Fungi

by Barry Carter

Created: April 18, 2010

 

Throughout the 90s I worked as a forest activist in the high, dry and cold area of Eastern Oregon(zone 4-5). While doing this I did a great deal of research on mycorrhizal fungi including personal conversations with some of the top researchers on this topic in the Northwestern United States. These included extensive conversations with Dr. Elaine Ingham at the Universityof Oregon. In 1994 Dr. Ingham wrote the following which was published in Natural Resource News Jan. 1995 - Organisms in the Soil: The Functions of Bacteria, Fungi, Protozoa, Nematodes, and Arthropods by Elaine R. Ingham, Dept. Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University:

Is the suggestion then to spread tons of chemical fertilizer on forest stands?  This is not a reasonable solution.  First, spreading fertilizer throughout forests of the United Stateswould be prohibitively expensive. Secondly, commercial fertilizer is often not incorporated into the forest, but lost through erosion and through the soil profile into the groundwater.  This problem is seen with row crop agriculture, where fertilizer is applied to the soil, but soil and the organisms that perform processes in soil, can't retain that added nitrogen.  In some cases, added fertilizer acts as a biocide, killing soil organisms and further degrading the soil.  Thus, addition of chemical fertilizer may not be wise.  It's much wiser to manage the soil and soil organisms appropriately, applying fertilizer only when it is critically needed to prevent the loss of a critical ecosystem component.

If we understand nutrient cycles in the soil, and work to enhance those processes that are beneficial to the vegetation human beings want on that land, we can enhance and encourage nutrient availability for the plants we desire during the time of year those plants require massive amounts of nutrients.  We can enhance and encourage nutrient retention in soils, during those times the plants we desire in the system don't need those nutrients.  Instead of fighting the complex soils system that has developed through eons of time, we need to learn what is present in soil, and how to manage those organisms.  Instead of destroying nutrient cycling processes and the organisms that perform those processes for us, we need to sustain them.

Though the article was about forest soils, most of it applies equally to garden soils. Dr. Ingham also included the following in this paper:

Many rhizosphere (around roots) bacteria prevent pathogens from growing in the root zone by competing for nutrients, or by producing toxic metabolites, like antibiotics, or inhibitory substances.

Some of these organisms are plant mutualists and without them many plants are unable to compete for nutrients.  Examples of these microbial mutualists are mycorrhizal fungi, or nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Based on my discussions with Dr. Ingham and other soil biologists I wrote up a simplified article on this topic and posted it on my forest web site. You can find this article at:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/bmnfa/soil.htm

The rest of Elaine Ingham's article can be found at:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/bmnfa/Soilcmts.htm#Organisms

All of this begs the question "what else do the mycorrhizal fungi in the soil do for plants"?

In the sixties, I often heard the expression "a rolling stone gathers no moss". (The name of the Rolling Stones came from this expression.) The implication is that a stationary stone grows moss. Moss, like fungi, can grow on a stone because it produces chemicals which can dissolve the stone, providing many of the nutrients it needs to grow.

This means that the mycorrhizal fungi not only provide extensions of the roots of the plants that are mycorrhizal dependent but they also help dissolve the essential minerals in the soil making them available to the plants. They also help the soil store lots of water in conjunction with underground woody materials like dead roots or fallen stems.

Paul Stamets claims that the largest organism on Earth is a mycorrhizal fungi in Eastern Oregon. You can listen to a great talk by Paul Stamets on this topic at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html

Despite my residence in a mountain valley in Eastern Oregon, I never noticed much evidence of mushrooms in my garden soil till June 1, 2006 when I was weeding in my garden and my fork turned up the mycelia pictured at:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/fungi01.jpg

The fungal mycelium are the white fibers near the roots in the overturned soil. (All mycelia are not white, by the way.)

On June 15, 2006 I noticed some mushrooms in my garden:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/06-06-15-Mushrooms1-s.jpg
http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/06-06-15-Mushrooms2-s.jpg

I was applying sea water ormus precipitate to my garden for two years prior to 2006 and I presume that the availability of the ormus minerals helped to enhance the growth of the fungi as suggested in some test results published by one of the plant ormus mineral producers:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/soilhealth.htm

You can read more about my garden experiences at:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/myplants.htm

In mid June of 2009 I noticed an incredible abundance of mushrooms under my plum tree:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/2009-06-16-mushrooms01.jpg
http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/2009-06-22-Mushrooms01.jpg

I saw this as an indication that the mycorrhizal fungi in the soil were quite active in providing nutrients to the roots of my plum tree.

The plums from this tree were three times the size of my neighbor's plums just fifty feet away. They also tasted much better and were ripe a month earlier. You can read more about my plum tree at:

http://www.OrmusMinerals.com/plums.htm

From my experiences since 1994, I would conclude that the fungi provide soluble minerals for the plants and the ormus minerals (in a solubilized form) provide a quick initial boost to the growth and health of the fungi.