BonsaiSniper
Mame
also anybody into symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizae and pines?
Could you use monitored amounts of flora and fauna like centipedes, millipedes, pill bugs etc. to control pests and/or soil conditions?
- Thread starter BonsaiSniper
- Start date
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
Pill Bugs and Millipedes suck.
Good for nothing. I have an explosion of Millipedes and it stinks.
The little inch long centipedes have just blown up in population to overcome the Millipedes.
Nothing seems to get rid of the pill Bugs, they can be ok for aeration but they did ringbark my lemon seedling.
Sorce
Good for nothing. I have an explosion of Millipedes and it stinks.
The little inch long centipedes have just blown up in population to overcome the Millipedes.
Nothing seems to get rid of the pill Bugs, they can be ok for aeration but they did ringbark my lemon seedling.
Sorce
TN_Jim
Omono
Confused by thread title and first post. Pines arguably depend on mycorrhizae either way.
If you’re talking about how to cultivate beneficial organisms (decomposers, consumers, predators) I think a big key is developing a truly healthy soil environment, which will over time build invertebrate trophic levels in and around the micro-habitat you cultivate (your tree, container, surrounding area), and the treatments you do and do not use for unwanted pathogens or pests.
The idea being, if you wipe your gut biome with antibiotics, you could become very sick -if you are consistently wiping the slate clean of all biota (fungal, bacterial, insect etc.) the tree looses its natural external defenses.
I use pesticides fungicides etc. in the very least instances possible, or most extreme cases. @sorce has some valuable thought and practice on this topic. Perhaps search his comments regarding fish
PiñonJ
Omono
Check out the Arbico Organics website. They sell things like mite predators for the canopy and beneficial nematodes for the soil.
LumiDude
Seedling
This fall I had a huge problem with fungus gnats in my house plants and something I thought ws interesting was all of the pots that I introduced centipedes into had no issues with fungus gnats. As for millipedes I have not noticed any detrimental effects. Supposedly the only eat live plants as a last resort if their environment is too dry. So they could very well become an issue with bonsai trees.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
I'm importing some Locusts from Africa where they are "priced right". I'm expecting them to denude all my trees and that'll relieve me of a lot of work. I'm on the hunt for a good root nematode so I don't have to repot so often. I keep telling my wife that the fruitflies in the house come in with the bananas, but she's suspicious.
Mother Nature goes both ways, -want this, get that, too. Everything is part of one big food chain. We only want to harbor a few of the parts of that whole food chain.
Mother Nature goes both ways, -want this, get that, too. Everything is part of one big food chain. We only want to harbor a few of the parts of that whole food chain.
Wires_Guy_wires
Imperial Masterpiece
The thing with soils is that they require stability to form a good biome. It can take years to settle, then we do a repot. Or add some antibiotics, and then we start from scratch.
I found it really helps to have your plants in a garden that by itself is diverse. As soon as I covered the back yard in pine bark, Amanita spp. started popping up. They are known to associate with most pines.
Every (bonsai) pot placed on the floor/bed, is cultivated with mycelium within a week.
I did a small head count and found over 10 types of lawn mushrooms, 11 types of wood degrading fungi like turkey tail and a huge variety of unkown types.
We went from roughly 15 species in total, I do a count every fall, to over 40 within a year. Mildew has disappeared from my garden completely.
You can get mycorrhizae from a jar, Paul Stamets would be your go-to guy. His company (fungi perfecti?) is based in the US, so shipping is way cheaper for you guys than it is for me. But he too admits that you can't emulate soil conditions in a lab. What's found in nature is just a thousand fold more diverse than any inoculant. That's why I bring some soils home sometimes, just a scoop from a patch in the woods. Over there, most soils have been 'resting' at ease for over 40 years. That's the stuff I want. Maybe just 0.001% of the microbes take hold in my backyard, but that's still a couple of hundred different species of organisms.
I don't think all trees require a very diverse system. I honestly don't. Some mycorrhizae go hostile if there are enough nutrients for the plants themselves; the fungi still demand sugars from the trees but don't have to give anything in return, that's a net-negative relationship for the plant. Still, the reduced stress response and overall improvement of soil health are beneficial in my view. I like my soils to be able to take a beating.
I'm not a big fan of bugs though. I like centipedes, but I can go without the rest.
I found it really helps to have your plants in a garden that by itself is diverse. As soon as I covered the back yard in pine bark, Amanita spp. started popping up. They are known to associate with most pines.
Every (bonsai) pot placed on the floor/bed, is cultivated with mycelium within a week.
I did a small head count and found over 10 types of lawn mushrooms, 11 types of wood degrading fungi like turkey tail and a huge variety of unkown types.
We went from roughly 15 species in total, I do a count every fall, to over 40 within a year. Mildew has disappeared from my garden completely.
You can get mycorrhizae from a jar, Paul Stamets would be your go-to guy. His company (fungi perfecti?) is based in the US, so shipping is way cheaper for you guys than it is for me. But he too admits that you can't emulate soil conditions in a lab. What's found in nature is just a thousand fold more diverse than any inoculant. That's why I bring some soils home sometimes, just a scoop from a patch in the woods. Over there, most soils have been 'resting' at ease for over 40 years. That's the stuff I want. Maybe just 0.001% of the microbes take hold in my backyard, but that's still a couple of hundred different species of organisms.
I don't think all trees require a very diverse system. I honestly don't. Some mycorrhizae go hostile if there are enough nutrients for the plants themselves; the fungi still demand sugars from the trees but don't have to give anything in return, that's a net-negative relationship for the plant. Still, the reduced stress response and overall improvement of soil health are beneficial in my view. I like my soils to be able to take a beating.
I'm not a big fan of bugs though. I like centipedes, but I can go without the rest.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
So,might you recognize the utility of the recipe I use in Post #13? It is intended to create a continuing, healthy place for trees to live, especially as opposed to a high-draining condition which is close to sterile and needs to be contently fed. (My climate never has too much rain.)
just.wing.it
Deadwood Head
Every spider I find in a less than desirable place, goes into the trees.
I've had a few small spiders living in my tropical tree area all winter so far.
I've had a few small spiders living in my tropical tree area all winter so far.
Wires_Guy_wires
Imperial Masterpiece
I recognize its utility, but I believe it might be a bit too much of everything. Plant-fungi associations are stronger in poor soils. Simply because that's the perfect recipe that forces them to form a bond.
If you're 100% organic already, and you're adding humic and fulvic acids regularly, your soil might lean more towards a swamp-biome. Which is great for alnus, some oaks, beeches, willows and other water lovers. But it might be less optimal for conifers.
I think every plant has its own perfect conditions. Same goes for the biome attached it. But if it works, it works.
Sterile soils don't exist. Life is just as abundand, just harder to see due to both the color (white mycelium on black potting soil is more visible than white mycelium on white pumice) and the fact that there are huge morphological differences between fungi. A rock munching fungus will have less showy mycelium compared to a wood muncher. They also do their jobs at different rates; wood munchers have to be fast to outcompete bacteria, rock degraders don't have that issue.
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
Fish Rules! I didn't post this yet?
WTH?
Damn, loaded pics of centipedes too, deleted em from the phone, now they aren't here.....th?
Sorce
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
Fish stinks and attracts animals. I have to bury my fishheads a foot deep in my garden or a visitor un-buries them the following evening. I don't need them in my trees... Maybe that's why you have to cage your chickens? To keep them out of your trees?
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he eats for....
As long as "man" doesn't make fish extinct.
Man who learns to leave his fish heads above ground, can shoot "animals" to eat, and ensure a healthy fishery.
They stayed under the table last year.
New location this season.
They are caged to obey the law as best as I can!
Sorce
