The Use of Sugars in the Soil Web

So I have been reading up some on mycorrhizae to try and find out what types of sugars are used the most efficiently.

I started out on this sugar kick after I had thought about using fruit sugars to feed the biomass in my medium. I had remembered that Dave used his old pears and mashed them up to feed his soil at the Garden of Weeden, and then I had this epiphany:

I am juicing everyday, and I figure that there has to be some residual sugars left in the pulp. So if I were to take the pulp from fruit like green apples, kiwi, pears, etc.... suspend it in water, and store it in the refrigerator for a day or so to leach out the sugars and micronutrients... it might make for a good source of food for the biomass in a given medium.

So after digging around to figure out what types of sugar are the best food, i found this chart in a book titled Mycorrhizal Symbiosis.



Within the same book I read that glucose uptake was inhibited if fructose was also present. Seeing how glucose has the quickest rate of uptake, it only seemed logical to seek out sources of sugar with high glucose content that could be used to feed the biomass. Glucose is also the sugar that plants produce during photosynthesis, so my reasoning is that it would fit right in as a nutrient additive.

So in a sense I am done looking at fruit, as it is primarily made up of fructose.

I looked over Sucanat, organic maple syrup, agave nectar, honey, molasses, and various fruits that were categorized high sugar content. Some we all know work as a microbe/fungi food source, but I'm not looking for something that just "works". You get the best by using the best.

This led me to Brown rice syrup. Brown rice syrup is a pretty common item, available at most health food stores. The sugars within it are almost all glucose or in the glucose family of sugars. It mostly contains maltose, which is basically a glucose derivative... kind of like a caramelized form of glucose.

In 100g of Brown Rice Syrup you will find the following values:
[TABLE="class: ntr_table, width: 440, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Calcium[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]11 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Iron[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]2 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Magnesium[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]112 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Phosphorus[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]337 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Potassium[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]289 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Sodium[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]8 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Zinc[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]2.5 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Copper[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]0.2 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: ntr_left"]Manganese[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"]4 mg[/TD]
[TD="class: ntr_rt, align: right"][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

This made sense to me, as I remembered from reading about mushroom cultivation (which essentially has the same type of nutrient requirements as mycorrhizae) that the food source that is used most often is brown rice flower. Mushrooms thrive off of this food source, and brown rice flower is the precursor to brown rice syrup.

So in conclusion to this long drawn out journey of finding the holy grail of sugars I have come to this:

I will give this a shot, for the Nerds like myself. I refuse to buy a bottled sugar plant additive, as with most snake oil products on the market.

And so, I'll be picking up some brown rice syrup to give it a whirl with my Super Soil. If this works out well, i may consider just adding some brown rice flower to the soil mix next round.

Nerd up, Nerd out. DUB

actually brown rice flower isnt that nutritional for growing mushrooms.
It is widely used by beginers doing the pf tek method but most that are serious about it move onto using whole grains such as wild bird seed or rye and either coir , manure, or a compost designed for mushrooms.
Most that grow in brown rice flower add stuff like coffee for nitrogen and gypsum for calcium to achieve better results in fruiting
Mushrooms like a well balanced compost with many of the same nutrients that marijuana likes.

But different kinds of mushrooms thrive in different compost mixes and some wont even grow from it(like woodlovers).
So the mushrooms that people cultivate may not even like the same things as mycorrhizae.

Fungi in general are decomposers. Thats why there so great for plants cause they break down the soil into usable nutrients.

Fungi break down starches into glucose then feed off that so maybe its beter to focus on giving them starches to break down into glucose then glucose itself.

Im not saying not to try it though. Could be great.

Heres a good read.
http://website.nbm-mnb.ca/mycologywebpages/NaturalHistoryOfFungi/Physiology.html

cool stuff....so what are your thoughts on fresh Maple sap straight from the tree?....it is almost maple season here, and i was thinking of giving it a try.

Molasses doesn't do the trick?....that's what I've been using....is it a wasted effort?....I have noticed a diff in bud size and stickyness/resin production in plants fed w molasses compared to those not fed so much....could b a coincidence I guess I've not done it enuf to know for sure.

whyblameus said:

actually brown rice flower isnt that nutritional for growing mushrooms.
It is widely used by beginers doing the pf tek method but most that are serious about it move onto using whole grains such as wild bird seed or rye and either coir , manure, or a compost designed for mushrooms.
Most that grow in brown rice flower add stuff like coffee for nitrogen and gypsum for calcium to achieve better results in fruiting
Mushrooms like a well balanced compost with many of the same nutrients that marijuana likes.

But different kinds of mushrooms thrive in different compost mixes and some wont even grow from it(like woodlovers).
So the mushrooms that people cultivate may not even like the same things as mycorrhizae.

Fungi in general are decomposers. Thats why there so great for plants cause they break down the soil into usable nutrients.

Fungi break down starches into glucose then feed off that so maybe its beter to focus on giving them starches to break down into glucose then glucose itself.

Im not saying not to try it though. Could be great.

Click to expand...

I've just recently started mixing mushroom compost w my soil....they love it.

thatboyis1uvakind said:

Molasses doesn't do the trick?....that's what I've been using....is it a wasted effort?....I have noticed a diff in bud size and stickyness/resin production in plants fed w molasses compared to those not fed so much....could b a coincidence I guess I've not done it enuf to know for sure.

Click to expand...

Nah, molasses works this thread is to see if something (like brown rice syrup) would be Better. I'd like to know too I just followed the sheep to molasses cause it's safe and effective.

I think you should do more looking into the maltose - it may be too complex of a sugar for the beasties to break down into usable sugars. this is the case with yeast and caramalized sugars when you brew, the yeast are unable to break them down. very similar processes going on in both scenarios.

whyblameus said:

actually brown rice flower isnt that nutritional for growing mushrooms.
It is widely used by beginers doing the pf tek method but most that are serious about it move onto using whole grains such as wild bird seed or rye and either coir , manure, or a compost designed for mushrooms.

Mushrooms like a well balanced compost with many of the same nutrients that marijuana likes.

But different kinds of mushrooms thrive in different compost mixes and some wont even grow from it(like woodlovers).
So the mushrooms that people cultivate may not even like the same things as mycorrhizae.

Fungi in general are decomposers. Thats why there so great for plants cause they break down the soil into usable nutrients.

Fungi break down starches into glucose then feed off that so maybe its beter to focus on giving them starches to break down into glucose then glucose itself.

Click to expand...

I would think that since it's growing symbiotically with marijuana, in a medium specific to marijuana that the nutrients that are in place to feed the plant would be adequate fertilizers to also feed the mycorrhizae. However, these fungi are not producing a fruiting body like a mushroom.

The reason i looked for something mostly glucose is that it is immediately available, instead of adding a process of breaking down starches to their duty. My whole point of doing this is to make sure that the myco is working to break down the amendments at the fastest possible rate.

nugbuckets said:

cool stuff....so what are your thoughts on fresh Maple sap straight from the tree?....it is almost maple season here, and i was thinking of giving it a try.

Click to expand...

Nugs, I had a whole list of stuff ready to post, including all the nutrient values for the foods listed. When i hit the post preview button... It had timed out and i lost pretty much everything because the post wasn't being autosaved. I'm working to gather the info again so i can post it up.

But as far as maple sap goes, i could only find nutrient info for the syrup. I am sure that some of the nutrients get lost in the refining process and heat from bottling, but the sap has a less condensed sugar profile than the syrup.

This is a breakdown for 1oz of Maple Syrup.
[TABLE="width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Sucrose[/TD]
[TD]15758 mg
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Glucose[/TD]
[TD]664 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Fructose[/TD]
[TD]246 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Calcium[/TD]
[TD]18.8 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Iron[/TD]
[TD]0.3 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Magnesium[/TD]
[TD]3.9 mg
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Phosphorus[/TD]
[TD]0.6 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Potassium[/TD]
[TD]57.1 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Sodium[/TD]
[TD]2.5 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Zinc[/TD]
[TD]1.2 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Copper[/TD]
[TD]0.0 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Manganese[/TD]
[TD]0.9 mg[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Selenium[/TD]
[TD]0.2 mcg[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
This will vary between brands a bit, and also the grade of the syrup. Grade B has the highest amount of sugars. There could be a fair amount of value to this stuff as well, as it is low in fructose.

thatboyis1uvakind said:

Molasses doesn't do the trick?....that's what I've been using....is it a wasted effort?....I have noticed a diff in bud size and stickyness/resin production in plants fed w molasses compared to those not fed so much....could b a coincidence I guess I've not done it enuf to know for sure.

Click to expand...

I'm not trying to say that any of the stuff people have used in the past is wrong, I'm only looking to find something better.

mrCRC420 said:

Nah, molasses works this thread is to see if something (like brown rice syrup) would be Better. I'd like to know too I just followed the sheep to molasses cause it's safe and effective.

Click to expand...

You got it, dude. That was my primary objective here!



More to come still nerds. I am putting the info I had originally back together so people can get an idea of what types of sugars are in different sources. DUB

Medical Grade said:

I think you should do more looking into the maltose - it may be too complex of a sugar for the beasties to break down into usable sugars. this is the case with yeast and caramalized sugars when you brew, the yeast are unable to break them down. very similar processes going on in both scenarios.

Click to expand...

I'm on it, MG. I still have a few things to figure out, as a lot of the science is a bit complex for me... and I'm trying to relay what I am learning in a way that most everyone can grasp the concept easily.

So what I know about sugars is they are of a group of -saccharides.

Glucose is a simple sugar, a monosacharide. This is what is found in plants as it is accumulated from photosynthesis and stored in it's cells. It's what gives the plant fuel for respiration. The reason that glucose, and not another monosaccharide such as fructose, is so widely used in organisms is not clearly understood. One reason might be that glucose has a lower tendency to react non-specifically with the amino groups of proteins. This reaction (glycation) reduces or destroys the function of many enzymes. Glucose can be broken down and converted into lipids and amino acids. It is also a precursor for the synthesis of other important molecules like vitamin C (ascorbic acid).

Maltose is a disaccharide, meaning that it is 2 monosaccharides that have joined together. So basically maltose is the product of a starch that has already been broken down to form a single unit of two glucose molecules. In seeds, it is the actual food that is stored and used to feed itself through germination. The process of breaking down maltose is called hydrolysis, and in living organisms this happens very fast.

So that is the information that I have gathered on it so far.

DUB

i was thinking about using sap straight from the tree with no heat added, with the thought of keeping any enzymes intact....

I think it would be worth a shot! The brown rice syrup isn't proven yet by any means... just the first path I found myself on. I'm all for fellow nerds posting up what they know and discover on this thread!