Re: [tomato] Tomato Digest V1 #154
Thomas Giannou (Tomato@GlobalGarden.com)
Sat, 27 Feb 1999 10:09:59 -0800
Yep. It is a natural product. And yes he did invent his product. He has
grown the product and brought together the other biotics that are in it. He
has also collected the particular species of mycorrhiza he is using in his
product. In this case, perhaps "manufacture" or "grow" are words synonomous
with "invent."
As for the weeds. You are thinking in traditional terms and do not
understand the situation correctly. Weeds like dandelions do not benefit
from Mycorrhiza. The issue here is "competition" for nutrients. Plants
absorb nutrients through their root system. Those nutrients are suspended
in a water film at the root surface in terms of mainly ions. It takes
micro-organizims to break down organic matter or it takes the addition of
chemical fertilizers in the form of "salts" to get those nutrients into a
from that can be absorbed by the plants. When my lawn is saturated with
mycorrhiza fungi, it becomes much more competitive with the weeds. The
fungi go all around that weed and take away the soluble nutrients and the
weed starves out. I saw that in my lawn last year and I saw that in my
garden among my Raspberries last year.
It is not a case of the mycorrhiza fungi telling the difference between a
weed and a plant. It is a case of a plant making the decision to establish
a relationship (mycorrhiza) with the fungi. Most weeds simply do not form
relationships with VAM fungi. In the cases where a weed does not benefit
from VAM fungi, that weed simply can not get the nutrients it needs to
survive when there is a lot of VAM fungi that is connected to its host plant
and that fungi is all around the weed's root system. The VAM fungi through
its hyphe structure can grab up the soluble nutrients much more quickly than
the weeds roots can. The weed is thus starved out or does so poorly that
the weed no longer poses a problem.
My garden is not weed free... it just has a lot less weeds and I don't have
to spend a lot of time trying to control the weeds because almost all of the
really pesty one's are gone. I was reading on another site on the net that
having a lot of weeds is also a sign of an imbalance that exists in the
soil. Traditional chemical methods would have us believe that all we have
to do is zap the weeds with something and we will then have real nice
healthy crops. That is a bunch of bunk in my opinion. Getting rid of weeds
with a weed killer or by just going out with a crew and pulling them all out
of the ground does not mean that the crops we are growing with chemicals are
healthy for us.
I am sharing my personal gardening experiences. I have the pictures to also
illustrate what I am talking about on my website from a lot of stuff in my
own garden. Also, I never thought I would be taking up the banner against
chemical fertilizers, but the use of chemicals on our lawns and gardens is
the source of 60-70% of the ground water pollution in most places in the
country. With VAM fungi inoculant and a good organic fertilizer, that
pollution can be stopped if it is used on a widespread basis. I have tried
organic methods in the past and with the combination of VAM fungi and
organic fertilizer... in my soil... there is nothing that delivers results
like what I have been getting. I have also tried the chemical fertilizer
rout and that was a fizzle in my opinion.
Thomas Giannou
-----Original Message-----
From: margaret lauterbach <mlaute@micron.net>
To: Tomato@GlobalGarden.com <Tomato@GlobalGarden.com>
Date: Saturday, February 27, 1999 8:11 AM
Subject: Re: [tomato] Tomato Digest V1 #154
>At 12:20 PM 2/26/99 -0800, you wrote:
>>I've been growing beef steak tomato's for several years... mainly because
my
>>wife really likes them. I retired last year and started one of those
"honey
>>do" projects of transplanting all my raspberry plants. A friend gave me
>>some Bio-Vam mycorrhiza he had obtained from his friend, Mike Brock, who
is
>>the inventor of the product.
>
>I thought it was a natural product. If so, Mr. Brock did not "invent" it.
>
>>For the first time in years, I was really having a lot of fun gardening.
I
>>noticed something else as time progressed last year.... the weeds were
going
>>away. I didn't pull a single dandelion out of my Raspberry patches last
>>year... they don't like to grow where mycorrhiza is plentiful. I put that
>>stuff on my lawn and I found only four small dandelions in the lawn all
>>summer long. I have so many stories about this stuff and my observations
>>that I could fill a book with all the experiences. I'm really looking
>>forward to this coming season.
>
>How in the world does this root enhancer tell a weed from a "plant"?
>Everything except weeds grow like crazy when this mycorrhiza is added? I'm
>sorry, but since you're selling the product, this sounds a lot like spam.
>You could have privately answered the query. Margaret L
>