, will the spores get to the roots?  No.  They hang up on the organic matter.

If you apply ectomycorrhizal fungi to your strawberries, going to do any good?  Nope.  Wrong kind of mycorrhizal fungi.

There are a couple papers that VAM fungi killed tomato plants, and I'll give you that this can happen if you overload the seedlings with too many spores.  A Goldilocks situation.

So, when you read something negative, check out what they actually did.  Be a detective, and figure out why the bioilogy didn't do what we think it's supposed to be doing.  It isn't the biology that is wrong, it's our expectations.  

Learn the lesson, so you can always get the biology to do what you want it to do.  There are limits, and we need to learn them.  

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
Corvallis, OR
Port Jefferson, NY
Lismore, NSW, Australia
Hilversum, The Netherlands
www.soilfoodweb.com

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