Alan,
Because of the complexity of soils these concepts are very hard to prove or disprove. I’m not trying to persuade you rather pose the question is fungi friend or foe and I suspect the answer is both. One of the things I like best about you is your analytical approach to agriculture. At this point I’m less sure encouraging a fungi environment is the right thing to do all the time. No doubt increasing nutrients is very important in any soil and that includes humus of some type to retain moisture. I question my decisions about soil as I see things like rot increase. We know certain fungi and bacteria that cause trees problems are harbored in the soil. Lets look at fruits and vegetables for a second. If we were hypothetically growing a banana tree and tomatoes close by we make the soil fungus friendly to encourage mycorrhizal fungi and then comes along fusarium wilt Fusarium wilt - Wikipedia which destroys a non resistant crop. Another example is Verticillium wilt Verticillium wilt - Wikipedia which is a similar bad fungi. You and I both know I don’t want those wilts in my garden which we agree on for sure. Lets say hypothetically a tree gets verticillium wilt like this one Verticillium wilt - Wikipedia and the tree company is called out to remove it and then those chips comes to my house and I add them to my garden was it a bad idea? Yes but I’m not sure it’s a better idea to put that on my trees even though I hot compost it for a couple of years before I use it on my trees. I spray some fungicide on Monday on my trees and by Friday I add woodchips around them to encourage fungi. I make observations and do see higher increases in fruit production from applying cow manure and wood chips to my fruit trees. I’m not sure there is not a way to do it much better and safer. We know some of what we see is nutrient based growth but I think it’s generally understood that mycorrhizal fungi are good for trees. I see morels growing in old growth forests as an example more so than other soils but not in the middle of soy bean fields. There are certain things that increase the desired fungus. Fungus like certain areas so is there a way to encourage more good fungi and less bad. My goal here is not to discuss bacteria or fungi based soils since we have had that discussion but I do want to look hard at fungi based soils. You can see why I might want to keep Verticillium or Fusarium wilt fungus out of my garden and my orchard. No question fungi and bacteria play a part in everything we do but I suspect we all make opinions and observations without knowing if we are 100% correct. This is an interesting article on vegetable diseases http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8099.pdf.
Clark, very often I pose a question not so much to challenge a post as much as to keep topics represented by their relative scientific basis. I often, as you know, express unresearched theories and beliefs here, but I do try to express the difference because research based info does lead to greater clarity in general, although not unanimously.
You are such a regular and rational participant in topics here that I’m not worried about you and your analysis. I just am trying to serve people looking in who are trying to learn.
When you are planting your first vegetable garden, for instance, there is enough you need to understand without considering whether the soil is"fungal based".
That is definitely true Alan maybe for now I should just say when it comes to vegetables plant tomatoes that’s tag says VFFNTAST and not make it more complicated than it is. This link http://www.glovernursery.com/downloadable_files/vegetables/Tomatoes_Glover_Nursery.pdf has a good chart for varieties and resistance
“V = Verticillium Wilt - a soil borne disease that plugs the water conducting tissues. Brown patches on leaves, plants wilt.
F = Fusarium Wilt - a soil borne fungal disease that plugs the water conducting tissues. Plants are stunted, pale and wilt.
FF = Fusarium Wilt race 1 and 2 - same as above.
N = Nematodes - small, slender worm like animal that lives in the soil and feeds on the roots. Plant loses luster and wilts.
T = Tobacco Mosaic Virus - leaves will have mottled areas of light green to yellow. Lower quality and quantity of fruit.
A = Alternaria (Early Blight) - brown to black spots on older leaves. Affected leaves may turn yellow and drop off leaving fruit exposed to
sunburn.
TSW = Tomato Spotted Wilt - dark brown to purple spots on leaves, spreds to stem and forms cankers. Fruit may be distorted.
ST = Stemphyllium - symptoms appear as brownish-black flecks bordered by a yellow halo. Spots may turn gray and fall out imparting a shot hole appearance.”
I don’t think that fungal dominated soils are “bad” for vegetables and other annual crops. Rather I think it is the generally accepted methods we use to grow annuals (plowing, tilling, bare soil between rows, etc) tends to favor bacterial decomposition, so that is what you get.
I suspect most annuals would do well in a fungal dominated organic soil, I just don’t know (other than in smaller gardens) where they could be planted and maintained in that environment. Perhaps with no-till planting, that might change.
I wouldn’t even agree with that. None of my favorite tomatoes fall in that category of range of resistance. Early blight resistant tomatoes are far and between and I know of none with the flavor of some of the new Brandywine hybrids like Brandyboy, bred from Brandywine and another more productive variety, such as, in the case of Brandyboy, Betterboy.
My most productive tomato, Country Taste, does feature F1F2TV resistance, but early blight is the only thing of major consequence in my area as far as I know, and the best way to beat that is by growing vigorous, indeterminate and productive varieties such as Sungold and putting down some copper sprays.
However, show me a great tasting tomato with strong early blight resistance and I will be all over it. The resistant ones I’ve tried aren’t worth growing to me.
Alan,
We don’t grow any resistant varieties of tomatoes but that’s my point why I try to avoid bringing problems in with wood chips. I should just say grow resistant varieties and keep it simple instead of explaining the specific fungus I’m trying to avoid and discourage in my vegetable garden. I use wood chips on my trees.
Yes, I don’t use woodchips in my veg garden either. The shredded wood is mostly to cover the woven landscape fabric so it doesn’t get exposed to too much UV and also because it looks nice. For vegies that like cooler soil I use hay. I also use the shredded wood over my tomatoes, but because it is better than many mulches for stopping weeds all by itself- but this is aged stuff, not right out of the chipper. From experience, I get the impression that wood chips from some species leach alleopathic chemicals when they are fresh.
When your land is an opening in forest like mine, there probably isn’t much you can do to stop the fungus that is in tree habitat anyway.
Here’s a paragraph from some literature that supports your thinking. Good to know the arborist you get your chips from!
Recent research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that wood chip mulches produced from trees suffering from Verticillium wilt (see University of Wisconsin Garden Facts XHT1008) can serve as a source of the fungus (Verticillium dahliae) that causes the disease. These studies show that Verticillium can survive for at least one year in mulch and that use of this contaminated mulch can lead to Verticillium wilt in both woody and herbaceous plants. Therefore use of mulches produced from trees with Verticillium wilt should be avoided.
To be fair, there is a difference between putting fresh or only partially composted wood chips down and a well balance, mature fungal soil. Not that I haven’t used them myself at times, but ideally one would let the wood chips decay some before planting anything in them. Putting them directly on a garden/field will eventually work and the chips will decompose in place, but as mentioned they may be bringing other pathogens in which could be a problem. After they are well decomposed pathogens should not be an issue.
I don’t think it is all that different than using raw manure on fields vs compost. Yes you can do it, but there is a risk of e. coli or other contamination from the raw manure, which would not be an issue after it had been composted properly.
My attitude is to use fresh chips if they are available and aged are not, unless there is a known pathogen in your region that is spread by chips and is causing concern- you could check with your cooperative extension about this. I have used fresh wood chips and sometimes fresh shredded wood for many years at many sites and it is common practice in my region - there have not been any problems major enough to be widely noted.
Believe me, with the amount of money involved in many of the landscapes around here if this was a common issue it would be well known. The shredded wood often is sold the same week the arborist brings the chips used for it to the plant.
This shredded wood is used not just for trees but for flower beds of perennial and annual ornamental plants. Some contractors prefer it to the consistently aged Sweet Peat because it blocks weeds better and is cheaper. There is a constant source for it because there are so many forest trees in our landscapes.
Local wood chips are the economical and ecological choice in regions that have a lot of forest trees and aging wood chips requires open land which adds to the expense and perhaps the amount of energy involved in creating and distributing the ultimate product. If you have the time and land to age it yourself, than it may be a good option, but the longer it is aged, the quicker it breaks down and the sooner you will have to add new mulch.
Was getting a fig tree ready for winter and found this little guy. Didn’t do a spore print but I think it might be a Blewit! They are rare around here so I don’t have much experience, and this one is no bigger than a quarter. Added lots more pine straw to protect the tree and will try to be gentle with the mulch in that area from now on.
I’m really surprised it’s not winter there yet. Looks like the soil where you grow your trees is very rich!
Winter is here now, it was 13 degrees last night. I mulched with maple leaves year one and two and they really made some nice humus there.
Clark,
It is hard to say, especially without you flipping one to show gill color, but that looks like it may well be an agaricus, possibly an amanita, or, given where you live, stropharia…almost all of them are just secondary decomposers of wood and leaf litter, rather than being pathogenic. Most “meadow mushrooms” tend to be.
Generally parasitic wood-lovers don’t pop up far from the wood itself; any distance between the wood itself and the fruiting body is just wasted energy.
not a stropharia at all (no ring). It could in fact be a Blewit, if the pic shows true colors. Not many mushrooms have that purple tinge. But Blewit is as close to a winter mushroom as there is (very very late season), and that pic was Sept. 8. On unrelated news, Nov. 8 I found and picked a maitake the size of a basketball while walking to the pool for a swim. That was the catch of a lifetime, I gave 1/3 to a friend with whom we exchange mushrooms, we ate lots of it that night, and the rest is all dried.
yep a blewitt! i grow them in beds under my big spruces in hardwood sawdust as well as wine caps and elm oysters. i let some beds fruit and some i mix the mycelium into the hardwood mulch around my fruit trees and bushes. outcompetes the wild mushrooms and you get 2 crops instead of 1! to keep them going, once a year ,mix in fresh wood chips. make sure you get several mushroom identification books and identify EVERY mushroom before you eat them! esp. blewits as they have poisonous look alikes that could get you sick or kill you! i highly recommend any of Dr. Paul Stamments books on growing mushrooms. Mycelium Running explains how fungi in soil is fundamental to the cycle of all life. it supports the beneficial bacteria in the soil which also breaks down food for plants to use. a good read for anyone that believes in organic no till gardening. i highly recommend it and all of his books. online stores like Everything Mushrooms, Mushroom Mountain, Fungi Perfect and Field and Forest carry numerous species of mushroom spawn you might want to grow and they are a wealth of info . as well.
I have heard that blewit likes a higher mix of leaves to wood than the others. It is said to be easier to grow back East. Our summers are too dry. Nice work!
John S
PDX OR
We’ve not had rain in weeks but here is a dried out fungi that was growing in the meadows that is likely the same type as what was in my original post. I went back to the same spot.
i put the blewits spawn in the substrate the wine caps has broken down already and they grow good. they are a secondary composter so it needs to be well composed before blewits will grow in it. i got some popping up every fall around my compost piles.
that is probably a horse mushroom. very tasty! related to the button/potabella mushroom you get in the store but has much more flavor. they can get huge. i picked a bunch on my neighbors lawn. were 7 total but got 3lbs from them! biggest was 12in. makes excellent stuffed mushrooms! remember where and when you saw them and next year they will probably come out there again. they like to grow fertile lawns and really like cow/ horse pastures. make sure where you pick isn’t near a asphalt road or treated with herbicides as mushrooms are dynamic accumulators of anything thats in the soil.
Had no idea they were likely edible. They will flush soon once the fall rains start I think. That one was to early the main is later. I will post pictures when I see them again. I want to be 100% sure what they are. Sure looks right Redirecting.... So I press it against some paper and make sure the print is brown?