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nafex - RE: [NAFEX] Re: Mycorrhizal fungi

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  • From: "baylands" <baylands@cros.net>
  • To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc: RonCRNan73@aol.com, 'karin messner' <comcraft@adelphia.net>
  • Subject: RE: [NAFEX] Re: Mycorrhizal fungi
  • Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 11:42:49 -0500

Hi Everyone,

I have a more complex way of adding mycorrhizal fungi to the rooting area
around my fruit trees. I have a flock of orchard sheep, an old diminutive
English breed of Southdown sheep. They were bred with short legs so that
they cannot get up into the trees and bother the fruit and leaves.

In the winter they are partially confined to the barn. They are bedded on
straw. I mulch my fruit trees with the straw and sheep droppings all winter.
By spring, the straw mulch is molding and provides a fungal mat to the soil.
Also as previously pointed out it adds carbon to the soil as well as the
sheep droppings provide other nutrients. (It is the ideal slow release
fertilizer.)

The main purpose of the orchard sheep is to eat the fruit and leaf drops
throughout the summer and fall. These drops usually are infected by pest or
disease. (That for the most part is why they have dropped from the tree.)
The sheep are very good at eating these drops and thus help to break the
disease and pest cycles.

Since my 350 fruit trees are grown totally organic, it is important to find
natural ways to break the disease and pest cycles. I do take care to keep
the sheep-droppings/straw mulch 5 or 6 inches away from the tree trunk in
order to limit mouse or vol damage. Over a number of years I have not
experienced any difficulties from this practice.

Ro Chapman\The Baylands Farm
Port Clinton, OH 43452-0449

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Djubaya
Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2004 10:40 PM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] Re: Mycorrhizal fungi

Dear All,

I have found a simple trick to adding mycorrhizal fungi to the planting
area... Get a straw bale (or 100*) in the summer and let it sit through
the wet season. Then mulch with it around the tree or planting bed in
the spring. It is the molding straw which will add the fungal mat to the
soil... this gives the roots of any plant a foundation for health and
immunity for the future stability it needs.

Adding 'CARBON' to your system is always going to help in the long term.
Carbon with help tie up nutrients and store them for a slow release in
the future.

*I usually buy straw in the summer when it is cheap and dry. I will use
it through out the summer and fall for seating, walls (stacked) garden
bed sides, tables or anything you can think of. Then after the winter
rains have soaked the bales and they start to rot and grow fungus in
Feb. or March I will use the straw as a top mulch or to plant directly
in with bedding plants or seeds.


Good luck, and thanks for all the good info.

Djubaya

********************************************

http://www.Catchtail.com/

Djubaya@Comcast.net

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete"

-R. Buckminster Fuller

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still
plant my apple tree.

- Martin Luther King Jr., quoting Martin Luther



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