Re: [tomato] Tomato Digest V1 #154
Henry Slade (Tomato@GlobalGarden.com)
Sun, 28 Feb 1999 09:18:28 -0500
I would like to try a sample of this product, however, I would like to pay by
check. Could you please send me your address and total cost(incl s/h) for a
sample and I will get a check in the mail. Thanks
Thomas Giannou wrote:
> You have a good point. I would suggest you take a look at the tons of
> research findings that already exist out there on use of VAM Mycorrhiza with
> tomato's. That's what I did. You think that just because I said I sold
> mycorrhiza inoculant that my claims are "snake oil." Well, your claims
> don't match up with my personal results nor with the results that friends
> and neighbors are getting.. nor with the pictures I have taken and the
> documentation I have made in doing my own experimentation with this stuff.
> I am a person who looks for results. I've been around for years and have
> looked at a lot of gimics and have not even considered a lot of them because
> they make a lot of claims but have no evidence. In fact, I am rather
> surprised at all the junk people buy who, in my opinion ought to know
> better.... they seem intelligent, are well educated, but still buy obvious
> gimics that simply don't work and never have ever worked worth a hoot! I
> have gotten results and I have the evidence of those results... along with
> research findings. By the way, if you think you are going to find a "wide
> range of observations" out of the scientific community or even the achedemic
> community, you are going to be looking into a deep dark void for the most
> part. When they are doing experiments, for example, their scope is so
> narrow that they simply can't see the forest because all they are looking at
> is the twig. I put more credence in gardeners who are observant and getting
> results and are willing to share those results with others. That's what
> I've tried to do with you folks and then what do I get? Snake oil?
> Sheeesh!!
>
> Here's an example: when my brother who basically dislikes even eating
> tomato's, samples some of my cherry tomato's and eats a warm ripe beef steak
> tomato from the garden with a little salt and pepper on it says, "This
> tastes a heck of a lot better than what I usually experience.... I could
> really get used to eating tomato's if they tasted like these!" Then, I am
> thinking... it's not just my opinion that those are really good tasting...
> others are confirming it. Another one: a 75 year old lady next to my
> friends who had grown cucumbers with VAM fungi remarked, "Those are the
> sweetest cucumbers I have ever eaten." Well, that 75 year old lady who has
> been a gardener all her life is making a statement that tells me that the
> influence of VAM fungi with those cucumber plants in a garden with a good
> supply of organic material had a lot to do with why they were the sweetest
> cukes she had ever tasted. We found the same thing with Raspberries and
> Strawberries.
>
> My wife bought me a microscope for Christmas along with a smaller microscope
> for our seven year old son. I found that I could take pictures using my
> digital camera placed on the eyepiece of the microscope. So, I decided to
> take a look at some cross sections of several different plants we had
> treated with VAM Mycorrhiza this past year... Maple, Roses, Raspberries,
> Quaking Aspen, Spirea bushes. I took samples from treated and untreated
> stems and compared the differences. I found there were a lot more and
> larger Xylem vessels in all of the treated plants than the untreated plants.
> I also found there were larger Phloem sieve tubes in the treated plants than
> the untreated plants. And I also noticed that the layers of tissue that
> form the bark... for lack of a better word or words, were much better
> developed and thicker in the treated plants than the untreated plants. I
> have those pictures on my web site if you want to take a look at them.
> There is also a discussion present that makes a connection between those
> structures and the external observations we make in looking at plants
> treated with VAM fungi... larger root systems, larger leaves, much higher
> levels of health, better tasting produce, resistance to environmental
> stresses, resistance to diseases, fewer problems with bugs, etc. If time
> permits, I am going to do some similar comparisons with tomato stems this
> year and see what the differences might be between treated and untreated
> plants. Some of the obvious external differences have been things like...
> having to put in metal fense posts or very sturdy stakes to hold up really
> large tomato plants that have 30 or more large tomato's on them. One
> friend had planted an early girl tomato plant with one of those wire frames
> around it to support it. I got together with some fellows from our church
> to help her clean up her yard last fall and noticed that tomato plant had
> grown about 12 feet or so and had bent that wire frame all up and was more
> like a long vine in a hedge than a tomato plant.... loaded with tomato's.
> One of the guy's said, look at what your stuff did to this tomato plant.
>
> So what's my point here? I don't care where you buy your VAM fungi... just
> try it with tomato's and if you take care of everything properly... you will
> become a "user" and a "believer" that there is nothing quite like using
> products that naturally build up soils and cause a fair number of plants to
> perform like nothing you have ever seen before. I know for some that
> ignorance is bliss and if it "sounds to good to be true" then "it always is"
> is the attitude they will always have about everything that is different
> than their usual routine.
>
> I am going to try some with Oregon Spring Tomato plants... it is a variety
> that was developed by the University of Oregon to grow in colder places with
> short growing seasons. It sets fruit early in cooler temps and is supposed
> to be an open pollinated variety (if I remember correctly) and I'm hoping it
> will replace the beef steak tomato's my wife is stuck on growing all the
> time. Besides, I want to try something that gets away from the taste of the
> same old thing year after year. As I have been reading posts by people who
> have been growing a lot of varieties of tomato's in different parts of the
> country, I get the distinct impression that I've been missing out on some
> really good tasting tomato's out there. But one thing that has always
> baffled me are these people who say they have 50 or more tomato plants... if
> they are growing that many plants, they must be swimming in that suff every
> year or they are selling a lot of tomato's. I can't imagine having that
> many plants for home use. If you ever put VAM fungi on that many plants and
> got the results I got last year, what would a home owner do with all those
> tomato's?
>
> We just got an inch of snow this morning.
>
> Thomas Giannou
> Spokane, Washington
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ChuckWyatt/Md/Z7 <ChuckWyatt@compuserve.com>
> To: INTERNET:Tomato@GlobalGarden.com <Tomato@GlobalGarden.com>
> Date: Saturday, February 27, 1999 10:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [tomato] Tomato Digest V1 #154
>
> >Hi Margaret,
> >
> >>> I'm sorry, but since you're selling the product, this sounds a lot like
> >spam.<<
> >
> >Like you, I am very skeptical about this new Bio whatever. Tomatoes have
> >gotten along quite well in the past without it. There seems to besome new
> >flash in the pan every few years, doesn't there?
> >
> >If someone wants to pay a recognized expert to grow plants with and without
> >this "miracle worker" I would like to see an INDEPENDANT review by an
> >uninterested source, NOT one of the garden rags with which we are beset.
> >
> >Until that time, I remember tales of the days when bunko pedlers and snake
> >oil salesmen rode their wagons from town to town.
> >
> >Good gardening,
> >Chuck Wyatt
> >