Mycorrhizal Fungi, Nature's Key to Plant Survival and Success
103 points by mooreds 2 days ago | 14 comments
  • Aboutplants 12 hours ago |
    I grow rare cactus and succulents and after experimenting with Mycorrhizal inoculants I’m completely blown away with results I’ve seen. Even with soil that dries out completely between water (for extended periods of time) they still work their magic wonderfully and I see wonderful growth and survival with the roots showing the fungi growth as shown and described in this article.
    • isoprophlex 4 hours ago |
      Where do you get your inoculants / which do you get? I'm a mere dabbler in growing cactuses, but very curious to hear what worked for you
  • flenserboy 12 hours ago |
    I have added spores to my garden for a few years, & the results have been excellent. Not only have the plants thrived, the network spread through the lawn to a further extent every year, & the grass in that zone looks much healthier than the rest of the lawn. Mostly I sprinkle a bit in with each seed or row — it does the work from that point on.

    Trees have shown the same pattern — we had a large, older tree go down, one which had quite a bit of fungus growing around it, & the trees planted near the old site did well while new trees on the other side of the yard did not, even with significant, regular watering.

    • Aurornis 11 hours ago |
      Do you mind sharing which product you use? Every time I look into this I have a hard time telling which products contain useful amounts of good strains.
      • flenserboy 10 hours ago |
        No problem! Myco Bliss has worked well for me.
      • willio58 9 hours ago |
        fwiw I got one of the first products listed on amazon when you search mycorrhizal fungi and I'm seeing the same effects stated by the grandparent comment
  • emschwartz 8 hours ago |
    If you haven’t read Entangled Life: How Fungi Shape Our World, I can’t recommend it enough.

    https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/entangled-life

    • culi 7 hours ago |
      As someone who's read a lot of pop sci on this topic as well as published research I went into this book expecting the tropes I've become very familiar with. Merlin Sheldrake actually brought some refreshing and unique takes and I walked away actually learning some new things. It's become my goto introductory book to get people interested in the world of fungi
  • therobots927 8 hours ago |
    Sounds like communism to me.
    • canadiantim 8 hours ago |
      It's more like the free market, but with all of the market failures, parasites and bad actors that implies too
      • culi 7 hours ago |
        I wouldn't say that. There's plenty of behaviors where plants and fungi act in the interest of the community as a whole. Mature forests are made of late-successional species. These species could only possibly grow after earlier succession species had "prepped the soil" (nurtured the soil ecology, transitioned the nitrogen cycle from ammonia to nitrates, etc) and provided shade to allow them to grow. Since these trees are dependent on the well being of so many other species there is plenty of incentive for them to act in ways that we might call "selfless"
  • 8eye 7 hours ago |
    I like how Ohio state university created a shiitake mushroom memristor. Fungi are fascinating
  • DivingForGold an hour ago |
    Although mycorrhizal fungi have their place in plant ecosystems, in commercial horticultural production their benefit is typically outweighed by fertilizers, which result in considerably faster growth and crop cycles. We have trialed and encountered significant results with other "natural" products, such as harpin proteins for ~20% increased plant growth, entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana for insect pest control, and Prestop (Lalstop G46) Gliocladium catenulatum (Strain J1446) for preventing pathogenic root fungus.

    Note that fertilizer applications are not synergistic with mycorrhizal fungi, fertilizer applications typically prevent the benefits of mycorrhizal fungi, plants no longer need to rely on mycorrhizal fungi for nutrients. I have noticed an "explosion" of fertilizer and supposedly growth enhancing products touting their microbial benefits with labels that show long lists of various beneficial microorganisms, but it's mostly just marketing hype.

    • jnmandal 22 minutes ago |
      It is extremely early days for these offerings. Synthetic ferts are a relatively mature technique and the related product offerings (which are now effectively commoditized) had state-subsidized R&D for several decades. Mycorrhizal inputs have had a hundredth of the R&D and only been used commercially for a few years at best.

      Its not really a fair comparison. This is like comparing PDAs to desktop computers in 1991, and surmising that mobile devices are just marketing hype.