growing in straw!ftw?

polyarcturus

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
im serious i said it, im gonna attempts an all straw medium. been thinking on this and i think that straw has such potentioal in our soil it should almost be a regular additive. im gonna see what i can do with straw and post it up here. have an update soon hopefully ill be planting a clone in 100% straw, and another one in a promix straw mix.

then what im thinking is bring some straw up to saturation, inoculate with mycorrhizae let it incubate for a week or 2(all this can be done in a black trash bag left untied) and do a bulk spawn to my promix soil, it will still be a soiless mix for the most part, but with all the beneficial organisms in full swing and strength.
 
polyarcturus

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
scugg said:
Won't wet straw mold up?
Click to expand...
it depends.... but in short no, if your introducing multiple specie of fungi and bacteria there will be no room for one to dominate, although i plant one playing around with planting into single colonized cakes in the future.(instead of mixing with soil and incubating or planting into uncolonized straw)
 
Cann

Cann

Well-Known Member
In my backyard I have some straw in a plastic bag that was inoculated with oyster mushroom spores - currently it looks like a white log because it is so colonized by mycelium!

Fungi love straw, so your mycos should be happy - the only thing is that your mycos need roots to live, so if you inoculate the straw and wait a few weeks you will only be allowing the other fungi and bacteria to reproduce, not the mycorrhizae. This isn't an issue necessarily, just know that you will not be planting into an active thriving mycorrhizal community - instead your plant's root exudates will activate the dormant mycorrhizae in the straw.

This being said - I have seen non-mycorrhizal fungi greatly improve the quality of a plant. Recently during a transplant I put a colonized mycelial cake (birdseed/vermiculite) at the bottom of the root mass. The transplanted girl was about 6 inches shorter than her sisters at transplant - 2 weeks later she is the tallest lady in the garden!!! Don't underestimate the non-mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria and the roles they play in the soil food web....

Good luck with this - I'll be around watching
 
W

w89

Member
Best way to add those microbes is with a compost tea, here is a tried and tested recipe from Microbeman from microbeorganics.

Through a plethora of trial and error brewing with a dissolved oxygen meter at hand we determined that a pretty reliable volume of [vermi]compost to use is 2.38% by volume of water used up to around a 250 gallon brewer.

So if you have 5 gallons you multiply that by 2.38% to get the amount of [vermi]compost to use. Then you can go to; Online Conversion - Volume Conversion and convert it into any unit of measure which is convenient. In my opinion measuring [vermi]compost by weight is inaccurate because of varying moisture content.

Anyway to proceed we have;
5 x 2.38% = 0.119 of a gallon = 0.476 of a quart = 0.450 of a liter
= 450.5 milliliters [450 rounded] = 1.904 cups [2 cups rounded] - Your choice

Likewise with the use of black strap molasses, a percentage of 0.50% is a good median amount to use.

These two ingredients, perhaps surprisingly, comprise the total of inputs in most of our brews these days. This simple recipe, if using an efficient ACT maker and good quality [vermi]compost results in a microbial population made up of the important three groups. This is the only recipe used to date, in all the videos on my Youtube channel ‘Microbe Organics’

To get these three groups the ACT maker should be run for 36 to 42 hours. The ideal temperature range is 65 to 72 Fahrenheit (18 to 22 Celsius), however a little cooler or warmer is okay. I’ve had pretty equivalent results with ambient temperatures around 100 F (38 C) and as cool as 50 F (10 C).

To spill a small secret, [which I hope will not preclude you purchasing the related downloadable video on my webpage in the upcoming future, once I figure how to do it
] I’ve been pre-feeding or pre-activating [vermi]compost which is not so fresh by mixing in a small amount of wheat bran (livestock store or bulk foods department grocery store) and moistening with very diluted black strap molasses, loosely covered with cloth or paper towel 24 hours ahead of brew. (approximate ratios, wheat bran 1:30 [vermi]compost & BSM 1:300 water).

This has, so far resulted in attaining the desired microbial population at 24 hours brew time rather than the usual 36 to 42 hours.
 
polyarcturus

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
Cann said:
In my backyard I have some straw in a plastic bag that was inoculated with oyster mushroom spores - currently it looks like a white log because it is so colonized by mycelium!

Fungi love straw, so your mycos should be happy - the only thing is that your mycos need roots to live, so if you inoculate the straw and wait a few weeks you will only be allowing the other fungi and bacteria to reproduce, not the mycorrhizae. This isn't an issue necessarily, just know that you will not be planting into an active thriving mycorrhizal community - instead your plant's root exudates will activate the dormant mycorrhizae in the straw.

This being said - I have seen non-mycorrhizal fungi greatly improve the quality of a plant. Recently during a transplant I put a colonized mycelial cake (birdseed/vermiculite) at the bottom of the root mass. The transplanted girl was about 6 inches shorter than her sisters at transplant - 2 weeks later she is the tallest lady in the garden!!! Don't underestimate the non-mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria and the roles they play in the soil food web....

Good luck with this - I'll be around watching
Click to expand...

i totally agree, exept, i plan on adding cannibis root to the straw mix as well. but i agree with you 100% but personally i dont beleive the mycorrhizae will be dormant it will still grow, but not at the rate it could with roots or with the strength it would normally have. and yeah i will be a multitude of organisms in there but i kinda think thats the point.
 
polyarcturus

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
w89 said:
Best way to add those microbes is with a compost tea, here is a tried and tested recipe from Microbeman from microbeorganics.

Through a plethora of trial and error brewing with a dissolved oxygen meter at hand we determined that a pretty reliable volume of [vermi]compost to use is 2.38% by volume of water used up to around a 250 gallon brewer.

So if you have 5 gallons you multiply that by 2.38% to get the amount of [vermi]compost to use. Then you can go to; Online Conversion - Volume Conversion and convert it into any unit of measure which is convenient. In my opinion measuring [vermi]compost by weight is inaccurate because of varying moisture content.

Anyway to proceed we have;
5 x 2.38% = 0.119 of a gallon = 0.476 of a quart = 0.450 of a liter
= 450.5 milliliters [450 rounded] = 1.904 cups [2 cups rounded] - Your choice

Likewise with the use of black strap molasses, a percentage of 0.50% is a good median amount to use.

These two ingredients, perhaps surprisingly, comprise the total of inputs in most of our brews these days. This simple recipe, if using an efficient ACT maker and good quality [vermi]compost results in a microbial population made up of the important three groups. This is the only recipe used to date, in all the videos on my Youtube channel ‘Microbe Organics’

To get these three groups the ACT maker should be run for 36 to 42 hours. The ideal temperature range is 65 to 72 Fahrenheit (18 to 22 Celsius), however a little cooler or warmer is okay. I’ve had pretty equivalent results with ambient temperatures around 100 F (38 C) and as cool as 50 F (10 C).

To spill a small secret, [which I hope will not preclude you purchasing the related downloadable video on my webpage in the upcoming future, once I figure how to do it
] I’ve been pre-feeding or pre-activating [vermi]compost which is not so fresh by mixing in a small amount of wheat bran (livestock store or bulk foods department grocery store) and moistening with very diluted black strap molasses, loosely covered with cloth or paper towel 24 hours ahead of brew. (approximate ratios, wheat bran 1:30 [vermi]compost & BSM 1:300 water).

This has, so far resulted in attaining the desired microbial population at 24 hours brew time rather than the usual 36 to 42 hours.
Click to expand...
right, but microbes are a non-issue, hell you can generate microbes without any additives, fungi, i what im focusing on here, microbes will come along naturally and essentially this whole idea is to seperate the three organic processes, so you can bulk spawn them to you plants mediums. so you can bulk spawn with the straw into you pots and then later spawn microbe teas to feed the plant, and fungi, while also generating another population. the whole idea here is to keep the fungi alive, during the grow, the best way to do this is to make the fungi thrive before adding symbiotic components.
 
Cann

Cann

Well-Known Member
w89 - wow that post would go on the tribute to lumper et al thread lol god damn! you are full of gems my friend.

poly - i'd agree that the mycos are probably still partially active just on a tiny scale (something like .5% of their potential) and a multitude of organisms is what we are all looking for so you're on the right track there :blsmoke:

so what im getting from this is that you are basically planning on cultivating fungi/mycorrhizae throughout your grow, and implementing this in teas and into the soil (or potentially having the soil be only inert matter/microbes such as straw)?

If so you might want to take a look at this - http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/38726/PDF - On-farm production of inoculum of indigenous arbuscular mycorrhizal fungiand assessment of diluents of compost for inoculum production

Great article. There is also this: http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/913139-growing-your-own-mycorrhizae-recycled-mix.html

Basically you can keep pots of soil (or in your case straw?) and grow bahia grass or leeks which will activate your mycos, and then harvest whatever is in the pot and replace it with cannabis when you are ready. Alternatively, I believe there is a way to cultivate mycos similar to BIM - but I can't seem to find it online, and also it doesnt make sense to me that they mycos would thrive without a source of root exudates...

Anyway, hope this helps. Interested to see how this works out for you
 
polyarcturus

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
Cann said:
so what im getting from this is that you are basically planning on cultivating fungi/mycorrhizae throughout your grow, and implementing this in teas and into the soil (or potentially having the soil be only inert matter/microbes such as straw)?
Click to expand...
spot on, but for the most part my plan is to mix my inert soil, then spawn my mycos to the soil then plant in said soil mix. the other experiments are just to firther my understanding it seem, you both are on another level on this and i have my leg work ahead of me to catch up, i understand what you saying but honestly i havent got that far yet :) i will further my research to understand what exactly it is im doing, but really the whole idea was a stoner moment.

really this idea stems from the culmination of a few other peoples ideas, and my imagination, about a week ago i saw someone growing some shrooms in a potted plant, fairly well too, in my head though i knew the substrate was not ideal or the inoculation method used, so i continued on about my busyness keeping this in mind, then i saw someone growing a seedling in rice! so i was like fuck, if a plant can grow in rice it can grow in straw, then i was just sitting thinking from there on how to marry the 2 arts together.
 
Cann

Cann

Well-Known Member
w89 said:
Cann the link in your sig isnt working for me.. can you repost a link please
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k think i fixed the sig link...hope so at least. not the best with this code stuff.

poly - get a copy of Teaming with Microbes and read the whole thing. This will help you a lot to understand what is going on inside your pots. If you are planning on using only straw I would throw something in there for the microbeasties to call home - ideal amendments are charcoal (spent carbon from a carbon filter works great), oyster shells, and glacial rock dust. Glacial rock dust is great because it also has all sorts of trace minerals, etc. Without these amendments your microbes will be happy, but they wont flourish like they would in a soil full of places for them to call home. Where I live rock dust runs about $20 for 22lbs...definitely a good investment :)

Also, you are going to need to feed heavily with teas to keep the microbes/your plants happy - so start reading up on different tea recipes. Also I would get some neem cake if I were you, something every organic gardener should have - http://www.neemresource.com/
 
polyarcturus

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
i feed teas weekly, im not a newb, i understand the ecosytems and what im doing, i just dont have in depth knowledge on the variety of myco and microbes and thier specific functions and capabilities. im kinda a big picture guy. but like i said i use tons of teas and my teas are pretty diverse so no worry's there everybody will be getting food, but i do wonder how my water soluble nutes will affect things, im gonna assume it will have some negative affects, but not that much i feed very low dose with that stuff anyways and use an organically derived water soluble nute solution.
 
polyarcturus

polyarcturus

Well-Known Member
thats what made me think that(physical attributes of straw), with horses, hay is for food and straw is for bedding.
 
UncleBuck

UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
i don't think it will work, but interested to see what happens. only thing i've heard growing in straw are potatoes.
 
W

w89

Member
I downloaded my copy of "teaming with microbes" do a google search for "teaming with microbes free torrent download" you will find it
 
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