Mycorrhizal Fungi

[crunch1224]

Last year I didn't use any, other than what was already in my organic fertilizer. This year I'm using Mykos Pure Mycorrhizal Inoculant Organic Root Enhancer.

I have used other brands and have seen this one for awhile now and I guess I just caved in and decided to try it out. The organic fertilizers I'm using has micorrhizae in it already, but I think it could use a bit more.

[MissS]

I use myco's. This one has intrigued me because it is the only mycorrhizal product that only contains one species. It is an endomycorrhizal species, which I like best but it is solely made up of Glomus intraradices. Let me know how this does for you. It is one that gets great reviews.

[crunch1224]

I use myco's. This one has intrigued me because it is the only mycorrhizal product that only contains one species. It is an endomycorrhizal species, which I like best but it is solely made up of Glomus intraradices. Let me know how this does for you. It is one that gets great reviews.

Yes that's what caught my attention also. They say that with only one species of myco there is no competition, no other species basically getting in the way. Also they say that the particular mycho they chose covers 97% of plant species. I examine my plants roots at the end of the season pretty well. So I basically have a mental note of seasons past, and can gauge just how well I did or didn't do with root development, diseases, ect. I think I will have a good idea of just how well this new brand works out.

There is definitely a direct correlation to over all plant health and vigor to root development. I think people tend to forget about the roots and wonder why their plants have problems later on. They tend to chase symptoms and use band-aid fixes over and over again. I have pulled indeterminate tomato plants up at the end of the season at friends gardens just to see a tiny root balls. It took almost no effort at all to unroot the plants. Now I will say this they used synthetic fertilizers, no compost, no mulch, just water and MG fert. So bare minimum care was used, also I think they have been doing that for years in the same spot. I would imagine the soil microbes ect are almost nil in that soil. I have got into discussions with them about it in years past, but some people are just set in their ways is all I have to say.

[MissS]

I am using Great White mycorrhiza on my seedlings because it contains Trichoderma harzianumum which is said to suppress damping off disease.

image.png

Once my seedlings are being planted out I am switching them over to VAM by Bioag. This contains just Endo mycorrhiza.

image.png

Since using myco's the roots on my seedlings are always strong and robust. I haven't had any issues with damping off since I started. I have not lost a single seedling since using them unless it was by my own clumsy hands. I have no intention of trying to grow tomatoes without them. My crops have been great.

[crunch1224]

I have used great white and it worked really well for me. I didn't know about it helping with dampening off problems, that's pretty interesting. I was thinking of trying out Myco Bliss, but changed my mind at the last minute. It has 1000 ppg , but has 5 different mychos at 200 ppg, so in total its 1000 ppg. The extreme mykos is 300 ppg for one mychos, Glomus intraradices. So I was kinda torn between the two.

There are so many microbial products out there now its kinda nuts.

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

I've used MycoGrow from Fungi Perfecti for years. I mix it with water and add it my Fox Farms Light Warrior when seeding. I also do a root dip with it, BiotaMax and Actinovate when I plant out and normally add a bit of the root dip to the planting hole as well.

When I started using, there were less options. Now there are so many, it's hard to know what is good and what isn't.

[crunch1224]

I've used MycoGrow from Fungi Perfecti for years. I mix it with water and add it my Fox Farms Light Warrior when seeding. I also do a root dip with it, BiotaMax and Actinovate when I plant out and normally add a bit of the root dip to the planting hole as well.

When I started using, there were less options. Now there are so many, it's hard to know what is good and what isn't.

I think Plant Revolution's Great White would cover what you are doing with the MycoGrow and Biotamax. Your MycoGrow has around 203 ppm in total of endo mychos.

Endomycorrhizal Fungi: (92,000 prop/lb Total) Glomus intraradices, G. mosseae, G. aggregatum, G. etunicatum (34 prop/g each) Glomus deserticola, G. monosporum, G. clarum, Paraglomus brasilianum and Gigaspora margarita (13 prop/g each)

So only 34 ppg of Glomus intraradices, which is the most universal plant mycho.

[bower]

Cool thing I read about endomycos, they can be passed on through the seeds, afaik.

The only myco products I have used are seed starting/potting mix. I am definitely impressed with them, compared to untreated seed starting mixes, even my own mix with a commercial compost. I have read about Trichoderma harzanium and that it is widely adapted and commonly found in organic composts all over the world. So I wondered if buying it would be redundant, as long as you grow organically and make compost.
I also thought to encourage T. harzanium in the compost by making sure there's some material with chitin available (besides whatever micro fungi are there) - mushrooms, shrimp tails, crab shells and so on. IDK if that works or not, but I do put those materials in the compost whenever available. Shrimp tails are broken down completely and no shred of it can be found, so something is breaking it down pretty quickly.
I do know that crab/shrimp shell has been marketed as an effective soil amendment for potato scab. I wondered if the mycos encouraged by that might play a part in resisting the disease. It makes sense they would multiply if chitin is abundant.

After a couple of bad years for Alternaria, and discovering by reading that the spores are basically everywhere including indoor air, and in the dirt, I'm thinking that adding commercial myco products may be worthwhile just to flood the space with beneficials that outnumber pest species.
I'm never short of tomato roots, because I use bone meal - but I'm not sure whether high availability of P may also discourage the mycos which provide P as a service where it's less available. This is the kind of thing I've read about, that higher fertilizer can discourage mycos by reducing their importance to the plant. But again, IDK, no lab setup to examine for those effects.

Anyway it is an interesting topic and thanks for sharing your experiences, I always want to learn more about this.

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

I think Plant Revolution's Great White would cover what you are doing with the MycoGrow and Biotamax. Your MycoGrow has around 203 ppm in total of endo mychos.

Thanks! I do have Great White. I used it the last few years as we planted evergreens to replace deciduous trees that were being taken down. I was very pleased with it.

How do the products compare to the product that OP posted?

[MissS]

I think Plant Revolution's Great White would cover what you are doing with the MycoGrow and Biotamax. Your MycoGrow has around 203 ppm in total of endo mychos.

Thanks! I do have Great White. I used it the last few years as we planted evergreens to replace deciduous trees that were being taken down. I was very pleased with it.

How do the products compare to the product that OP posted?

MycoGrow was my product of choice until they stopped offering it this year. It was great stuff and quite affordable too. Now there are so many Myco products out there that you really have to study up on what to use.

@CrazyAboutOrchids When applying Myco's to trees and shrubs you want to use a product that contains the Ectomycorrhizal fungi as they are the species that adhere to woody roots. This makes characteristic makes Ectomycorrhizal Fungi are rather useless in a vegetable garden. Many products do contain both species and MycoGrow's brown package did.

Actinovate is a bacterial product which also colonizes on roots and suppresses many fungal diseases. It's used as a foliar spray as well as a drench. This too can be used against damping off disease but it's much more costly.

[crunch1224]

Cool thing I read about endomycos, they can be passed on through the seeds, afaik.

The only myco products I have used are seed starting/potting mix. I am definitely impressed with them, compared to untreated seed starting mixes, even my own mix with a commercial compost. I have read about Trichoderma harzanium and that it is widely adapted and commonly found in organic composts all over the world. So I wondered if buying it would be redundant, as long as you grow organically and make compost.
I also thought to encourage T. harzanium in the compost by making sure there's some material with chitin available (besides whatever micro fungi are there) - mushrooms, shrimp tails, crab shells and so on. IDK if that works or not, but I do put those materials in the compost whenever available. Shrimp tails are broken down completely and no shred of it can be found, so something is breaking it down pretty quickly.
I do know that crab/shrimp shell has been marketed as an effective soil amendment for potato scab. I wondered if the mycos encouraged by that might play a part in resisting the disease. It makes sense they would multiply if chitin is abundant.

After a couple of bad years for Alternaria, and discovering by reading that the spores are basically everywhere including indoor air, and in the dirt, I'm thinking that adding commercial myco products may be worthwhile just to flood the space with beneficials that outnumber pest species.
I'm never short of tomato roots, because I use bone meal - but I'm not sure whether high availability of P may also discourage the mycos which provide P as a service where it's less available. This is the kind of thing I've read about, that higher fertilizer can discourage mycos by reducing their importance to the plant. But again, IDK, no lab setup to examine for those effects.

Anyway it is an interesting topic and thanks for sharing your experiences, I always want to learn more about this.

To answer "I use bone meal - but I'm not sure whether high availability of P may also discourage the mycos which provide P as a service where it's less available"

I wouldn't worry about bone meal because of how slow it takes to be broken down. From what I understand you are supposed to wait 30 days after you used your mychos, to add a fast acting P. This will alow the mychos to multiply and get stronger. Bone meal isn't fast at all hehe.

To answer " I'm thinking that adding commercial myco products may be worthwhile just to flood the space with beneficials that outnumber pest species."

I totally agree. There is only so much food for the mychos to go around, so flooding with good bacteria and mychos will but the hurt on anything bad trying to multiply.

"Cool thing I read about endomycos, they can be passed on through the seeds, afaik."

Wow that is amazing. The endo do get into the cells, but for some reason I always thought the seed would filter them out like it does with diseases.

[crunch1224]

I think Plant Revolution's Great White would cover what you are doing with the MycoGrow and Biotamax. Your MycoGrow has around 203 ppm in total of endo mychos.

Thanks! I do have Great White. I used it the last few years as we planted evergreens to replace deciduous trees that were being taken down. I was very pleased with it.

How do the products compare to the product that OP posted?

The product that I posted is Xtreme Gardening HGC721205 Mykos Pure Mycorrhizal Inoculant. Which has only 1 type of Mycho, Glomus intraradices 300 ppg. Which is good for plants.

MycoGrow has 19 mychos. 9 endo and 11 ecto, which is good for plants and trees. The ppg of Glomus intraradices is 34.

So the difference is extreme mykos is for plants, while mycogrow is for both plants and woody roots.
Extreme mykos has a much higher dose of Glomus intraradices than mycogrow.
Mycogrow is a good product and covers a lot of bases at a much lower ppg, where as Extreme Mykos kind of specialized at one thing (plants) and 1 mycho, Glomus intraradices, and is using a massive amount of it ppg wise. So they both are using a different strategy. Its hard to tell which strategy is best. I am using Extreme Mykos for the first time this year, so I guess I will find out later if it's a good product hehe.

Now as far as Great White goes, it's a fantastic product. I have used it for years. Great white uses about 83 ppg on their main endos. Here is a break down of Great White.

Endomycorrhiza
Glomus aggregatum – 83 props per gram
Glomus intraradices – 83 props per gram
Glomus mosseae – 83 props per gram
Glomus etunicatum – 83 props per gram
Glomus clarum – 11 props per gram
Glomus monosporum – 11 props per gram
Paraglomus brazilianum – 11 props per gram
Glomus deserticola – 11 props per gram
Gigaspora margarita – 11 props per gram

Ectomycorrhiza
Pisolithus tinctorious – 187,875 propagules per gram
Rhizopogon luteolus – 5,219 props per gram
Rhizopogon fulvigleba – 5,219 props per gram
Rhizopogon villosullus – 5,219 props per gram
Rhizopogon amylopogon – 5,219 props per gram
Scleroderma citrinum – 5,219 props per gram
Scleroderma cepa – 5,219 props per gram

Bacteria
Azotobacter chroococcum – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Bacillus subtilis – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Bacillus licheniformis – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Bacillus azotoformans – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Bacillus megaterium – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Bacillus coagulans – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Bacillus pumilus – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Bacillus amyloliquefaciens – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Paenibacillus durum – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Paenibacillus polymyxa – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Pseudomonas aureofaciens – 525,000 CFU’s per gram
Pseudomonas fluorescens – 525,000 CFU’s per gram

Contains the following 3 species
Trichoderma koningii-187,875 CFU’s per gram
Trichoderma harzianum-125,250 CFU’s per gram
Saccharomyces cerevisiae – 525,000 CFU’s per gram

[wxcrawler]

I, too, had been using MycoGrow until it became unavailable. I have tried Great White in the past, and will be using that this year. I'm interested to hear about your results from the Extreme Mykos after the season.

Lee

[bower]

Cool thing I read about endomycos, they can be passed on through the seeds, afaik.

"Cool thing I read about endomycos, they can be passed on through the seeds, afaik."

Wow that is amazing. The endo do get into the cells, but for some reason I always thought the seed would filter them out like it does with diseases.

This might not be the case after all. At least, I couldn't find any reference with a quick google.
This was discussed on another forum and the claim was certainly made, that endo's were present in seeds of corn, iirc.
When I get time, I'll go have a look if I can find that discussion and link it back here, if the science is there to support the claim.

[MissS]

There are two MycoGrow products and the species are different for each of them. The one referred to above is their brown package of Endo and Ecto mycorrihiza. This one was good for all of your gardens.

Then there was also a MycoGrow for vegetables which was all Endomycorrhizal species and contained 4 species: (130,000 Propagules per lb Total)
Glomus intraradices, Glomus aggregatum, Glomus mosseae, Glomus etunicatum (71.7 propagules/g each).

One nice thing in Great White's favor is that it also includes some Bacillus which also colonizes the roots and helps to ward off disease.

I do wish that they would bring back the MycoGrow products. They gave a bang for the buck, were highly effective and quite affordable. However, I am looking forward to trying these new products and can't wait to hear everyone's reviews.

[Stitchingmom]

I bought Myco Bliss last year, but only at the end of the year. I added a bit to my tomatoes, but I admit, I'm a bit foggy on the whole process. Have to read up this year. When is the best point to add? Final up potting?

[MissS]

I bought Myco Bliss last year, but only at the end of the year. I added a bit to my tomatoes, but I admit, I'm a bit foggy on the whole process. Have to read up this year. When is the best point to add? Final up potting?

Myco Bliss is made of 5 different Ectomycorrhiza. I would like to hear your results. They ought to be beneficial for your plants. Perhaps do a control group where you use none against those that were treated.

I add Mycos every time that the plants are planted. I add them when they get separated into their own pots, again if I up-pot and then when they go into the garden. I either make a solution of mycos and water and then dip the root ball into the water or I unpot the plant and tap the roots into the powder/granules to cover the bottom and then plant them accordingly.

[bower]

@crunch1224 I was able to find that previous discussion and yes, there is science to confirm "vertical transmission" of some endophytes at least through the seeds. Only a fraction of the community of endophytes is found in seeds, compared to larger numbers in roots and also shoots. I didn't reread these linked articles entirely, but didn't find Glomus species mentioned as seedborne, so maybe not the Glomus. Some Trichodermas and Pichia were confirmed seedborne.
Couple of good reads about the endophytes:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 21.1945699
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-38230-x

[Mark_Thompson]

Has anyone done a solid side by side with and without the mycos added? I’ve been using it too, MycoBliss before and another brand I forget, but like most I just use it on all plants. Anyone try a control group?

[MissS]

@Mark_Thompson Yes. Dutch from Tomatoville did a very interesting grow-out comparing tomatoes with and without mycos.
Here is the thread http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t ... Mycorrhiza
I have also brought over a pic of his. He lives close to me and I saw his experiment first hand. He was as meticulous as possible to give fair results. All plants were Celebrity started the same day and using the same mix.

"Group one, thehydrosource’s Mycorrhizae Root Fungi Endo Mycorrhiza
Group two, Kelp4less’ Endo Mycorrhizae
Group three, Natural Industries’ Actinovate
Group four, Organic Labs’ Mycostim
Groups five and six, Control, no inoculants"

image.png