Wow, I wish I could justify buying that binocular. I get so absorbed looking at everything under the scope. Find myself running late for work, etc... Haha.
oh man, we have dyes etc here, we have some really pokey scopes. its so mad to look at this world we pass over, or we read about in books for real happening on your slide preps.
I always scope my inputs ahead of time. the biggest arse ache I find is I cant grow Mycos in my ACT readily. I can grow all manner of trichoderma, yeasts, actinos, but i think may be people are expecting to see glomus everywhere which in my experience is not usual. Typically we can breed saprophytic fungi depending on the inputs in our compost piles, and often where we use BSM we tend to focus on "sugar fungi, ie those that use the same simple structures as bacteria rather than the carbon ring of lignin or other.
In order to ensure you have mutulalistic fungal strains, it is likely better to try to source a good product as a base, add this before you water in or at transplant and worth noting, you should never need to re add mycos if you get symbiosis, Mycos are a one off treatment typically, you only need one spore to connect with a plant root, dont add it with a BSM feed, i prefer to use a fish Hydrolsyate, 0.19% and alfalfa meal typically less than 0.25% when brewing fungal teas, I go light always on organic inputs so as to limit the DO2 barriers.
I personally do not use BSM when brewing a fungal tea. I find many sugar fungi also impact the colonization of mycorrhizal fungi and lots of yeasts really slow the growth of Mycos and so i do not use a BSM tea on young plants, I find BSM can breed some nasty actors too, the longer its in the system the more chance of this happening IMO.
You first have to decide what it is you want. i would suggest lots of you guys running heavy super soils, dont actually need glomus, you need trichoderma, yeast and endospore-forming bacterium such as Paenibacillus polymyxa.
If you are adding lots of P and K based inputs, you really dont need mycos you need PSB's like Bacillus megaterium and KSB's like
Pseudomonas, Burkholderia, Acidothiobacillus ferrooxidans, Bacillus mucilaginosus, Bacillus edaphicus, B. circulans and Paenibacillus sp
You might need Bio Control fungus like Cordyceps, entomopathogenic fungus
Metarhizium anisopliae var.,
Beauveria bassiana to manage the high rates of VOC released from many super soils during bacterial respiration that might be calling cards for the local pests.
Mycos are for poor soils, for where we re use media, they are not for farmers who also pour on lots of fertilsers, esp those which are synthetic salts. Mycos are for growers concerned with rates of Phosphate leaching. They are not for people who pour on endless amounts of liquid P or whom add pellets of chicken shit like they arte going out of fashion. Mycos are a tool to limit nutrient inputs, this includes teas. If you grow in super soil, I would not use other ferts, why, whats the point? The idea of super soil is to provide the plant with everything it needs right. The idea of Mycos is to provide plants with a stream of P in circumstances where life restricts access. I really see little value in Mycos for super soils, and i sell mycos. Not saying they wont help, but I really think you can get most of whats needed with simpler forms of fungi and bacteria. may be once you've grown in its a few times.
