Fungal inoculant amendment experiment
Soil expert Dan Kittredge from
the Bionutrient Food Association was on the always fresh C-Realm
podcast yesterday.
Mr Kittredge has some
interesting things to say on nutrionally dense food crops and the
conditions and interactions that can improve soil health and vitality.
I liked his metaphor
explaining how soil acts as an external digestive system for plants not
unlike our stomachs. I learned about fungal inoculants and after a
little research we've decided to try out a product sold by Paul
Stamets that should
increase mycelium networks in our raised beds which will in turn help
to promote beneficial bacteria growth and aeration.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
Deb --- Excellent question. Both the bacteria and the fungi are important, although certain plants like the proportions to be higher on one side or the other. (Woody plants adore fungi, tomatoes like it in the middle, and crucifers tend to like bacteria.) The supplement Mark's looking at is all fungi, so we'd probably use it on tomatoes, but boosting any soil life can also help the others, so I wouldn't be surprised if it helped bacteria too.
I highly recommend the book Teaming With Microbes for a fun and easy to read introduction to soil life.