Tips for jumpstarting "wee beasties" in terra preta?

[soil]

im sure it would work, im just skeptical on the blender part. as there meant to chop and dice and most of them have blades. not saying its not worth a try!

[greenkira]

Originally Posted by soil

im sure it would work, im just skeptical on the blender part. as there meant to chop and dice and most of them have blades. not saying its not worth a try!

You know, I probably wasn't really thinking with that bit. I mean, the people using that technique to get moss on planters and statues need to actually break up a chunk of moss, which can be surprisingly solid. But with topsoil and mycillia, it's already pretty loose. So maybe just giving it a good stir with a fork or egg whisk would work fine - you don't need to be precise or anything, it's just a mix to dribble on charcoal, right?

So in that case, it's just a matter of figuring out what sort of liquid will best transfer and give a head start to beneficial soil fungus.

Probably just mixing the charcoal into your compost would be easiest and best, though, in terms of inoculating it.

[soil]

no no dont stop, composting it is a good thing to do but not everyone has or can get quality compost. why not add some local native hummus to the mix? like 5% or so. this should add countless millions of native micro organisms, and everyone can get to some sort of wilderness for samples.

moss really isnt as fragile as bacteria and fungi though.

[palmtreepathos]

Things I add to the dark soil pile that I have going are crushed charcoal , used coffee grounds, fresh and rotting green stuff, fruits as well as pulverized porcelain and rockdust. I feed it left over cake, chips, bread and dried fruit. I also add a fish emulsion/fertilizer made from the renegade big head carp. If you can't get Shafer's Fish fertilizer and have a sportsman in the family maybe you can just get out the "Super bass-o-matic" and add fish remains to that!

Bassomatic - AOL Video

Here is a picture that shows how fast the fish emulsion acts. I splashed a few ounces of watered down emulsion
(1:20 parts water) onto the soil of a house plant that was languishing for a year. In 2 days a fungal bloom spread over the plant and over the next few days it put out a couple new leaves. This after not doing anything for a year. I hope it is working as fast in the terra preta pile.

Picture by patsapeachygal - AOL Pictures

Picture by patsapeachygal - AOL Pictures

[Michaelangelica]

Fish was abig part of TP soils.
I am told some tribes still plant afish then acorn plant on top!

fish is a bit expensive here and Fish fertilisers (commercial )always a worry about how well they are made. Besides they cost the same as a bottle of wine.


The moss and humus idea is interesting. Australian soils have very little humus (about 6% on average)


Some suggestions:-
Molasses instead of honey?
Comfrey leaves in the compost as well as yarrow etc
Seaweed?
Can you buy cheap Agar Agar anywhere? There must be some "second' grade stuff around?
Carbohydrate?? Some mention this as wee beastie food. I have seen gardeners suggest using cornflower on Gardenias.

This is an interesting site on Fungal Biology
It look likes it is written for biology students and yes it does seem to want to look mainly at the "bad" guys that cause disease. But there is a lot of good info here.
Mycology - Growth and Development - Axenic Culture

Thus, if you take a soil sample, it will contain up to 10 (to the power of 6) spores per gram dry weight. The sample will commonly include 20 different species of fungi.

Many biotrophic fungi have never been cultured

biotrophic=Describes an organism which cannot survive or reproduce unless it is on another organism.
Culture of fungi

Saprotrophic fungi can be subcultured on media containing nutrients appropriate to their growth and development. Several different types of media have been used successfully. The most commonly used in undergraduate classes consists of a fruit or vegetable, or their extracts, mixed with sugars and agar, and set in Petri dishes. The organic and mineral fractions are designed to supply nutrients similar to or commonly found in the environment of the fungus. A few commonly used materials include:

* Soil [SOIL AGAR]
* Potato [PDA]
* Tomato plus other vegetables [V8 JUICE Agar]
* Malt extract [MA]
* Dung [DUNG AGAR]

These can be more highly defined by replacing the organic component with known organic materials including:

* Nutrient Dextrose [NDY]
* Sabouraud dextrose [SABOURAUD AGAR]

See recipes
Mycology - Growth and Development - Axenic Culture - Recipes
for further information.

Compost
I don't think I have ever made good "heating up" compost-despite countless tries. Usually because I can't put the heap together quickly. Getting enough organic matter, to layer the pile properly, in a short time, is difficult. It also dries out very fast in our warm, dry climate..

[maikeru]

I might be able to start dosing my terra preta with "worm tea" if my vermiculture project works out in the long run. The tea should be loaded with helpful "wee beasties." Has anyone here tried this with their terra preta and noted the results?

[soil]

Compost
I don't think I have ever made good "heating up" compost-despite countless tries. Usually because I can't put the heap together quickly. Getting enough organic matter, to layer the pile properly, in a short time, is difficult. It also dries out very fast in our warm, dry climate..

if you live in a very hot region as i do. you might want to look into sinking your pile in the ground some, maybe 2 ft or so. this keeps moisture in and helps keep temps stable. and also you might want to check out the quick return compost activator. you make it yourself with natural plants for very cheap, you dont need to build the pile fast really, build it slowly over time and get the carbon to nitrogen ratio good, once its done apply the activator then the plants in the activator along with a drop of honey work together with specific nutrients and beneficial micro organisms to generate tons of heat after applied to the pile. composting in dry/hot places is easy, as long as you follow a few simple rules.

maikeru- i always give my TP plants castings and castings tea. imo i cant see not using ever it. its EXCELLENT stuff specially if you make your own.

[mavrickjohn]

If you know your mushrooms and know the good eating ones here is an easy way to inoculate fresh hardwood wood chips, TP, and your garden soil. In perennial beds ( Strawberry's, Blackberry, raspberry, asparagus's, and herb gardens) lay down a 3 to 4 inch mulch bed of hardwood chips no older than 2 weeks old. Pepper the bed well with TP prepped with nitrogen. Get a fresh mushroom that you want to grow in your beds. Make a spore print of the mushroom on glass or paper with the mushroom covered with a bowl for small mushrooms. Large ones need not be covered. Leave the mushroom for 12 hrs. Use a dust mask when working with the spores and wash your hands before and after working with them.
A bucket filled with a gallon water that is not from the tap is next to make. The water should be boiled for 10 min. with 1/4 teaspoon of non-iodine salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar or light molasses. Let the water cool to room temperature between 50 to 80 degrees.
Scrape the spores into the bucket and cover. Let it stand 24 to 48 hrs shaking 2 to 3 times. Make sure the bucket has not contained chemical or milk products. Now pour the liquid into a clean pump sprayer and apply to the mulch bed you have prepared. Cover with a light layer of straw and keep the mulch moist.
Good candidates for the garden are Hypsizygus ulmarius (similar to oyster mushrooms) King Stropharia,Shiitake,Nameko,Lion's Manes,Shaggy Manes, and possibly Morels.
This method can be use in your orchard and on your shrubs. You can also put inoculated logs in the garden area buried 1/3 deep in the ground.
While I realize that there are many more non-fruiting mycelial than fruiting I personally would pref fer to start with the eatable ones first. Mycelial spores falling from the air can do the rest.
If you want to just kick start the Mycelial infection of your bio-char use some nitrogen to keep it from pulling nitrogen from the soil and soak the bio-char with sugar. to start off the spoors. Remember Mycelium wants sugars from the plants because that's what it needs to grow.

[mavrickjohn]

Michaelangelica I'm not very familiar about what is available in the land of Oz where you are but I can give you some pointers on compost. Use a ratio of 1/3 brown matter(leaves, dead weeds, brush or wood chips. Use 1/4 amount if using chips the smaller the better.) 1/3 green matter.(grass trimmings, green leaves, or freshwater plants, eludia, coon tail or try others.) and last 1/3 soil I sift and grind mine to 1/4 in. max. Now mix the parts together well and build the pile. Landscapers are a good source of raw materials. When you build the pile use plenty of water. I use 3gal. per 21gal. of mixed material. When it's finished cover with a plastic tarp and an old quilt or comforter over that. Being as how you are in a hot climate build the pile on the north side of a building but not against the building or in the shade of trees. The plastic tarp covering the pile can be held down with soil or rocks but don't seal the tarp or the pile will go anaerobic. In about 10 days the heating should be finished and the compost ready to use or stock pile. Adding fish emulsion, dried kelp meal, green sand, granite dust, or alfalfa meal can make the compost richer. And don't forget the bio-char. This compost will be more like great top soil rather than compost. Use it straight or work in to your soil. Great stuff.

[Michaelangelica]

Eucalyptus leaves are made to burn not to break down. We don't have a Fall we have autumn. The only thing that falls is tree bark in summer. What's water? We haven't been able to use a hose on the garden for four years.
I just mulch now. The only free stuff I can get is ribbony sea grass that is poluting the local lake. Quite often wiffy of SO2. I also buy bags of chicken manure and horse manure for $3 (AUD) and do a deal for a little free cow manure occasionally. Recently I went biserk with consumerism and bought an expensive bale of Lithuanian peat ($60) I use it mixed with my el-cheapo potting mix $3; and to help resolve some soil alkalinity problems I have.
At the moment I can't afford the $30 for a bag of charcoal. I keep seeing piles of wood left out by locals for the council to take away :sigh:
There must be a little smokeless charcoal maker I can do/use in the suburbs? (O yes TOTAL fire bans last month too)
Here is someone who agrees with you about using char and compost:-

Peter Schmidt First of all I would not make the contrast between composting and biochar. For me composting and biochar is something that belongs together. They are two things that are very important for soil. So we won’t replace compost for biochar. What we’re trying is to enhance the quality of the compost through additions of biochar. When we put biochar in the soil usually we do it with compost.
. . .
Just to give you an idea, biochar has 300 m2 per gram of surface area because of its structure, (depends on the way you pyrolyse). Compost has usually 1m2 per gram surface area. Adding 0,1% of biochar increases the specific surface of the compost already to 8 - 10 m2 per gram. We are starting new compost tests now with biochar concentrations from 1 up to 20%. You get ten to twenty times more surface area inside, not outside. Or a square yard, if you prefer, with a slight recalculation.

What!? That is incredible. Could you provide me a visual aid in understanding this increase?

PS Fold a 300 m2 sheet of extremly thin paper about 1000 or 10.000 times an you get it. 300 square meters… it is incredible!

And all that additional space is available for microbial and chemical activity.

PS That’s it. That’s the point.

Peter Schmidt on Terroir, Biodiversity, and Biochar | Reign of Terroir