Trichoderma versus Verticillium/Fusarium

[beeman]

I originally posted the following as a reply, but have more to add and also thought it worthy of a thread of it's own, the replies got buried as a lot of posts seem to, so here we go again.

For many years my garden has suffered from the wilts, plants which should in theory do well, don't. I have used chemical fertilizers, flaming, fumigation and a host of other treatments trying to improve the crops. In my view there is little point in gardening when you know the plants are going to fail, easier to sit and watch TV, I was desperate for an answer.

I have been doing some trials this year in an attempt to find a cure/preventative for Verticillium/Fusarium wilts which my tomatoes and other plants have suffered with for years. It's only fair I should share the results, perhaps helping others afflicted with this problem. I know how painful it is to watch good plants die from the wilts without having a cure or preventative.

I started the trial with "Myke Vegetable" mycorrihizae, bought locally, and part way through I found out about "Biovam" a Mycorrihizae with "Trichoderma fungus", to be used as a preventative, so went ahead and shipped some in from the USA. The "Myke Vegetable" product does not include Trichoderma as part of it's makeup whereas the USA Mycorrihizae had Trichoderma, including both ecto and endo.

I planted one row of 15 bush Romas, the first two plants had no treatment at all. The remaining 13 were all treated with the Trichoderma. The plants were growing extremely well, but the first two did not achieve the size of the treated, and on the first hot day recently both plants collapsed, while the rest of the row look terrific.

At the same time I planted another row of 18 plants all treated with the Myke Vegetable treatment. Overall the plants look terrific, growing well, no signs of early blight, in spite of a lot of rain, healthy and a good green, up to 3 trusses, setting fruit. Regretfully I have four already which have collapsed.

Another row of 10 plants, this time using the Trichoderma treatment. To date all the plants are doing well, and so far no collapsed plants.

Vines also benefit from Trichoderma. Four greenhouse cucumbers, two with Trich, two without, guess which ones are starting to fail, just as they begin to produce fruit?

For many years I keep starting garden melons, it is very rare to get any fruit. This year I am well on the way with what appears to be a good crop. Strawberries. Some plants grow, some don't. I have treated by innoculating the roots in a portion of the bed, already I can see a benefit, stronger, greener, upright plants.

So it would seem that the Thrichoderma plantings are safe from the wilts.

The only conclusion to make, in my opinion, Biovam Mycorrihizae with Trichoderma does provide some prevention to V/F wilts, only at the end of harvesting will I be sure this works to beat my problems, so will report back.

I have no vested interest in the companies who market BioVam or Myke.

[kath]

Thanks for posting your findings, beeman; I'm really interested in your results for all the plants you mentioned. Sounds highly likely that the Biovam product will be on my list for next year.

[amideutch]

Beman, thanks for the info and excellent detective work. Biovam is available at the following Link.

http://www.tandjenterprises.com/biov...duct_label.htm

And Mycogrow Soluable also has the Tricoderma species. Ami

http://www.fungi.com/mycogrow/index.html

[(bryan)]

I spent my entire winter researching biological controls for plants diseases. The variety found Biovam is very diverse but the count per CC is low in my opinion. In a world of bacteria numbers mean everything, it is very hard to have too much of a good thing with beneficial bacteria and fungi. extra bacteria are just consumed by other organisms, but the more good guys you put in there the better chance you have in crowding out the bad bacteria and defeating it. There are other products out there that have higher counts than the BioVam for a similar to less price. I am not here to peddle other products, but check out

1) www.custobio.com - Counts are listed in % on their products, a little confusing but I called the company ad they will give you the CFU (colony forming units) much higher count than the BioVam, in the millions

2) Organica PGA plus. I am using this product this year and have not had one bit of disease, all plants look great. paid 17.99 at local garden center. I even spoke with an organica rep and asked if it could be used in compost Tea. he said it would increase the the teas population and also reduce the bad bacteria that is brewed in tea. I actually brewed a batch of tea using molasses and PGA plus only. So only bacteria added was what was in the product. plants loved it

The companies website is not something to be desired but here it is. www.organicatechnologies.com.
Check out this third party Website on it http://www.arborgrow.com/PGA.htm. They have links to universuty studies on its ability to help plants fight disease.

There are others out there. Some searching and you can find alot of different manufacturers. CFU counts are the key. The will be listed by CFU/cc, CFU/gram, CFU/gallon, or CFU/liter. the higher the better. Remember too all non native bacteria will be consumed in the soil on an average every 2 weeks. Reapplication is the key for success. I think Biological control of pathogens through use of bacteria and fungi is soo important these days. the less chemicals used on plants the better.

[amideutch]

(bryan) glad to see another member investigating Microbial Biofertilizers and inoculants for disease control. If you look back at previous posts we have a lot of information and links to different sites concerning Microbials. Evidently the spore count for Biovam is sufficient as beeman has found out in his trials. Studies have shown a combination of AMF (Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi) and Trichoderma make a good team in controlling root diseases. Ami

[b54red]

I make a lot of tomatoes most years despite a very bad fusarium problem which I basically overcome by planting a huge number of plants and replanting constantly. This is getting much harder now due to health problems so I would love to be able to cut back significantly on the number of plants I am forced to grow in order to have a good supply of tomatoes.

I have one bed that runs along my back fence that had every tomato whether heirloom or fusarium resistant hybrid die of fusarium in less than three months. The neighbor who gardened up to that fence totally gave up on trying to have a garden over ten years ago; so the Trichoderma will get the chance to be truly tested in a location that has confirmed heavy infection with fusarium. The bed has never had any chemical fertilizers or soil treatments used in it, only manures, cottonseed meal, compost, and alfalfa meal.

Next springs planting will be the true test but I am also going to replant for fall production in that location. I have already treated the seedlings and will also treat the ground with the Trichoderma. I don't expect a miracle cure but will be more than happy if I can get two or three more weeks of healthy growth before the inevitable fusarium onslaught. I have one small bed very far from my garden location that has very little fusarium so it will get no treatment and I will thus have a true test. But to be fair I have two other beds near the fence that have also had all the tomatoes die from fusarium in the same three months. One will get no treatment and the other will get just a pretreatment of the potted seedlings.

I've been dealing with fusarium for over 30 years in this garden so any improvement will seem like a miracle to me. The Mycorrihizae alone has done little if anything to reduce the incidence of fusarium. This year the fusarium has been worse than usual but I think that is because I was able to start earlier than usual due to a warmer than usual early spring.

As a county agent once told me "it would be best to grow tomatoes somewhere else"; but that is not an option for me. My backyard neighbor tried all of the soil fumigation and chemical treatments to no avail while I built up my soil with organic techniques. I know my problem is not as bad as it was 20 years ago and my plants produce more now and grow healthier; but the fusarium is still a major headache. If I could just get my earthworms to destroy fusarium I would have no more problem.

[beeman]

Originally Posted by b54red

I make a lot of tomatoes most years despite a very bad fusarium problem which I basically overcome by planting a huge number of plants and replanting constantly. This is getting much harder now due to health problems so I would love to be able to cut back significantly on the number of plants I am forced to grow in order to have a good supply of tomatoes.

I agree, too often I have to grow loads of plants, hoping to get a crop. Even worse is the amount of plant stock which is affected by V/F, just yesterday I had 3 Cauliflower plants collapse.
Makes you wonder how many other plants don't grow to full capability due to V/F in the ground.
I am now trying Tea making using Biosol and Microbe tea just to get as much Trichoderma as possible into the soil. I have looked for a source of just Trichoderma but cannot find anything, just an additive to other products.
I would love to hear from others who have the same problem!

[clspie]

Gardens Alive! has a product called "Root Guardian" that is just Trichoderma

harzianum.

[amideutch]

This is part of an e-mail response from Thomas Giannou concerning BioVam and spore count. Ami

BioVam has 4 glomus mycorrhiza species in it including Glomus Intraradices. There’s 40-100 spores per cubic centimeter present which means a teaspoon of BioVam has about 200-500 spores and probably many more hyphae than that in it. Both spores and hyphae will colonize roots. There’s also 8 species of bacteria added to biovam which are mycorrhizal helper bacteria as well as nitrogen fixers and anti fungal pathogen bacteria. Conservatively, there’s probably around 800 propagules of beneficial mycorrhiza (spores and hyphae) in a teaspoon of BioVam. In my opinion, that’s way more than what is needed to colonize plant roots.

Best Regards,
Thomas Giannou
http://www.tandjenterprises.com

[rnewste]

Bryan,

Since you are doing a detailed study on available products, could you do a bit of research on this one:

http://www.biotamax.com/Tech_Info.html

Seems to have the combination of mycors you are looking for. I have one tablet that I am going to try next Season, as a test vs. Actinovate treated tomato plants in the EarthTainers.

Raybo

[amideutch]

Ray, thanks for posting the link of Biota Max as I totally forgot. Biota Max has 4 strains of Trichoderma and 5 of Bacillus. It also has a wild card "Paenibacillus polymyxa" with reported properties that include N fixation, P solubilization, and production of antibiotics, chitinase, and other hydrolytic enzymes, as well as enhancement of soil porosity. I used Biota Max along with Mycogrow Soluable, Actinovate and a few other myco's as well for my seedling drench prior to plant out, and we shall see how it turns out. Ami

[beeman]

Here is a bit more information for you to chew on, should make you think?
In previous years I have always suffered with early blight, taking off the lower leaves, careful with my watering, nothing seemed to prevent the problem.
This year, nary a sign of early blight. The row of bush Romas have leaves, quite literally on the soil, clean as a whistle. Even the big indeterminates are clean, just beautiful. This is spite of my normal watering methods, and some torrential rain, even close to a Tornado last weekend.
So, this begs the question. Is it soil splashed up which causes Early blight? Or is it some other mechanism? Does the Mycorr/Trich provide a stronger plant to reject early blight spores?
Makes you think?

[ginger2778]

Thanks for putting up this link, just bookmarked it. Good stuff!
Marsha

[SharonRossy]

Ok, so I live in Montreal, and to put it all in layman's terms, what products should I be looking for? We do have Mykes here but I havent checked anything out yet. Biota Max - where will I find it? Not sure if this stuff is that accessible in Quebec. Maybe a hydroponic store? Just some labels that would be available here.

Thanks, much appreciated.
Sharon

[beeman]

Originally Posted by SharonRossy

Ok, so I live in Montreal, and to put it all in layman's terms, what products should I be looking for? We do have Mykes here but I havent checked anything out yet. Biota Max - where will I find it? Sharon

Biotamax is available by mail order only. http://www.biotamax.com/BiotaMax.html