Skip to main content

Effect of Mycorrhizal Fungi On Seed Germination

The following is a study performed by Avery Diercks, son of our General Manager Anna Forester, where he performed an inoculation study using Mycorrhizal fungi. 

Here's some information derived from his study.  

The first image below shows the site where native soil was collected near Santa Fe, New Mexico during a good monsoon season with abundant native grass production.  


The next two photos show seed germination, both samples had the soil sterilized to try and eliminate any indigenous mycorrhizal fungi present in the collected samples.  

The photo below shows germination of seed that was inoculated with EndoMaxima prior to sowing in the sterilized soil. 



The next photo below shows germination of seed that was not inoculated with EndoMaxima                                                        prior to sowing in the sterilized soil. 


The two images show germination after 3 days, with the EndoMaxima inoculated seed showing a clear advantage in speed of germination over the seed not treated with mycorrhizal spores. 


The above results are shared with the permission of Avery Diercks.

EndoMaxima, a product of Soil Secrets, contains over 3200 spores per gram of a Gomus (VAM) species, a generalist that can inoculate the majority of plants on Planet Earth.  At 3200 spores per gram (1,450,000 per pound) EndoMaxima is the only mycorrhizal product on the market that can effectively work in agriculture because it offers enough spores per gram of product that it will get enough down per acre to work.   Lower spore count products cannot achieve this benefit as too much product must be used per acre, which the seeding equipment cannot handle as it bulks out the seed and throws off the calibration. With extremely sensitive calibrated seeding equipment we are capable of increasing the spore count density to even higher levels!  

Michael Martin Meléndrez
Managing Member of Soil Secrets LLC

Albuquerque's Soil Conditioner Source
505 550-3246
www.soilsecrets.com

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pecan Trees in Western Alkaline Soil

It's common to see nutrient and water inhibition compromise the production of pecans in the arid western states, particularly where the soils are high pH, which can tie up nutrients such as zinc, iron, phosphorus and more. Keeping soils moist is also a problem because the regions were we grow pecan are not wet bottomland soils where pecan is native, but are high and dry desert soils where irrigation is essential. If the irrigation water is high in dissolved solids, the problem is made worse. There are many good things Soil Secrets can offer pecan growers that can overcome these obstacles, by improving the moisture management of the soil, improving nutrient solutioning and availability of both the native minerals as well as the purchased minerals, and improving the porosity of the soil so that water and oxygen can penetrate meters deep without the need to subsoil with machinery. How's this done? By using the power of Nature's own bio-chemical called the Carbon Matrix. Starti

How does nitrogen work in the soil and where does it come from when we don't have a bag of fertilizer to supplement it?

I've spoken many times on this subject at conferences and it was the main theme of my talk when I represented North America at the World's 1st Humus Experts Meeting in Vienna Austria back in 2013.   Most of the Nitrogen used by the vast tropical rain forests, or the fastest growing biomass place on Earth, the Coastal Redwood Forests of California, comes from the production of protein by the Free-Living Nitrogen Fixing bacteria in soil and the massive biomass structure of the mycorrhizal fungi.    The proteins as it breaks down in the soil into amino acids are the building blocks of life and the explanation of the Soil Food Web.  However, in order for those amino acids to enter a plant and be part of the nitrogen budget of the plant they must have the assistance of the mycorrhizal fungi.  It's much more efficient for a plant to uptake amino acids whose molecules include nitrogen needed to build tissues than to uptake just nitrogen minus the amino acid.   The problem with dep

Fertilizers formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest

Recently I was in an Albuquerque retail nursery where a fertilizer was being sold that stated it was formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest.  It contained high levels of iron and sulfur, plus the N, P and K major nutrients.  Do any of the readers care to comment on this type of product?    Pros, Cons, etc.  I have my take on it, but I'll entertain what you want to say about it.  Michael Martin MelĂ©ndrez