Growing your own Mycorrhizae and recycled mix

Maybe, this little project isn't finished yet, but I'll outline what I've done.

Well over a year ago, I read a short Rodale article where leeks were used to grow mycorrhizae. Mycos need roots to propagate and they love the Allium family (Onions, garlic, shallots, leeks ...). Apparently, they would get a good colony of mycos going on the leek roots, dig them up, cut off most of the roots to inoculate other plants/plots and replant the leeks to grow more.

I grow garlic and shallots anyway, but usually use old mix to grow them in. This time, I decided to use fresh mix and amended with an eye towards the recycle.

My mix is somewhere between LC's #1 and Sub's mix, but not quite as hot. Garlic doesn't like a heavy N anyway. I did go about 2x as heavy with my slow release 'rock' stuff. Like Azomite, rock phosphate, greensand and so on. I also added gypsum, just for the garlic. I mixed a total of 12cf.

With this, I did 17-5 gallon buckets.12 of garlic and 5 of shallots, all planted the end of Oct.,2010. All the bulbs/cloves were dunked in MycoGrow Soluble before planting and everything got a soil drench of the same about a week later.

The garlic was harvested the last week of June,2011. All the buckets were full of fine roots. I left ~3" of roots on the bulbs and left the rest in the mix. I've since put all this in 30 gal trash cans, but have added no amendments or anything to 'recharge' the used mix. There is ~6cf of this. BTW, this used mix looks, feels and smells great! Doesn't seem 'tired' in the least, if that makes any sense. The shallots aren't done yet and haven't been harvested.

This *should* be full of mycos from the roots and plenty of BB from the EWC and so on, but I'm still debating on how to use it. Like use it straight up, after re amending of course, or, mix it 1/2&1/2 with fresh mix? I guess it depends on how much I need, because I'm going to do 2 things. One, I will mix up another fresh batch for this Fall's garlic and shallots. Two, all my old used mix will be going on my gardens. Some of it is 3 years old and time to retire. I'll do this after the first frost kills the veggies that are growing in it now.

What I plan to do for the future is nothing but recycled mix that has had Alliums grown in it for the first cycle. But, with a 8 month+ grow time, this takes a bit of long range planning. LOL

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'm open.

Wet

Very interesting Wet. I like the thinking. Perhaps this is a side note, but have you considered a "no-till" approach? Same recycling concept, but you'd leave the fine fungal system in place and just plop a new plan in the old, undisturbed soil. Then amend with quality compost, ewc and ACT

Sounds real interesting Wet. Did I understand the shallots are still growing from Oct. 2010? I planted some leeks last week in my garden bed but have onions, garlic and shallot to get in the ground still.

No, the shallots are harvested, but I found out the hard way they take longer than the garlic.

The light cycle triggers the bulb formation in the shallots, much more so than the garlic. The garlic was ready to harvest end of June/early July. The shallots seemed to take another month or so. I harvested 2 buckets at the same time as the garlic and they just turned soft and rotted. The bulbs were no where near finished forming. With what was left, I'm just hoping for seed stock and I'll know better next year not to harvest early.

It's a real learning curve with these things, even though it's said they are the easiest to grow. Perhaps if you forget about them. I had a couple of 'Dutch' shallots that are supposed to be planted as soon as the ground can be worked and harvested in late summer/fall. They came out so so. However, I totally missed 3 of them and they overwintered, popped up again in the spring and were harvested in early Aug. They came out great! Big and firm, what they were supposed to be. I'm going to replant these this fall and watch what happens.

The old saw for garlic is "Plant on Halloween, harvest on the 4th of July". That planting time works for shallots, but not the harvest.

Wet

Thanks Wet. I'm trying a winter garden this year And I'm thinking I won't have to fight the squirrels for the onions and garlic.

So any news on the Mycorrhizae growth?

Just ancedotal. I was planting seeds in party cups for a cubing thing I've got going and I had 2 seeds left over. Not to waste them I just pulled a handful of mix from a bucket I had harvested shallots from, but hadn't put in the big can yet, dropped the 2 seeds and replaced the handful of mix.

Anyway, at the end of 2-3 weeks the 2 in the bucket were easily 5x the size of the ones in the party cups, and sitting there one afternoon having a beer, it dawned on me that was my 'myco mix' that those 2 were planted in.

I won't say for sure, because the ones in the party cups were in a mix that didn't turn out real well. I had combined EWC and Mushroom compost and the mix was very heavy and dense.

It wasn't done as an experiment, but the differences in growth were amazing.

Wet

Thats interesting Wet.

you could give it a boost with neptune fish fertilizer and water added to your compost.

Da bump

Wet

Very interesting. Learning curve is right lol
I think I`m a way off from this right now but I do want to make a veggie garden this next year in raised beds
and eventually I want to try this as well. Anyway glad to know someone is already working on it.

I find all this very fascinating...

But, I keep hearing that these fungi need roots to live on or whatnot, but my personal experience somewhat contradicts this.

(It is entirely possible that I dont know what I am talking about, or some other factors are at work here)

This year, in my outdoor garden, I mixed in a product from Fungi Perfecti, called MycoGrow for vegetables.

Throughout this summer, I have been continuously top dressing my plants with home made compost, leaf mold and some peat moss I bought.

And at this point, my raised beds are completely colonized with mycelium. The beds literally are like an ancient forest floor (you know that spongy soil carpet I'm talking about)

Ill top dress half an inch or so of leaf mold, and a week later, its part of the mycelium mat.

I cannot even dig around 1 inch in my soil without busting up this tiny white network of strings.

Its even colonizing the cedar wood my raised beds are made of...


So, I guess my question is, is this what others have experianced with endomycorrhizal fungi?

Or is this something different...(possibly native fungi from the nearby forest?)

Regardless, it seems like leaf mold/peat may be a good medium to cultivate these creatures.

Rising Moon said:

So, I guess my question is, is this what others have experianced with endomycorrhizal fungi?

Or is this something different...(possibly native fungi from the nearby forest?)

Regardless, it seems like leaf mold/peat may be a good medium to cultivate these creatures.

Click to expand...

Not exactly, it is probably native fungi from the nearby forest. But Myco's get spread exactly the same way (spores in the air), so who knows?

It doesn't really matter, if you have a good mycellium mat your soil has it going on. That's a very good thing. Very healthy.

Big +1 on the leaf mold and peat.

Wet

heres some funguy hanging out with a seedling as you can see fungi is a fun guy



heres some bad shit going on in some soil just sitting off the side empty


4week old clones about a ft tall from the soil.

Hmmm interesting. How would you go about actually measuring the colony?

TheFink