Lets be honest and talk about microbes there use, affects and cost
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MICHI-CAN
Well-Known Member
Try bug carcasses collected under a bug zapper. All the free bacteria you you need. And carbs to boot.
A million ways. Just how much money you want to spend and how true to local,native organics you wish to be.
Funny thread in a way if applied to organic grows without available additives of salts, because a plant cannot grow in soil without bacteria. Heck, soil wouldn't exist either! So yeah, the effect part of the original question is that plants exist in the world. Good effect I'd say!
The cost of bacteria in most cases is zero. They inhabit the air, our food, the surfaces of everything we touch. They inhabit bagged white flour sold at Walmart along with yeast and a whole bunch of other creatures, as every sourdough maker knows. But they're especially numerous in both in population and variety of species in healthy rich soil. We aren't talking 2 dozen listed bacteria on an expensive bag of inoculant. There are literally 10's of thousands of species of bacteria that can be found in a teaspoon of even mediocre field soil outdoors. The only inoculant that wasn't free for me is Rhizobium sp. for my cover crops because of the variety of non-local legumes I like to try. If all I grew was hairy vetch or bird's foot trefoil, I probably wouldn't need them.
The issue too with inoculants is that some people think it's the bacteria they added that make the difference. But the amount of bacteria is so tiny considering the questionable viability of many of the species listed on the bag, it would do nothing. Soil rich in organic matter can easily contain 1 billion bacteria per level teaspoon. So you'll need to keep them alive and have them multiply until they take up a significant percentage of your soil biomass. And there's no way to keep bacteria occurring naturally from competing with them.
To use bacteria, take soil and add water until moist. Keep at room temperature, allow air to get to it, and never let it dry out completely. To multiply them, add food they can chew on. Root exudates will help with this too, so important especially with no-till to always have something putting its live roots into the soil for optimal activity.
The cost of bacteria in most cases is zero. They inhabit the air, our food, the surfaces of everything we touch. They inhabit bagged white flour sold at Walmart along with yeast and a whole bunch of other creatures, as every sourdough maker knows. But they're especially numerous in both in population and variety of species in healthy rich soil. We aren't talking 2 dozen listed bacteria on an expensive bag of inoculant. There are literally 10's of thousands of species of bacteria that can be found in a teaspoon of even mediocre field soil outdoors. The only inoculant that wasn't free for me is Rhizobium sp. for my cover crops because of the variety of non-local legumes I like to try. If all I grew was hairy vetch or bird's foot trefoil, I probably wouldn't need them.
The issue too with inoculants is that some people think it's the bacteria they added that make the difference. But the amount of bacteria is so tiny considering the questionable viability of many of the species listed on the bag, it would do nothing. Soil rich in organic matter can easily contain 1 billion bacteria per level teaspoon. So you'll need to keep them alive and have them multiply until they take up a significant percentage of your soil biomass. And there's no way to keep bacteria occurring naturally from competing with them.
To use bacteria, take soil and add water until moist. Keep at room temperature, allow air to get to it, and never let it dry out completely. To multiply them, add food they can chew on. Root exudates will help with this too, so important especially with no-till to always have something putting its live roots into the soil for optimal activity.
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
This was an interesting article about bacillus subtilis https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2017.00667/full. I have a 15 year old vial of Natto starter that seems to have lost no potency at all after I used it to make a batch of natto in my yogurt maker last month. Northwood is right, soil is so loaded it's hard to imagine that the stuff we add to our mixes and teas really makes much difference, but then again, bacillus subtilis does an incredible job colonizing soybeans in 24 hours! I think people are on the right track with aerated compost teas. Seedlings treated with bacillus sp have always seemed to just grow much better and have healthier root systems than the plants I grow without it, I had no idea that the bacteria creates phytohormones directly-from that article: "In addition, the synthesis of indole-3-acetic acid, gibberellic acid and1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase by Bacillus regulates the intracellular phytohormone metabolism and increases plant stress tolerance. Cell-wall-degrading substances, such as chitosanase, protease, cellulase, glucanase, lipopeptides and hydrogen cyanide from Bacillus spp. damage the pathogenic bacteria, fungi, nematodes, viruses and pests to control their populations in plants and agricultural lands."
It's just interesting to me how this microorganism can be so beneficial to both plants and humans in such diverse ways. I may dump some natto in one of my tomato transplant holes next year and see what happens.
It's just interesting to me how this microorganism can be so beneficial to both plants and humans in such diverse ways. I may dump some natto in one of my tomato transplant holes next year and see what happens.
ChrispyCritter
Well-Known Member
I understand the general idea that it is or at least may be unnecessary to add any additional microbiology to a properly made and maintained soil, but what about soil that can use a push in the right direction? Something that will help balance ph, and make nutrients more available in soil that is deficient from lockout? Or just make phosphorous more available for uptake in flower instead of dumping high phosphorous additives that do more harm than good? What I use makes up for what I lack as a grower I know that but I honestly think beneficial organisms even if I have to add them are well worth the relatively small expense it adds to my organic soil grow. Thanks
That's the plant's job, isn't it? Doesn't the plant choose what species of bacteria to keep around by sending them protein signals through their root exudates? And for protecting the plant from enemies giving it nutrients on-demand, in return they get the most tasty: carbon (sugar!). Yum yum.
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getogrow
Well-Known Member
I agree. Its the plants job but what if your soil is lacking different bacterias? (lacking is probably not the right word) You buy um or make um at home and add um to your soil. Then the plant can be much more picky about which exact bacterias/fungi to keep a relationship with. much broader range of bacteria.
Just my thoughts. all opinions!
Quality compost and worm castings that we add to our base mix introduce 10's of thousands of bacterial species, and protozoans too. For sure acrid 200 year-old peat moss doesn't contain a great variety of micro species, so inoculation is necessary if we want to quickly introduce more diversity for our plants to work with. Probably the best inoculant would be field soil taken from the rhizosphere of very healthy growing plants in late spring, but then we risk introducing unwelcome pests into our tent unless we cycle it through our worm bin or compost pile first. But even a mulch of straw or hay adds all kinds of species of bacteria and fungi.
A commercial lab cultured bacteria inoculant really shouldn't be necessary except in cases where we grow a cover crop with a new legume that requires a specific Rhizobium species to make nice nitrogen fixing nodules. Using treated/coated seeds simplifies thing quite a bit.
dirtfromohio
Member
There's a particular product on the market that's really popular and has a handful of beneficial bacteria species, a handful of mycorrhizae species, and handful of trichoderma species...and then some ingredients that feed those bacteria, like kelp, humus and fulvic acids, and molasses. It's such a weird mix of things that it seems like an entirely wasteful product but I've observed the difference it makes with my own eyes. And when I was comparing ingredients of different products, I decided to discontinue the use of that product and use an alternate product that had an overlapping use case. It was GH Floralicious and shared ingredients with said product outside of the bacteria, mycorrhizae and trichoderma. And when I discontinued said product and replaced it with GH Floralicious I noticed no discernable difference in the performance of the plant.
Without a control, my completely anecdotal guess is that I have a healthy microbiome in my soil and I'm doing decent at maintaining that health. Said product was only effective in this soil because of the things feeding the microbes and not the microbes itself, else I should have noticed a downturn, significant or not, in the growth of the plant once I discontinued the application of the microbes. But it continued growing at a pace at least on par with the growth it expressed while being treated with said product. I haven't yet reapplied said product since and the plant continues to thrive as I continue to feed GH Floralicious. I'm guessing feeding the bacteria is way more important than just adding more.
Not only this, but most of these microbe additives are a joke. There are very few that live up to the label promise. Oregon Department of Agriculture runs some testing on submitted products. They haven't updated in a few years that I can tell but results from products tested between 2015-2018 are available here. Great White tests poorly if anyone is curious. Xtreme Gardening Mykos isn't great either as far as the label guarantee but better than many others. Lots of other products listed but those two popular ones stuck out to me.
I think we use these completely wrong. If you want to use a mycorrhizae inoculate your seedlings with it. Beneficial bacteria? Inoculate your soil with it when the plant is a seedling or before you ever even put a plant in it. After this I feel like it's a waste to apply to the same plant in the same pot. I guess there's nothing wrong with applying these products at the start of a new grow but why do we hamper on nute companies for telling us to use double the amount of product necessary but we love the shit out of these "organics" companies doing us the same way while they tell us to water this stuff in every week? It's usually these "organic" companies taking the most advantage these days. I mean half the stuff I see at the hydro shop anymore is a cash grab. It probably works, but so does another product that's cheaper but doesn't say "organic" on it. Still comes in the same plastic jug, vegans.
Lightgreen2k
Well-Known Member
What was the name of the Original Product You spoke of. This thread is to inform and discuss products with people.
Medskunk
Well-Known Member
With that kind of marketing i bet is urb. Makes me feel better anyway lol
Lightgreen2k
Well-Known Member
What does your bottle have in it. I'd like to compare it to a competitor and see why your brand is better or not, or comparable.Have you ever tried DYNOMYCO? It has 900 propagules/gram of 2 species of endomycorrhizal fungi which have been scientifically proven to form a symbiotic relationship with cannabis. Endomycorrhizal fungi have been proven to benefit cannabis whereas ectomycorrhizae do not colonise cannabis roots and therefor don't benefit the growth of the plant. Would be glad to answer any questions and provide more info. Feel free to reach out !
Happy growing
Most bacteria will double their population every 20 minutes provided they have space, food, and favorable conditions. Within a few days microbial biomass (living and dead) should make up a significant volume of your soil. Keeping things sterile is a lot harder than keeping things non-sterile, so I have no idea how anyone could be killing their soil bacteria thus requiring repeated inoculations. Not to mention what reinoculation will do if the grower just ends up killing those too. What is the purpose again, other than experimental microbial torture? And for those who can't keep bacteria alive, how do they manage to keep a cannabis plant alive? Mysteries abound!
xtsho
Well-Known Member
I've started adding microbes to my soil. But I just use the local ones collected myself. They only cost a handful of brown rice and brown sugar. They are going to perform the same function as any expensive product on the market. I'll never pay a dime for any of the overpriced products aggressively marketed to cannabis growers.
OVH
Well-Known Member
Once you get a good culture in soil it’s the best(I’m biased). When I re-amend I mix in malted barley with rice hulls and top dress with it, I end up with this. I add leaves with organic inputs and they’re gone in 3-4 weeks. The whole soil goes back to a normal looking state with in 6-8 weeks. It probably costs me not even $10 to amend a 27 gallon tote
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dirtfromohio
Member
Real Growers Recharge
OVH
Well-Known Member
After I mix in amendments and barley/rice hulls I wet the soil and then let it sit(cook) for 2 months. Sometimes less. I never touch or break up the fungal web until after that period. Which by then the microbes have digested and broke down my inputs. I then fill my pots up.