bacterea that increases plant growth!

smppro said:

That actually sounds cool I've been curious myself and I have lots of veggies outside right now,basil sounds good. I can say I after a week my mix has fungi covering the top hopefully it's the right kind. Are we gong to feed with same nutes and soil mix? I have a pretty good variety of mediums and nutes available. What do you want to use?

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It seems like before we do any investigation we should determine what questions we want to answer. Here is what I am thinking, sort of a brainstorm at this point:

Question 1:
Product A cost X money,
Product B cost Y money.
Will I get more benefit from
A/X or B/Y


Question 2:
Does Product A or Product B have more aggressive strains of microbes.


Question 3:
Does Product A or Product B protect against pathogens more.

Question 4:
Do Product A and Product B have different side effects, change ph, use more nutes, ect...


Any other things worth investigating. Maybe this list is too big but I'm thinking too many ideas can be sifted through.


I am thinking each of us using the exact same nutes and soil is not 100% realistic and we should come up with a system where we each have a no-myco control plant. Unless we keep the soil mix super simple and therefore suboptimal, like just pelite, vermulicite, and earth worm castings, so it is easy to replicate.

The other thing I am thinking could be worth doing is a fungus race, we each get say 1 pound of earth worm castings or something in a tube and inoculate 1 side and measure the visible fungi?

Curious.George. Your fungus race sounds interesting. I have been reading the thread and those who have posted and I have a question of my own that relates to a few points from each of your responses.

Growing in soilless medium, using "essentials' synthetic frets and no organic beneficial additives such as, worm casting, kelp, fish emulsion etc, '"does my fungi, bacteria, protozoa and enzyme production go straight to shit if I do not feed my Bio-culture?? I know if I use Chlorinated water, or any water with cloromine, it kills of the bio culture. Now does it do it rappiely or does my culture continue to thrive slowly? Remeber I am using soilless medium with no benefical additives to feed my culture.
I can understand the benifical parts of an RO/DI system for my water, but it is not going to happen at this one location.
Any info on that would surely help me with some critical thinking-maybe nut lock up will never happen.. heha!
Thanks.

JLStiffy said:

Curious.George. Your fungus race sounds interesting. I have been reading the thread and those who have posted and I have a question of my own that relates to a few points from each of your responses.

Growing in soilless medium, using "essentials' synthetic frets and no organic beneficial additives such as, worm casting, kelp, fish emulsion etc, '"does my fungi, bacteria, protozoa and enzyme production go straight to shit if I do not feed my Bio-culture??

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Basically yes. I asked this question to one of the support staff at fungi.com: "Will the spores you sell survive in a pure salt-nutrient solution used for plants?" The answer was "no, the fungi and bacteria need organic matter to live". The thing is if you grow a plant it will have some waste. That is organic matter that they can live on. So once your plants are big they can support micro organisms, but you would need a lot of spores because they would not have enough food to thrive. By feeding the microbes you save a lot of money since you grow the stuff, it is not necessary to use enough spores to saturate the rooting medium.

JLStiffy said:

I know if I use Chlorinated water, or any water with chlorine, it kills of the bio culture.

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Chlorinated tap water has more of a downward pressure on fungi and bacteria growth. I use regular tap water to initially hydrate my medium. My guess is I use a million spored and several hundred thousand are killed by the water. Since I use ebb-flow and re-fill my reservoir once every 2 weeks, the chorine is not a big problem.

JLStiffy said:

Now does it do it reapply or does my culture continue to thrive slowly? Remeber I am using soilless medium with no benefical additives to feed my culture.

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Yes! reapply. The only reason not to reapply is cost.

This brings up an important point. I do not use the fungi for faster plant growth! It has no measurable effect on growth in a good hydroponic from what I can tell. My reason for using it is pathogen control. I live in a humid climate, mold & pathogens are in the air. So if I do nothing the grow room starts to smell like a mold pit, and I will get thriving pathogens in about 45 days. I can control them with H2O2, the stuff works great. The H2O2 was my biggest single expense. It was like being addicted to a hard drug. If I stopped for even a short while things would go bad fast. The fungi I use keep the pathogens from having anything to eat.

JLStiffy said:

I can understand the benifical parts of an RO/DI system for my water, but it is not going to happen at this one location.
Any info on that would surely help me with some critical thinking-maybe nut lock up will never happen.. heha!
Thanks.

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like I said, I use city tap water. What medium do you use? Do you sell some of your pot or are you otherwise in the money? I dont sell my weed so for me its about getting the wife to ok the expense, it this your situation, too?

curious.george said:

My reason for using it is pathogen control. I live in a humid climate, mold & pathogens are in the air. So if I do nothing the grow room starts to smell like a mold pit, and I will get thriving pathogens in about 45 days.

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Have you ever tried Consan Triple Action 20? Great sanitizer, fungicide, etc.

http://consan.biz/

Uncle Ben said:

Have you ever tried Consan Triple Action 20? Great sanitizer, fungicide, etc.

http://consan.biz/

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no I have not. What is in it?

curious.george said:

no I have not. What is in it?

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Tertiary molecule of ammonium chloride.

Well thanks for the response.. What I learned from this, is that my soilless medium has some bio-culture growing because of the by products that my plant's produce. This is the only means for my bio-culture to become feed. What would you recommend as a bio culture feed in a liquid form? My medium is sterilized soil-very little, if NON organic mix.. It's primary use up here because it's cheap and works well- we provide the essentials to our plants, not from the soil.
In the past, I was feeding my plants a big stack of frets, that also included a bio- feed mix. I was new and I was not sure what was working for me.. Now I simple go the NPK of a three part program-revised of course, I add some Carbload, and VitaMax and my results are termendous. Sometimes I apply some bloom booster (once a crop) and MAYBE overdrive for a week but that is at best it gets now..... My yelid averages about .9grams/perwatt. Ofcourse, my grow style does not just start at my feed program..
I usually get my lock up around week 3 in flower or 4.. I know this is a good time to start seeing def. It usually happens when I apply 0-50-33 bloom booster.. I make sure my pH is at 6.4.. Usually after this, my stuff's starts to show trouble- so guess what- I dont use it anymore lol.!! Now I might just use overdrive instead around week 5.
So, what would u advise to a bio-culture feed?

JLStiffy said:

Well thanks for the response.. What I learned from this, is that my soilless medium...

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Woops, somehow I thought from your last post you were using fox farm soil.

JLStiffy said:

...has some bio-culture growing because of the by products that my plant's produce. This is the only means for my bio-culture to become feed. What would you recommend as a bio culture feed in a liquid form? My medium is sterilized soil-very little, if NON organic mix.. It's primary use up here because it's cheap and works well- we provide the essentials to our plants, not from the soil.
In the past, I was feeding my plants a big stack of frets, that also included a bio- feed mix. I was new and I was not sure what was working for me.. Now I simple go the NPK of a three part program-revised of course, I add some Carbload, and VitaMax and my results are termendous. Sometimes I apply some bloom booster (once a crop) and MAYBE overdrive for a week but that is at best it gets now..... My yelid averages about .9grams/perwatt. Ofcourse, my grow style does not just start at my feed program..

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I don't know about all those products. I have better luck when I do not add to much stuff that I buy at the hydro shop or from a magazine like the growing edge. But if it works for you go for it.

JLStiffy said:

I usually get my lock up around week 3 in flower or 4.. I know this is a good time to start seeing def. It usually happens when I apply 0-50-33 bloom booster..

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You get lock up? Maybe you should drop the extra nutes. How do you know you get this problem?

JLStiffy said:

I make sure my pH is at 6.4.. Usually after this, my stuff's starts to show trouble- so guess what- I dont use it anymore lol.!! Now I might just use overdrive instead around week 5.
So, what would u advise to a bio-culture feed?

Click to expand...

Your basic poop or fish emulsion works. I use this alaska 5-1-1 fish fertilizer, I have also used earth worm castings and I am quite sure the bat guano products out there would do quite well. You can experiment on a small amount of medium that has no plant in it and is moist. Add your bio-culture feed (strong dose) to it and wait 1 week with in in normal room temp. The fish smell should be gone and when you tear apart the medium you will see a little white thin fibers that will hold your medium together. If the medium stinks and just falls apart then you need to add some spores to inoculate it.

Uncle Ben said:

Tertiary molecule of ammonium chloride.

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Why joke? You find these fungi funny?

I started a reference doc that is useful for understanding the different microbes.

I found the epsoma brand was basically the same except for the lack of Trichoderma fungi. The ones with the -- in the epsoma are the ones not in myco grow. I have not looked in to those yet.

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcrtvnq8_70dkv7mtcw

curious.george said:

Why joke? You find these fungi funny?

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That's what it is CG. You asked, I told you.

http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Product.jsp?REG_NR=05804400003&DIST_NR=058044

UB

Ok, well thanks again. My crop will come off in 12 days and I will start introducing a strong bio feed program than. I maybe came across wrong, but I cut back on my plant stacks (frets) and now use NPK Carbload and Vitamax. I use a bloom booster in 3-4 week (once). I usually get a lock-up if I use that product. So, inturn, I would not use the product and should use overdrive around week 5-instead of the bloom booster 0-50-33.
When you use your alaska 5-1-1 fish mix, is that gonna be fine with those ratio's of (N) to be applied in my feed program? And will the salts of my feed program kill the organic's?

Uncle Ben said:

That's what it is CG. You asked, I told you.

http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Product.jsp?REG_NR=05804400003&DIST_NR=058044

UB

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So if I understand you correctly, correct me if I am wrong. You are suggesting that this is one example of a scam that is being peddled to pot growers as yet another magic sauce? Are you suggesting they are all scams?

I have been doing research on these things and by and large most are scams. I agree 100%. This is why when I shop for bio-inoculants I use the following guideline:
It is necessary to avoid all products sold at the hydro shop or hydro publications that seem to target marijuana growers. To get a good product you need to find someone who specializes in micro organisms not pot growing supplies. The best you will do through pot growing suppliers is get a marked up and or diluted version of the other real stuff, or bogus stuff. I get my spores from fungi.com, the owner of this company has written a lot of books and done a lot of research in the field. Most of what this place sells is mushroom cultivation products, these guys know there fungi, and the product works.

JLStiffy said:

Ok, well thanks again. My crop will come off in 12 days and I will start introducing a strong bio feed program than. I maybe came across wrong, but I cut back on my plant stacks (frets) and now use NPK Carbload and Vitamax. I use a bloom booster in 3-4 week (once). I usually get a lock-up if I use that product. So, inturn, I would not use the product and should use overdrive around week 5-instead of the bloom booster 0-50-33.
When you use your alaska 5-1-1 fish mix, is that gonna be fine with those ratio's of (N) to be applied in my feed program? And will the salts of my feed program kill the organic's?

Click to expand...

I am not 100% sure how it will work with your stuff. I can guarantee you it does not always work. When you find an ideal mix stick with it. Do some experiments on 1 plant keep the other with something that is known to work. If your bio-feed goes bad and you feed the pathogens more than the good ones. You are in deep stinky shit, no way to solve this one, too many organics to fix it with H2O2. It may take a few tries.

As to the 5-1-1 messing up your n-p-k ratio. It may or it may not. When P and K salt levels are low, as they are in my outdoor vegetable garden, the high N in the fish fert feeds the bacteria which in turn make more P and K available to the plant. So while I do not add much P and K the P and K absorbed by my plants is quite high. In your case you are using a high P and K soluble nute, so your plants do not need the fungi to get P and K, the levels are already sky high.

In my indoor marijuana garden I use the fungi for only 1 thing "Pathogen Control"!!!! My plants are already given a 600ppm strength salt nute, so they do not need any more nutes, thy grow at 100% with no bacteria or fungi. It saves me a lot of money over H2O2. Also the H2O2 is kind of nasty to work with, burns my skin, stains cloths, fire accelerant... With H2O2 for pathogen control if I ran out of H2O2 I had only a few days to get more. Also the smell is nice. I would get grey mold on the debris on the floor and I would get black mold on the walls, had to clean that with bleach. After about 9 months of no H2O2 except for clones and seedlings and beneficial microbes the grow room is much less moldy and nasty. Also if I run short on cash I can grow the fungi and use less.

What is your goal? These goals are achievable:
1) save money on nutes
2) pathogen control and grow environment conditioning

This goal is not achievable:
1) faster plant growth in the presence of strong non organic nutes

Most people want the last unachievable goal and are disappointed

curious.george said:

So if I understand you correctly, correct me if I am wrong. You are suggesting that this is one example of a scam that is being peddled to pot growers as yet another magic sauce? Are you suggesting they are all scams?

Click to expand...

Consan is not a scam. It is a bonafide fungicide, bacteriacide, viricide and sanitizer.

I don't know about you, but I don't own an electron microscope and do not have a lab to scientifically evaluate ANY product's merit when it comes to fungi this and that, and to take a vendor's ad for face value is stupidity in its finest. They are motivated to make money, period, and accordingly will tell you whatever they think you want to hear. I will give alot of these products a fair shake and do so on a commercial basis.

I have been doing research on these things and by and large most are scams. I agree 100%. This is why when I shop for bio-inoculants I use the following guideline:
It is necessary to avoid all products sold at the hydro shop or hydro publications that seem to target marijuana growers. To get a good product you need to find someone who specializes in micro organisms not pot growing supplies. The best you will do through pot growing suppliers is get a marked up and or diluted version of the other real stuff, or bogus stuff. I get my spores from fungi.com, the owner of this company has written a lot of books and done a lot of research in the field. Most of what this place sells is mushroom cultivation products, these guys know there fungi, and the product works.

Click to expand...

It's still a feel good thing for me as I rarely run a control group.

Regarding organic purists, they represent a cult to me, just a feel-good group that values idealogy over facts. They have no way of confirming the claims. This stuff isn't tested and regulated by a non-partisan group of professionals ya know.

UB

Uncle Ben said:

Consan is not a scam. It is a bonafide fungicide, bacteriacide, viricide and sanitizer.

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oops, I really though maybe you were joking around. Its just such a funny name. Do you use this instead of H2O2?

Uncle Ben said:

I don't know about you, but I don't own an electron microscope and do not have a lab to scientifically evaluate ANY product's merit when it comes to fungi this and that, and to take a vendor's ad for face value is stupidity in its finest. They are motivated to make money, period, and accordingly will tell you whatever they think you want to hear. I will give alot of these products a fair shake and do so on a commercial basis.



It's still a feel good thing for me as I rarely run a control group.

Regarding organic purists, they represent a cult to me, just a feel-good group that values idealogy over facts. They have no way of confirming the claims. This stuff isn't tested and regulated by a non-partisan group of professionals ya know.

UB

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Yes your right, its feel-good psudo-science. As I have not done a true control group and do not own proper testing equipment.
The only hard science to me is the academic research that does use a control group. The kind of comparisons I make like "my vegetable garden is much healthier than my neighbors" is totally devoid of real science. Maybe my garden is healthier for other reasons.
I was suggesting doing a real experiment with a control group earlier in this thread. Hopefully some people will join me and we can do a little real science.
I am not part of the organic cult you speak of. I do know of its existence. Its a pain to talk to those folks some times.
I think we all do this trying different products and have some that work and we stick with those. For me the bio-inoculation method works, and saves money over the H2O2 sterilization method that also worked.

Thanks, I will be sure to go purchase this today!

Ok, well thanks again for your time guys...

curious.george said:

oops, I really though maybe you were joking around. Its just such a funny name. Do you use this instead of H2O2?

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Right now I'm only using it for sanitizing shears. I have no use for H2O2.

Yes your right, its feel-good psudo-science. As I have not done a true control group and do not own proper testing equipment.
The only hard science to me is the academic research that does use a control group. The kind of comparisons I make like "my vegetable garden is much healthier than my neighbors" is totally devoid of real science. Maybe my garden is healthier for other reasons.
I was suggesting doing a real experiment with a control group earlier in this thread. Hopefully some people will join me and we can do a little real science.

Click to expand...

Sounds good but being the cynic I am, it'll never happen and you have no way of exercising any personal observation.

I am not part of the organic cult you speak of. I do know of its existence. Its a pain to talk to those folks some times.

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Most of them are space cadets.

I think we all do this trying different products and have some that work and we stick with those. For me the bio-inoculation method works, and saves money over the H2O2 sterilization method that also worked.

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Cool. Whatever floats your boat.

Sail on,
UB