Re: [compost_tea] Systemic bacteria..

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:39:31 -0500


Hi Laura -

Your example is about organisms living and surviving on the surfaces of the plant roots. I'm glad to see the research about the beneficials STAY there, if you get them growing and healthy.

Different from the question about systemic bacteria. The term systemic means the bacterium has moved inside the plant, and is part of the system, i.e, part of the plant.

Internal contents of plants, like the internal organs and muscles of animals, are sterile. The insides of living organisms tend to be great growth media. If a bacterium or fungus gets inside the tissue of an organ, or inside the muscle tissue, or inside the tissues of the plant, disease is the usual outcome. Just too perfect a growth medium.

Some bacteria and some fungi have mechanisms for breaching the cell wall and cell membrane, and thus are what we think of as pathogenic. It is not normal for the SAP of a plant, or the internal tissues of the plant to have any orther organism, besides the plant, present.

Mycorrhizal fungi are half-way there - they breach the cell wall of the plant, but do not get through the cell membrane. I usually talk about that in the introductory lectures I give.

For a paper to show that the bacteria sprayed onto a leaf surface moved inside the plant, and did not just stay on the surface of the plant, is a shock. It is not a normal occurrence. What are the conditions that allow this kind of situation to occur. Sterile leaf surfaces, water imbalance, stomatal games being played. So, if you mis-treat plants to an extreme, you can end up with compromised plants. You can do that to animals too.

So, systemic bacteria? We don't find them in plants growing normally. Could conventional ag management result in the conditions necessary to have bacteria assault and move into the plant tissue? Hum, yes. Would that happen using organic ag management? I believe it would not, but darn it, there's that word believe. The only defense at this point is that there is no documentation to suggest it could happen using organic practices.

Just to summarize - systemic versus living on the surfaces of the roots, being present on the next generation of tuber. The first situation is not good. The second situation is great. Once a soil is inoculated AND YOU MAINTAIN THE HABITAT FOR THE ORGANISMS, allowing the PLANT to feed the beneficials, that set of organisms will survive, multiply, and be on next year's tuber. Hooray!

If you do nothing to kill them, and make sure the habitat is right (food, shelter, good community), the good guys will still be there. You would not need to inoculate again.

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 Mon Nov 24 2003 - 11:03:43 EST

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