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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Fwd: Mycorrizal "fertilizers"?
  • Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:21:07 -0400

On 3/22/2013 6:15 PM, Alia Tsang wrote:
That's an interesting question. On the one hand, mycorrhizae need plants to
grow, I have a gut feeling in compost tea they'd be out-competed by the
bacteria and fungi that are used to being free-living. On the other hand,
one of the methods I see a lot for experimentally inoculating plants with
mycorrhizae is to mix soil that previously hosted plants colonized by
mycorrhizae with new soil. So maybe if you use the compost tea very quickly
after adding the mycorrhizal inoculant soil you'll still have enough living
mycorrhizae to inoculate plants.

For the best results, you'd want to inoculate the plant before it gets
sick, though. Part of the way mycorrhizae protect against disease is by
coating or surrounding the root so other stuff can't get in. The
mycorrhizae should be introduced to the plant when it's young, so that
other stuff doesn't start living on the root and block the mycorrhizae from
colonizing. Also, mycorrhizae generally colonize the youngest roots. So
just rub some good dirt on the roots when you're planting instead. :)

That's brilliant and seems to explain the mechanisms of infection of otherwise healthy plants by pathogenic microorganisms,
at least the fungal ones.




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