Re: [compost_tea] Mycorrhizae (was:brewing native microbes)

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 21:00:13 -0400

In a message dated 10/1/2003 1:20:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time, matthew.ryan_at_rodaleinst.org writes:

Of course it would be best if you did not need to inoculate with mycorrhizae in the first place. One of the best things that people can do to help out the native mycorrhizae that they already have in their fields is to plant a winter hardy cover crop, like rye. By having the living roots for the mycorrhizae to live on over the winter greatly increases the rate and amount of colonization in following spring on the desired cash crop.

Using a plant species like rye will enhance VAM, and will maintain mycorrhizal fungi that typically colonize row crops or vegetable crops. Most deciduous tree and shrub species will also usually be able to tap into the same VAM network. But conifers need ectomycorhrizal fungi, and a perennial understory is needed. Just a point of clarification. The take-home that Matt was trying to express remains correct - living plants maintain the mycorrhizal fungus.

But extra-matrical spores and hyphae in the dead and dying roots roots of the previous crop also maintain the mycorrhizal fungi through the winter. There should be no need to inoculate a soil again, if the plants from the last year had good colonization.

Also, I have a question for Elaine. What about crop rotations? This theory is very similar to Japan's Natural Farming. In Natural Farming they use the same field for the same crops year after year. The idea is that the soil will start to "like" or "appreciate" the plant that is continually grown in it, and the soil will then accommodate for this plant. My question is how does what you said about different soils for different plants fit into the concept of crop rotations?

Crop rotation is not needed, if you are maintaining the diversity of the organisms in the soil. But if the only food going into a soil is from a monoculture of a single crop, year after year, diversity is lost. The species of early spring and summer microbes aren't maintained. The diversity of food that is added by having other crops helps maintain the diversity of microbes to compete with the pathogens.

So, if you don't want to rotate crops, but maintain soil health, you have to add something that adds back the diversity of food resources for the full foodweb. And that is.......?

Compost. Well made, aerobic, compost. No loss of N, P, or S if it stays aerobic.

OK?

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com

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Received on Wed Oct 01 2003 - 21:45:47 EDT

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