Mycorrhizal fungi applications for cannabis - the caveats

Naysayers be damned!

Voodoo Juice works perfectly.

Check out my Aero grow journal, I have pictures of the Fungi colony on the roots (look at post #7):

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/190605-2nd-grow-3rd-attempt-aeroponic.html

First off I want to say that I was having horrible luck with my Aero systems. Water temperatures kept climbing to around 23-25 degrees C, and as a result some kind of a brown algae or bacteria developed, and covered the roots in sludge (causing root rot). I killed a lot of expensive feminized seedlings this way!!!! I have plenty of 35% hydrogen peroxide, and I know how to use it. For some reason this weird brown algae WOULD NOT DIE even after adding h202 to the reservoir. Things began to look hopeless...then a good friend of mine who has been growing in Aero for many years (who strictly uses only Advanced Nutrients products) recommended Voodoo Juice for my dying seedlings. I reluctantly took what was left of his empty bottle (there was only maybe 50 mL left total). I was reluctant to try ANYTHING by advanced nutrients, because like everyone else, I assumed that they were overhyped, overpriced, etc. I actually still to this day do NOT like 99% of Advanced Nutrient Products, there are a few that are OK but you can find alternative products made by other companys that do the same exact thing for 10 times less. ANYWAYS:

The latest seedlings were Blueberry (dutch passion), Mazar, and Alaskan Ice). I've killed quite a few of the Dutch Passion feminized Blueberries before this particular crop. The sprouts sat stillborn for many days without ANY type of growth or leaf development. The water began to turn brown with sludge (AGAIN). In total desperation, I drained the reservoir, sterilized it, refilled with my 30 ppm well water (I usually use distilled water, but I thought these guys were goners, so I said screw it) and added in the gen hydro nutes + some of the Voodoo Juice. To be honest I didn't really didn't expect them to survive. These poor babies looked exactly the same as the other 30-40 sprouts that I murdered in previous attempts. I waited a few days, and noticed that even though the water temperature was at 24 degrees C there was NO brown sludge! The directions on the bottle stated that you could not use any hydrogen peroxide with Voodoo Juice, or all of the beneficial micro-organisms would of course, die, so naturally I expected there to be out of control brown sludgey reservoir as a result. However, the tank was SPOTLESS and the plants also showed signs of SERIOUS growth. I popped off my neoprene grow mediums (thats right I grow in rubber, hah) and had a look underneath at the roots. I couldn't believe my fucking eyes. Covering the unhealthy looking brown taproots were these strange looking side "fungi roots". They almost could be mistaken for regular roots but they were bright white, and some of them looked transparent as well (like a jelly). The plants seemed to be taking in the nutrients very well, as I increased the PPM to 400ppm and they still did not burn! I never thought this stuff would work...but it definitely does. This shit SAVED MY PLANTS. They are doing well now, its hard to tell whats fungi and what is actually root matter. I have done some research and it appears that humbolt makes a product called Myco madness, which supposedly has more strains of fungi and bacteria than the Advanced Nutrient Voodoo Juice does, and of course its less than half the price. To all the naysayers: take a look at my root pictures, its fucking weird (look at POST #7 in my grow journal)!

Needless to say, I will NOT be growing without beneficial fungi and bacteria EVER AGAIN. Despite the fact that my 15 gallon reservoir remains at 24 degrees Celsius, WITHOUT HYDROGEN PEROXIDE, there is no visible signs of algae or any kind of bacterial slime. This stuff apparently kills off the other existing pathogens in the water (it cleans the water for you!). I can't wait to see what this stuff does to my ladies when its time to flower. I have the feeling that I will be able to go to a MUCH higher nutrient concentration than ever before (since the roots are now being assisted with nutrient uptake). I also have the feeling that my yield will be higher than ever before. JOY!

I use the stuff from fungi.com. I stopped using to for a while, but now I use it again. I found that with it my medium smells better when I am disposing of it if I used it.

I stopped using it because I was also using some organic molasses fert and my ph would go up a lot each day. I started using H2O2 and chem nutes and the ph problems went away. Now that I have re-introduced them my ph ges up faster. It seems to me that it saves me money to use the beneficial fungi and more ph down rather than using H2O2. Also when I would run out of H2O2 things would get nasty fast, after maintaining steril conditions with H2O2 for a long time things go bad fast with out it. The benificial fungi is something I pretreat the medium with. So there is no running out crisis, also the H2O2 stains clothing, burns skin, and is a fire accelerant. So its sort of dangerious stuff. Using the beneficial fungi just makes my grow environment more plesent. I dont actually think my plants grow much faster or bigger begause of the benificial fungi, they are supposed to improve root zone efficenticy and since my root zone is super efficent due to coco coir and hydroponics that does not help me.

Basically it comes down to this: Your garden will produce dead plant matter. Something must happen to it. If you do nothig the fungi and bacteria already in the area will eat it. So you can sterilize, whch is ez and works great, or you can start your own little battle of the microbes and see who wins, if you add plenty of good microbes you have a good chance that the good microbes will win.

curious.george said:

I use the stuff from fungi.com. I stopped using to for a while, but now I use it again. I found that with it my medium smells better when I am disposing of it if I used it.

I stopped using it because I was also using some organic molasses fert and my ph would go up a lot each day. I started using H2O2 and chem nutes and the ph problems went away. Now that I have re-introduced them my ph ges up faster. It seems to me that it saves me money to use the beneficial fungi and more ph down rather than using H2O2. Also when I would run out of H2O2 things would get nasty fast, after maintaining steril conditions with H2O2 for a long time things go bad fast with out it. The benificial fungi is something I pretreat the medium with. So there is no running out crisis, also the H2O2 stains clothing, burns skin, and is a fire accelerant. So its sort of dangerious stuff. Using the beneficial fungi just makes my grow environment more plesent. I dont actually think my plants grow much faster or bigger begause of the benificial fungi, they are supposed to improve root zone efficenticy and since my root zone is super efficent due to coco coir and hydroponics that does not help me.

Basically it comes down to this: Your garden will produce dead plant matter. Something must happen to it. If you do nothig the fungi and bacteria already in the area will eat it. So you can sterilize, whch is ez and works great, or you can start your own little battle of the microbes and see who wins, if you add plenty of good microbes you have a good chance that the good microbes will win.

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aquarium water normally has a huge population of various waste consuming bacteria both aerobic and anaerobic species i add this in conjunction with tarantula and piranha with good results. bad bacterial species have trouble getting a foothold

bicycle racer said:

aquarium water normally has a huge population of various waste consuming bacteria both aerobic and anaerobic species i add this in conjunction with tarantula and piranha with good results. bad bacterial species have trouble getting a foothold

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I have been wondering about using aquarium water. Thanks for sharing the info.

just make sure the ph is proper most crowded aquaria have a ph appropriate for cannabis in soil or hydro otherwise manipulate as needed.

bicycle racer said:

just make sure the ph is proper most crowded aquaria have a ph appropriate for cannabis in soil or hydro otherwise manipulate as needed.

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Are there any things to look out for, have you had any burns, over loading of ppm. I don't change the water out as often as I ought to on the aquarium, I am afraid of upping my ppm and loading the rez with (N)itrogen and (P)hosphorous.

Found this on web

If fish can live in it then plants can't be hurt by any nutrient compounds it might contain.. (Salt water tanks being an exception)..

born2killspam said:

If fish can live in it then plants can't be hurt by any nutrient compounds it might contain.. (Salt water tanks being an exception)..

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I don't know about that. The fresh water plants I had in the tank have all been replaced with plastic ones. Why, because all but one plant died!

Doubt its from nutrient ppm type issues.. For a couple crops I played around with goldfish in the res.. I killed 100's of fish, and zero plants..
The person to talk to on the matter would definately be Seamaiden.. She has experience growing fish, dope, corals, the works..

me too i worked in the aquarium industry for many years on all types from ponds to reef aquaria. most aquatic plants sold need decent light levels to live and some sold are semi-terrestrial so eventually die in water. stick with anubias species amazon swords and other robust easy to care for plants that dont need more than 2 watts a gallon. for watering cannabis i use water from crowded aquaria with 100=+ppm's of nitrates i have never burned anything. i also use bogwood and peat moss in the aquariums i use water from it adds humic acids tannins etc... that keep the ph mildly acidic which cannabis prefers.

Thanks guys for the aquarium info. Very helpful.

no problem any time.

I think the bacteria present in an aquarium are vastly different than those normally present in a typical rhizosphere. You also probably won't find any mycorrhizae (beneficial fungi) which (in my opinion) are the most beneficial symbiotic plant micro-organism currently known to man. Just from what I've seen with my aero setup, I've been able to double to triple the PPM nutrient levels that I normally run with just hydrogen peroxide + nutes without any signs of nutrient burn. Make sure than the reservoir is highly aerated, the beneficial bacteria are aerobic (while the disease causing bacteria are anaerobic) . I highly recommend purchasing Humboldts "Myco Madness", Gen Hydro's "Subculture", or Advanced Nutrients "Voodoo Juice". Give any one of these products a try, and you will never go back. Voodoo Juice, literally brought my plants back from the dead, and now they are taking in more nutes than I am even comfortable giving them. The fungus has totally taken over the roots of my plants. It is unlike anything I've seen before. For those of you who wish to learn more about beneficial plant micro-organisms, I recommend this book:

Plant associated bacteria (by Samuel S Gnanamanickam). Here is the google link so you can preview the book online:

http://books.google.com/books?id=gkGuRPBEutAC&dq=plant+associated+bacteria&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=v4QQSr6gCYWhjAeTiqSeBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4


80-90% of all plants that are grown outdoors have root system that are assisted by beneficial/symbiotic micro organisms. When you go indoors, and grow plants in a hydro system, these helpful micro-organisms are entirely absent and so are their benefits.

SpaghettiHeady

I have not done the scrog method yet, but from what I have read and seen the squares in your trellis look to big. Have you done scrog like that before? Do you prefer using larger squares rather than 2inx2in squares?

Thanks

The larger your holes the easier it is.. I've done scrog, and had a hell of a battle with it.. Now I like one big hole the size of the table perimeter..

born2killspam said:

The larger your holes the easier it is.. I've done scrog, and had a hell of a battle with it.. Now I like one big hole the size of the table perimeter..

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That is funny.

But the hours and hours of weaving and unweaving, trying not to damage growing shoots/buds was not funny..

born2killspam said:

But the hours and hours of weaving and unweaving, trying not to damage growing shoots/buds was not funny..

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I understand, you don't have to put your hand on a hot stove to speculate you might get hurt. About 10 years ago when SCROG became trendy, I told The Herd at the only pot newsgroup available, ADPC, "no way, mama didn't raise no fool", and of course I got flamed for not going along.

There's always caveats in this biz.

But I REALLY gotta hand it to a few ppl who do remarkable shit with a screen.. Kalikitsune posted pics of a screen that he vegged into for well over 6 months iirc, and wow.. That was a damn nice canopy for two plants!

well I spent the day with fungi.

Now I am reading about the soil food web. It is a well written about subject. Google it!

As I posted earlier that as mj is an annual it almost 100 percent can be said to be a bacteria lover as opposed to a fungi lover. However...

I am finding that the ratio is about a .8 fungi to a 1.0 bacteria ratio to even higher, as in a 1-1 ratio. Fungi will always have its place in the soil food web for the annuals too.

I read that someone saw a great slimy web over their roots dominating the rhizosphere is their hydro. This got me thinking. That sounds like an ecto-myco as in on the outside. Mostly trees and large shrubds prefer this, anything really with a long life. Endo is what the reading typically suggests for herbs and vegtables, which mean inside the roots themselves the fungi will populate. We grow these plants fairly long for annuals. Plants decided what bacteria and fungi they want by sending off "exudates" or chemical beckoning food treats. They amazingly compute all this for themselves and that is not fully understood. Pretty cool, they can feed the goodies like pets. Sos it also logical that a plant might want both to sustain itself, an mj plant.

Whatever the case I think the best bet is too just feed the plant both and let it choose. Also the same with bacteria that most fast plants attract. But we got to feed the plant these creatures first, also if they do die off. I bet foxfarms does already, but shit happens.


I now think that humbolts myco would be cool, but nevertheless I started to make my own.

It is actually quite common and simple. I got some compost. I then read to get some oatmeal or soymeal and mix it at a ratio of one teapsoon oats to a cup of compost. Add enough water that when yu squeeze the mass a drop of water would come out. Then put it in the dark with a seedling heat mat. In a few days a web of sorts will form of fungi. This can be added to a tea in the moments before yu use it, as fungi are delicate or topdressed and watered in. I used soy protien shake as I had no oats. lol.

Anyway I cant wait to try to add this in. Also I had some herb and tomato organic food laying around and decided to throw a tbsp of that in. According to that it contained fungi and bacteria beneficials.

Also I came across a lot of info that any P over 10 will actually kill of fungi! I use about a 1-8-7 or a 3-13-9 with an indo bat guano topdressing. I might back off if I see the fungi take root or read more, as in worm castings and omost tea have gotten them in, but I doubt it. They got to be nurtured. With this increased bacteria and fungi in the rhizosphere, a pretty cool word, oone should have to feed less str anyway as the beasties make up for it with increased uptake. Also I read that a good fungi will lower the ph as a good bacteria will raise it. I dont know aobut yu but I need some natural ph down.

Myco fungi is awesome as they can increase the root mass by a million and help the plant in about a billion ways. The before and after pictures are amazing. As always if yu are brewing yer teas try removing your airstones and using some real air. "Real" as in if worked properly yu can esatblish a frothy bacteria colony in 12 hours. No airstones as in the small bublles will kill yer fungi in a flash. Ass the fungi in after brewing the bacteria. Then feed. If one shoudl add in the fungi an hour or 5 minutes before pouring I have yet to read or experminet.