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innoculation with fungi

 
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http://www.thainaturalfarming.com/index.php?lay=show&ac=article&Id=38076       here is a link to natural farming that I was trying to find for someone asking about innoculation. This talks about collecting innoculants in cooked rice from a natural area on the land.

Here is something more I found on it  I'm still lookin for the orignal information  Sam
Indigenous microorganisms (IMO)
A new concoction is becoming increasingly popular among farmers. Usually called indigenous microorganisms (IMO), this concoction has been successfully tried by government agriculturists, academic researchers and non-profit foundations alike. They have found it useful in removing bad odors from animal wastes, hastening composting, and contributing to crops’ general health.

To make your own IMO, follow these simple steps:

1. Cook a kilo of rice, preferably organic. After cooling, put the cooked rice in a wooden, earthen or ceramic container. Avoid plastic or aluminum.

2. Cover the mouth of the container completely with cloth or paper, fixed in place with a rubber band, to prevent water or small insects from getting in.

3. Put the covered container, protected from possible rain, under the trees, in a bamboo grove, a forest floor, or wherever a thick mat of leaves has formed. Leave it there for three days.

4. After whitish moldy filaments have formed, transfer the entire contents of the container to a larger glass or earthen jar and add one kilo of brown sugar or molasses, preferably organic.

5. Cover the jar with clean cloth or paper, fixed with a rubber band. Keep the jar in a dark, cool place. Let it ferment for seven days, until it appears muddy. This is your IMO concoction.

To use, mix two spoonfuls of the concoction with a liter of water. Spray the diluted solution around chicken coops and pig pens to remove unpleasant odors, on your compost pile to hasten decomposition, or on your crops to improve their general health by controlling pests and serving as foliar fertilizer
 
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In the book "Mycelium Running", Paul Stammets talks about inoculating garden beds with a few species of different fungi, and then mulching. Some species of mushrooms increased yields of vegetables by 250% (but some species actually lowered yields).

It seems to me that the problem with the IMO method is that it is pretty much uncontrolled - no telling what drifts in and grows on the rice. Air and soil contains thousand of species of microbes, and the IMO method probably results in multiplying only a handful of those, which may or may not be beneficial. And those may or may not already be in the soil (in which case, regular mulching or composting is just as good, I think). But I would like to hear more about this method and other methods for improving the micro-ecology of the soil. . If it works, I don't care if I understand it completely or if it seems strange!


I'm not a person who follows the biodynamic methods, but some of those seem intruiging - one preparation involves planting some gunk in a cow's horn, and digging it up when it turns purple ... that sounds like it is facilitating very particular microbial growth and transformation.
 
samiam kephart
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I have innoculated raised beds on which I planted cover crops with the endo and ecto mycelliums from Paul Stametz. I will see this spring how it is doing.I was in New Zealand where I couldn't find any avaiable so this method of taking forest soil and using it to innoculate garden beds espeialy those that were on abused soil seemed like a good idea.
 
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siam, i suppoes as spores are light weight you can send off for Paul Stamets spores from all over the world. If it was spawn you were buying it would be heavier you would have all those damp chips or straw in which the mycelium was growing  an d it would be more inconveinient to send far and more likely to die on the way.
  They must have mushroom growers in New Zealand, there was a program about a group of women here in the north of Spain who were working making clothes, sowing in a clothes factory and they started a mushroom growing farm and they grow edible mushrooms and also mushrooms for pharmaceutical firms  and theirs is a small business so there must be some  people doing the same sort of thing in New Zealand.

Jonathon _Byron, Paul Stamets said that if you are growing fungi out doors it is best to get spent mushroom compoost, something he says mushroom growers have no good use for because the spawn in the spent material is hardier, it has been exposed to some competing bodies microbes and spores of other mushrooms and so more appropiate to start outdoor mushroom production. He seems to think oyster mushrooms among others  are very good for bioremediation, like for soils that have been poisoned by herbicides, maybe i have to check that out. That should be an easy mushroom to get hold of.
        He also says that people with a lot of mulch and who always renew their mulch get mushrooms of one sort or another just as boiled rice left in the woods gets taken over by mushroom strains, so if your poor just get a lot of mulch and forget about the spawn if you want to better soils. The fungi will come of their own accord with any luck.
      If you want to better the growth of vegetables it is probably best to get the right mushrooms from  paul stamets business as Jonathon _Byron says. 
  Also Paul stamets to think that it is better to have proffessionals at mushroom growing doing micoremediation. If that is so any method we use to practice on wil be good we will start to have a better idea of how to grow mushrooms if we try all and any systems that catch our fancy. agri rose macaskie.
 
 
pollinator
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It seems like the IMO method described above with rice and sugar would be dominanted by fungi (probably mostly yeasts) that are geared towards breaking down simple starches and sugars.  I have no opinion as to whether this is good or bad for use in soil.  It just seems like the types of mcroorganisms being innoculated would be very different than the normal complement of organisms that make up healthy soil.

 
 
pollinator
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i make this twice a year,  and can say when done right collected from the right spot you can get great results. i love looking for new spots of diversity to collect from. also dump it on my compost piles and leaf mold bin.
 
rose macaskie
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I am glad to hear about ways of growing fungi, i want to get good at it and also am not very sure that i will be able to. I like having recipies and especially ones that don't include having a sterile room and sterile stuff for them to eat and all the sort of thing, though i suppose cooked rice is sterile. Recipies that makes me think help this is too complicated i like to start with easy recipies like yours and also not to expensive and get some confidence that way and move on slowly. rose macaskie
 
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