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Old May 11, 2017   #100
RayR
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Cheektowaga, NY
Posts: 2,464
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Originally Posted by kurt View Post
The stuff does not die if you throw some of the spent medium in a suitable composter using a mother yeast mindset.I have always wondered why we saw some growths in bags of mediums(I.e. promix)when wet.Find out it was the mycos growing in the bag.So all our spent first coir/perlite/ old rootball material will go in the trenches for those corns,tobaccos and my favorites bananas.Patio containers for,papaya,figs,even small citrus can enjoy some of the spent material with the spores still alive.I am in 10b,so my almost 365/growing season helps.In those huge compost piles under those tarps in the cold Amish country farms overwintering spores are brewing for spring.
It's possible that there could be viable spores in the compost if old root ball material was thrown in to compost. Endomycorrhizal Fungi produce spores both outside and inside the root, but what are the chances of survival long term and what are the chances of having a viable spore find a root when rhe compost is used? Although spores can survive for years dry in a bag or container of inoculant, in the wild the worse enemy of Endomycorrhizal Fungi is fallow soil. Without living root hosts the survival rate of Endomycorrhizal Fungi is limited to so many months. Dr. Amaranthus discussed this in the video and said your best option to carry over mycorrhizae from year to year in an agricultural crop situation is to plant perennial cover crops. he mentioned clover as a good one for that. I think the chances of having any meaningful amount of viable spores in any compost is slim to none.
Also Endomycorrhizal Fungi cannot germinate in a bag of Promix, spores will not germinate unless they detect a chemical signal from a living root. Mycorrhizal plants excrete specific isofavinoids into the soil, when a spore detects the chemicals it will germinate and grow toward the source of the chemical signal—the root.
You can't see Endomycorrhizal Fungi anyway with the naked eye, they are too small, you need a microscope and a stain that reacts with their chitin cell walls to see them. If you see fungal growth in a bag of potting mix it's only a common mold colony.
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