Mychorrizae..Read this one before?
mdvaden
Posted: Oct-23-2003 at 11:26pm
Stumbled on this link this week.
It may be the best 2 page explanation I've read in a decade.
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M.D. Vaden
Lisa A
Posted: Oct-24-2003 at 7:36am
Uh, MD, did you forget something? Or do I need more caffeine? I don't see a link to read.
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Gardening in Sunset Zone 6, USDA Zone 8.
Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul. - The Koran
Wanda
Posted: Oct-24-2003 at 10:46am
Well, you know those Mychorrizae are REALLY tiny! Maybe the link is not able to be seen with the naked eye! Come on, MD, don't keep us waiting! All I know about them is that I try to take as much dirt as I can when I transplant my heathers.
-Wanda
DebbieTT
http://www.goodfruit.com/link/Mar1-01/feature7.html
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Mownomaniac:
A person obsessed with caring for and especially mowing his or her lawn.
mdvaden
Posted: Oct-24-2003 at 11:47pm
Yep, that's the one...
Did I "space" adding that to my post...must have.
Thanks.
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M.D. Vaden
DebbieTT
Posted: Oct-25-2003 at 6:31pm
Thanks MD it is one of the best explanations and also deals with our PNW native soils. Now when someone hears feed the soil they know what is being talked about.
Another good reason to go organic and get off the chemical merry-go-round.
It also explains why trees and shrubs normally do not need fertilizing as there is a symbiotic relationship between trees and the microbe life in the soil. It is quite a fascinating subject and if we can try to understand this relationship to our plants it makes us understand organic gardening better.
If you ever get a chance to read The Secret Garden: Dawn to Dusk in the Astonishing Hidden World of the Garden by David Bodanis it is a fascinating book with great photographs of this secret underworld. The book is out of print right now but you can probably find it at the library or used at Amazon. I love this book.
The pictures and texts sounds like something out of a sci fi book but is in fact reality on a small scale :
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"The walls of this microcity are made up of miniature clay bricks. To keep them in place there's mortar, conveniently supplied by the gummy residues from bacteria that have the good grace to slither around a bit and then die on those many floors and walls. There's also help from the atomic forces that get amplified on this reduced scale to make each brick pulse in slow, accordianlike throbs, neatly creating electrical fields that pull in any loose crumbling clay, so that the whole city constantly rebuilds itself.
In the largest chambers are the soil mites... mites in the soil are more adventurous. Some lumber down the dark passageways to see what other microcreatures they can catch and crunch into food. Other less armored mites stay put, and tend gardens of leathery fungus plant, which they will later eat. They fuss and poke, pressing chemical receptors and humidity analyzers on their heads close to see that each fungus is doing all right; jacking up the low ceilings of their chambers when things are getting too cramped; or kicking open a fresh hole in the wall, to allow in more air if the fungus needs it. Occasionally, other fungus creatures will stretch a leather arm in to the mite's "garden," but this is not wise. Think of poking an arm into a hatchery tended by midget tyrannosaurs. Although mites are slow, they can exert terrific leverage in their hinged jaws, and once they get in position, even the toughest creature leather arm is going to be snapped."
Simply fascinating!
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Mownomaniac:
A person obsessed with caring for and especially mowing his or her lawn.
mdvaden
Posted: Oct-25-2003 at 11:23pm
Sound sci-fi huh?
Maybe it can have a place next to a book by the name of "Sexual Encounters of the Floral Kind"
If you shopped the shelves before, you may know I'm not kidding.
It handled plants like the aquatic one with separate male and female flowers, where the male flower would break free, float, and when coming to the female petal, break the water tension and rush in with the little current and pollinate.
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M.D. Vaden
Lisa A
Posted: Oct-26-2003 at 10:45pm
Thanks for the link - in a round about way - MD. I've heard Dr. Ingham speak and it was the most fascinating and fastest 2 hours I've ever spent listening to someone talk about soil!
As I shoveled compost today, I thought of how happy all the micro-critters in my soil are going to be.
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Gardening in Sunset Zone 6, USDA Zone 8.
Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul. - The Koran
DebbieTT
Posted: Oct-26-2003 at 11:49pm
I vaguely remember something like that so yes I believe you.
Yes very sci-fi and the creatures look like models for some good sci-fi thrillers. Can we say ugly?
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Mownomaniac:
A person obsessed with caring for and especially mowing his or her lawn.
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