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Springfield, Missouri

I thought a new thread was necessary in order to avoid hijacking the thread below:

I was reading over the post about fungicides and Mycorrhiza and I followed the first link to the resource page and the "Effects Of Tricoderma on Mycorrhiza" article caught my eye because I just bought Biogrow Endo Plus from Holland's Giants which contains 4 strains of Mycorrhiza and 2 strains of Triconderma.
This is what the link took me to, this is the full article so nothing is taken out of context.
http://www.gardenresource.info/category/mycorrhiza/

"We do not use a pre bagged blend of Mycorrhizae and Trichoderma for the following reasons:
If you Google Mycorrhiza, effects of trichoderma, you will have a number of papers come up with the same conclusion.
There doesn’t appear to be any problem in the soil when Mycorrhiza is used to colonize roots and trichoderma such as BioWork’s Rootshield is used for pathogen suppression.
RootShield spores are alive and Granules become active in temperatures above 50, When you have a mixture of the two, Tricoderma and Mycorrhiza with no other food source, the trichoderma will feed on mycorrhizal spores if it does not have a food source available.
Putting trichoderma and Mycorrhiza into the same bag would be like putting snakes and baby bunnies in the same cage."

5/18/2011 2:48:09 AM

Springfield, Missouri

I took a mycology class this year and this article didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me so I did do some research. This link below confirmed what I had learned in class. The second link illustrates it and may be slightly easier for some to read due to less jargon.
http://www.fungi4schools.org/Reprints/Mycologist_articles/Isaac_answers/v12pp091-092germination.pdf
http://www.fungionline.org.uk/2spores/3germination.html

A pretty basic summary is that spores are very close to seeds, both are in low metabolic states/dormant, both may have inhibitory chemicals that have to be diluted and washed away via cyclic rinsing with water, others may need cold temperatures to break down these inhibitory chemicals, proper temperature needs to be provided, moisture must be available and newly germinated spores are very vulnerable to desiccation. The difference is most spores don’t have a huge amount of stored energy (carbohydrates) so newly germinated spores have to have simple carbs (sugars) and simple proteins (amino acids) in a close proximity to survive.
The articles source was pasted directly below it. The source said that the Mycorrhizae and Trichoderma “were studied in vitro and in greenhouse experiments” In these experiments “volatile substances produced by all T. pseudokoningii strains inhibited the spore germination of G. mosseae” Both strains were exposed to moisture and heat via agar or soil. I think the article was written with credible info, the info was just slightly misinterpreted, yes the spores become active above 50 degrees, but only if other factors such as moisture are at correct levels too. Just like a pumpkin seed can be kept in a 85 degree chamber but if it has no water it cant grow.

5/18/2011 2:49:31 AM

Springfield, Missouri

My conclusion is if you keep the two fungi in the same bag as long as it stays dry and cool spores wont sprout and there shouldn’t be a problem with Trichoderma eating the Mycorrhizae. If moisture is introduced into the bag and the fungi germinate both will die anyway from desiccation. When planting drench with amino acids and molasses and you should be just fine, if you want to do compost tea it would probably be just as good (micro-organisms would be food source). When the fungi do start to inhabit the root system, the roots themselves will supply the fungi with sugar so molasses isn’t as necessary, but hey if you want to boost bacteria and fungi populations go for it, just remember you are feeding what is there. If you have a higher population of bad fungi and bacteria you will be feeding them; so the trick is to get the good stuff established as early as you can.

5/18/2011 2:49:40 AM

Springfield, Missouri

I hope some of this info helps people understand fungi better; as well as the reasons behind using amino acids, molasses, and the relationships between different organisms.

I know many people have bought products from both stores. Biogrow Endo Plus and Symbios Pumpkin Pro have both produced giant pumpkins. Those of you who have used Biogrow do you guys think that mixing the two fungi make a difference or not? If there is info out there that contradicts what I have wrote let me know, I did about 15 min of research along with some stuff I already knew. Just wanted to share this with you guys can get the most out of your fungi!

Logan

5/18/2011 2:50:24 AM

Little-TON - Colorado

Good Work....Logan......This one ought to be interesting........

5/18/2011 2:47:22 PM

Springfield, Missouri

Tom P. is a great guy as many of you know, and provides all of us with an invaluable service. My goal was not to discredit him in anyway, but instead to help everyone else understand how some of these new products work that we are using more and more each year. The reasoning for using the article I did was to weed out some misconceptions that there were, all of which were based on factual information. With all of the new studies written about allot of stuff we are starting to use it is easy to misinterpret information, especially when they are written in scientific format which is not always easy to read and contains vast amounts of jargon and technical terms; this is what the article was just a simple misinterpretation to a scientific journal which was bound to happen. Like I said just trying to help people get the most out of there fungi by providing them info, I did talk to Tom and we both realized that the other is just trying to help the community out in their own way.

All the best and sorry for some misunderstandings,
Logan

5/19/2011 10:26:21 AM

Www.extremepumpkinstore.com

Logan,
Thanks for clearing up so misunderstandings with the article.
I appreciate the post.
Tom

5/19/2011 9:28:00 PM