Episode 215: soil science part two

Transcript

Episode 215

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Jane: Hello and welcome to On The Ledge podcast, the podcast with a passion for plants. I'm your host, Jane Perrone. It rhymes with Stallone, but if you can roll your Rs, please feel free to zhuzh it up a bit. Fun fact: despite my Italian heritage, I am unable to roll my Rs.

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Jane: I've been away from Perrone Towers for a whole ten days, visiting my family in Canada: first time I've been over in about six years, incredibly, and those of you who have been in a similar situation as me, separated from family during the pandemic, will know this was a big milestone. I had a fabulous time, sorted out houseplants owned by both my sister and my mother and, in fact, it gave me an idea for an episode. I'm going to do an episode on how to look after houseplant gift baskets and what to do when they start to look a bit, as we say in my household, 'ramparty'. I can't promise that's an actual word, but I think you know what I mean. So that's coming up soon, if you've got a houseplant gift basket query, or a disastrous gift basket that needs some care and you want some advice. Please do send me some pictures and I will endeavour to include all of that in that upcoming episode.

Just a quick programming note, Maya got in touch to let me know that the pouring water sound effect that I use in a lot of episodes is really uncomfortable hearing for people with misophonia, which is a sensory disorder which means that certain sounds and stimuli are really unpleasant. It also can affect people with other auditory sensitivities, which is quite common if you happen to be a neurodivergent person. So this hadn't occurred to me. I'm really glad that Maya brought it to my attention and I'm going to stop using that sound because I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable while listening to the show. So I apologise if that's been an uncomfortable experience for you and I shall make sure that that doesn't happen again. Thanks for letting me know about that, Maya.

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Jane: If you didn't catch last week's show, episode 214, with Ashley Esakin talking about soil science, the science of houseplant substrates, I'd recommend you pause this episode and go back and listen because it'll make much more sense if you listen to part one of my interview with Ashley first. If you've already listened, then let's go ahead and hear part two of our chat. As I said last week, and I always say this but I know lots of people don't, please go and look at the show notes because I link to loads of useful resources from Ashley's YouTube, which will help to enhance your knowledge of the stuff that we're talking about in this episode and there's just so much cool information in here that I don't want you to miss. So let's get back into our chat with Ashley.

Jane: Now you mentioned mycorrhizal fungi, these are getting really popular here in the UK, as a little pouch that you can buy when you're planting your rose, or your fruit tree, in the garden, but I'm starting to hear about these for houseplants too, but I'm wondering, they're quite expensive, is it worth introducing extra mycorrhizal fungal? What are they doing? Any tips for using them?

Ashley: Yes, they are big and this is one thing I love about the industry and this may be my own nostalgia about it because one of my first research jobs at a university was studying soil microbiology and cultivating these microbes in the soil. They're good, they're valuable but there is a big red flag when it comes to industry, for me anyway, and that being that mycorrhizal fungi is a parasitic symbiosis. So what that means, in layman's terms, fungi attach themselves to specific plants and you can't just use a generic endo or ectomycorrhizal fungi, throw it into a soil and pray it makes a symbiotic reaction with a S**yngonium, for example, because it's not going to happen because they are very specific to the plant. So, if you purchase a mycorrhizal fungi product, just try to make sure that the product you're purchasing has a known symbiosis with the plants you're going to apply it to, and that's my biggest takeaway from that. If you don't have that symbiotic relationship, or there's no study showing that your S**yngonium or your Monstera forms a relationship with this fungi, then it's not going to benefit you at all. It's just going to literally sit in your soil as a fungal spore and then maybe one day, when you decide to compost that potting soil and then use it in your garden, then it may be a benefit to maybe a tomato plant, or something of that nature. Or it can actually make a symbiosis, or it has a known symbiosis and, to be quite honest with your listeners, I haven't seen a product yet that has a species of mycorrhizal fungi, ecto or endo, that has any form of symbiosis with a tropical plant. When I studied this, we were bringing in bacterial-like fungal samples from Australian soils, European soils, American soils, Canadian soils and all of them have different strains and every land mass has slightly different strains. So unless these mycorrhizal products are claiming to be inoculating or taking their inoculants from tropical areas that a lot of houseplants come from, I would... I'm just going to stay in this the corner that says these probably aren't going to work for houseplants because I don't know anyone going into the tropics and cultivating these specific species. Not to mention a lot of houseplants are Aroids, or they're epiphytic, or they grow outside of the soil, so the chances of them having a micro that actually even is relevant to them, is likely probably pretty irrelevant. The only ones I could say may have some sort of symbiotic micro relationship would be, like, a cacti, or a succulent, something like that, maybe I would lean more so towards having that benefit. The other thing that I look for, for my gardeners, because I do have gardeners on my channel as well, I always try to point them in the direction of looking for that symbiotic relationship, looking for a broad spectrum product. So there's a lot of products out there, such as like the Pro Mix, basically we have mycorrhizal fungi in it here, in Canada, and it has one strain. It's not a diversified strain. Now, given that strain that they have is relatively universal, in the sense that it forms some sort of symbiosis with a broad range of classic plants that you would grow, but you want to go for broad spectrum. So there are products out there such as Root Rescue, for example. It has eighteen different species of mycorrhizal fungi, a mix of ecto and endomycorrhizal fungi species, so that's a good one to go with. There's also MYKE's Myco, I believe it's called, and it has a four-part system and that one has rhizobium bacteria, it has beneficial fungi and then it also has the ecto and the endo mycorrhizal fungi and it has a minimum of four species of each in every single package. Then the other thing you want to look for, to just really make sure you're not getting ripped off, is make sure that the CFUs are listed on your product. So there are a ton of products out there that aren't listing the CFUs on their labelling, meaning you could be getting all different sorts of... I mean, volumes of microbes. You could be getting next to none and just getting a whole bunch of filler, or you could be getting the best bang for your buck, which I would probably lean more so to the side of. They don't know what the CFUs are, or the CFUs are too low to actually publish on the package and no-one knows what that is, so we'll just sweep it under the table. Root Rescue and the MYKE's Myco does list the CFUs and so I have more confidence in those brands. All CFU is, it's called Colony Forming Units. So it's just a way of microbiologists, soil scientists will use this too, to determine how many colonies, or the total number of bacteria or fungi, in a product, or in our soil, or whatever the case is, and you want it in the millions. So it should say something like 7.8 to the power of... 10 to the power of 8. It should have 10 to the power of, usually, on it. You never want it to say, like 1,800, or something like that. It should always be to the power of.

Jane: I've just got this image now of this poor fungal spore sitting there for many years in a houseplant pot and then finally being released into the compost heap and then finally ending up finding a tomato plant and going, "My mission has been achieved!" and it's able to finally form a symbiotic relationship with a root. I think all of us underestimate the power of fungi in the world and the incredible things they do. When they're forming these symbiotic relationships, I'm presuming this is a two-way street, as in the fungus is benefiting from the plant and vice versa? What are they actually getting out of it?

Ashley: So it is forming a symbiosis and they are getting a bit of it. So, if we're looking at ecto, and you'll see ectomycorrhizalfungi on packaging, and all that is, that's a fungi that's laying on top of the root, or in the rhizosphere is what we like to call it, and so those fungis are benefiting from the exudates that are released from the plant, which are just essentially like the plants really putting out a package of McDonald's or KFC or TacoTime, one of the cases to attract really specific bacteria into the area, so the fungi are benefiting from those sugars. So that's for the ecto. For the endo, those ones actually tap into the root itself. So root-on plants looks really similar to a Pantene hair commercial, where you have the strand of hair that's all frizzled up and then they lay it down, all the platelets lay down beside it. Roots are similar to that. Monstera roots in particular, or Aroidroots in particular, you can almost see physically the layers that are forming on it. So what endomycorrhizal fungi does, is it kind of weaves its way into those little platelets and taps into the actual plant. So the plant is using that to extend its reach for nutrients, for water, and fungi is essentially just benefiting from that transfer and from the plant's ability to do the cycle of water and so it has a continual cycle of water nutrients and that sort of thing. It's basically made up of carbon and so it gets an extension from the roots and it grows bigger and better because of that and it interconnects all the plants together, kind of like a hive mind. So that's basically the benefits there.

Jane: We are terrified of the word bacteria, but not all bacteria are bad. There's lots of beneficial bacteria out there. How does this apply to houseplants?

Ashley: There are bacterias that have, again, symbiosis with specific plants. Anything in the legume family is going to benefit from rhizobium bacteria. If you have a sensitivity plant, or something, using a rhizobium inoculant in the soil is hugely beneficial to that plant. As well as just rhizobium bacteria in general in your soil, it gives you a bit of free fertiliser. So it takes nitrogen from our atmosphere which 78% of the air you breathe in your lungs is made up of nitrogen and to gas and this rhizobium bacteria will pull that nitrogen out of the air and pull it into the soil and so it's free fertiliser. If you were to inoculate with anything, or purchase a microbe of any kind as a houseplant person, you may want to actually lean towards a rhizobium bacteria before you do a mycorrhizal fungi, for example. Then the other one that I think a lot of houseplant people should seriously consider making, even in their own home, it's very simple to do, is called labs or lactobacillus. It's really common stuff that you find in Bokashi Bran. It's what you usually find for compost accelerators when you purchase them. From a houseplant perspective, if we make our own DIY labs mixture, which is just a white rice wash is basically, what it comes down to - and again I have videos on how to make this, I have blog posts on how to make this - when you water with that, or when you add that to your watering regime, you're actually introducing some of the main types of bacteria that decompose organic material and actually cycle nutrients. So that addition of labs into an organically grown houseplant, or even a synthetically grown houseplant, for that matter, is going to help with the nutrient release to the plant, meaning you are going to have more bio-available nutrient for your plant and therefore your plant will not struggle to achieve those types of nutrient as well. Then the other one that I encourage houseplant people not to be scared of, or to actually encourage, would be phosphate solubilisers, or just solubilising bacteria in general. If you're using things like glacial rock fertilizer, or hard rock fertiliser, people will get mineral rocks fertiliser and they'll mix it in, and a really good point here is, potting soil is null and void when it comes to glacial material because, again, it's not a soil. It's technically a soil-less medium. So we're missing a lot of things like manganese,molybdenum, calcium, you name it, there's a whole bunch of micronutrients that aren't necessarily present in a potting soil but are considered one of the seventeen essential nutrients for plants. If you're using rock dust, for example, it will have those available in the product but if we don't have anything to solubilise them, which bacteria is what solubilises these products, then it will never become bio-available for your plants. So just introducing that sort of thing to your potting soil and it's actually really simple to do. If you just go outside and take a little pinch, even if it's just a little teaspoon of soil out of the garden and put it into your potting soil, there is tonnes of CFUs in that, more than you could ever count. Just inoculating even just your potting soil with that bacteria is going to help with the cycling of all those different nutrients. You have to keep in mind there's seventeen types of nutrients that plants absolutely must have to survive and thrive and that means you need enormous amounts of different types of bacteria to cycle all those nutrients because every nutrient cycle has a different microbe needed. So just something to keep in mind there.

Jane: My gosh. I have so many questions as a result of what you just said. Okay, I'm going to start with talking about labs. I think you mentioned Bokashi in there, now I make Bokashi with food waste, Bokashi for my garden. I put the fermented food waste, either bury it in the ground or it goes in my compost heap, so should I be using the liquid that comes out of that, the leachate? Should I be watering my houseplants with that, from the sound of it?

Ashley: Yes.

Jane: Why have I not been doing that? That's crazy that I've been using it on the garden but not on my houseplants.

Ashley: Yes. So if you are a Bokashi composter, absolutely use the liquid from your bucket on your houseplants, absolutely. I use it on mine. It's full of microbes.

Jane: Likewise, why have I not been thinking about using rock dust? Again, because I've bought that for my vegetable garden in the past and I haven't even thought of using it on houseplants, so now I'm feeling pretty silly. It's quite widely available here in the UK, although I think it's one of those things that... I would say it's not that widely available in most garden centres. You probably have to go to a more specialist kind of company to get hold of it, or get it mail order. That's so interesting. The rice wash, you're literally talking about rinsing rice before you cook it, then you just save that?

Ashley: Yes, save that.

Jane: There's got to be more to it than that?

Ashley: There's a little bit more. Yes, you could save the water that comes off that, minus the rice, and then just put it into a mason jar and let it sit for about a week. Then if you have some spoiled yoghurt, some spoiled milk, any sort of dairy product, just mix that in. For every one part rice wash water, it's ten parts milk. So if you have one cup lactobacillus, you do ten cups milk or dairy product. So I just recently made a batch of it and had some expired greek yoghurt in the bottom. I literally put it into a blender, I put ten cups of water, I blended my yoghurt up and then that's what I used to inoculate my lactobacillus mix. Then you can separate that out, it may come out to be two three mason jars and then just put it in a nice dark cool area for about two weeks and you'll end up with this really gross looking curdled milk thing on the top. Then just take a turkey baster and baste out all the liquid leaving behind all the solids and then that mixture, that is it. That is your lactobacillus. You can store it in the fridge for up to a year sometimes. I would assume you're going to go through it much quicker than that, but you can store it in the fridge, or you can use it right away or just keep it in a nice cold, dark area. It stores for about three months in an environment like that and that's it. If you wanted to transfer it into, like, a bran, to use in a Bokashi bucket, then you just would add a cup of unsulphured molasses, ten cups of water, mix up your lactobacillus in there and then you would just spread that onto a carrier so that could be like bran, or I've used chicken feed in the past, you could use cornmeal, like, whatever you wanted. You just literally mix it up, dry it out and then that's your new Bokashi bran that you could then use to sprinkle on top of your buckets.

Jane: Mind blown. My husband's going to love having weird mason jars full of stuff! "What are you doing?"

Ashley: Yes, I hide mine! I have mine in a closet right now. I have, like, three jars lined up.

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Jane: More from my chat with Ashley shortly but now let's tackle Question of the Week, which comes from Lisa and concerns a large Weeping Fig that's at least 28 years old, probably a lot older. This plant has got so tall that it hit the ceiling and started to bend over. So things were going really well and then it got left outside for a couple of nights about fifteen months ago, it was covered up with bubble wrap and blankets and a couple of duvet covers but, unfortunately, that didn't keep the cold away and all of its leaves fell off. So this, as you can imagine, was a devastating experience for Lisa and one that perhaps some of you listening have experienced, because this is what Ficus benjamina, the Weeping Fig, does when it gets a little bit stressed. Even if you move it around your house, sometimes it can result in a large flurry of leaves. But you can imagine the shock that Lisa went through when this large tree suddenly had no leaves at all. The good news is the plant has revived and grown new leaves, have a look at the show notes for a picture of this plant as it is. There were dead branches which Lisa cut off and she left the ones that had some life in them but now it's looking a bit limp, a bit curled, it's got some oddly angled branches sticking out,what should Lisa do?

First, I'd say don't be too hard on yourself, Lisa. This has happened to all of us. I have killed things that I have left outside too long. Ficus benjamina, like so many of our houseplants, comes from tropical climes. It's got quite a wide distribution, actually, across India, New Guinea, the Philippines and over to parts of Australia. Clearly it's not going to be happy outside in the UK, in the winter. You can put it outside in the summer, of course, but as I've said it does have this tendency to drop leaves when given a change of conditions, so that's something to be aware of. It's really worth going and having a look at pictures of this plant in the wild because it can actually get to about... well, I think about 20 metres, maybe even 30 metres, tall in the wild. Can you imagine that? Like a lot of things, this is one that starts off epiphytically growing in other trees and then takes over, sending down rooting to the ground and then strangling the other tree. There's a whole load of different species within the Ficus genus that are these strangler figs. Now, in the wild, it has a number of medicinal uses and also it's used in reforestation projects in certain tropical parts of the world. As you can imagine, it's not something that people tend to grow in urban areas because those incredible roots will get everywhere, so it's a really interesting plant. I'll put a link in the show notes to a useful site called Useful Tropical Plants, which gives you more information, but let's get back to Ficus benjamina as a houseplant.

What can Lisa do? I think that you've done a great job in getting this tree back to life, Lisa. I think it's all going in the right direction. It may be that in addition to the damage to the leaves, the roots also suffered in that cold spell. You don't say if you've repotted it since. I would definitely have a look at those, that root system. I know it's a pain to take a big plant out of its pot, but it'll be worth having a look at just seeing what's going on, if there are clumps of dead roots that would be better off being cut away, that may be worth looking at. Aside from dealing with those roots, I think the key to reviving this plant will be undoing any changes very gradually. Now is a good time of year, in spring, in the northern hemisphere, to do some pruning but don't go in too hard. So from the picture I can see there are a few branches at an odd angle and I certainly think it might be worth removing one or two of those branches. When you're doing that, cutting them back with a pair of secateurs or similar, just make sure that you're cutting them so the cut is nice and clean, not flush with the trunk, but also not poking out, so you've got a little tiny lip on that cut. Clean your secateurs beforehand, that way you are using good pruning practice. Like I said in a previous episode with pruning, I wouldn't do everything at once I would take the most obtrusive branch off, it will start to re-sprout as it gets happier. The shape will probably never be quite as it was, but you can certainly make some gradual improvements and remember that pruning always promotes growth, as we said in the RPM episode recently. So, steady as she goes, Lisa. I think your Ficus benjamina will be fine, just don't put it out in the cold again! Thanks for the question, Lisa, and if you've got a question for On The Ledge drop me a line: ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com

I bid a warm welcome to a clutch of new Patreon subscribers this week. Brittany and Lyanna became Crazy Plant People. Archelaus, Paola, Jessica, Rebecca, Hagen and SaraBean became Ledge-ends. I know times are tough financially for a lot of people right now, so it means a lot that so many of you feel able to make a regular donation, but if that's not something you can do, no problem! There's the option of a one-off donation via ko-fi.com or you can do lots of things that cost not a penny: promote me on Twitter, or your social media platform of choice, leave a review for On The Ledge, or tell your planty friends about the show. If you're in the market for some merch, you can also check out my merch shop, which you'll find at janeperrone.com. There's t-shirts, baseball caps, tote bags and more, with the On The Ledge logo.

Quick update on my book, Legends of the Leaf. If you haven't been able to support the book so far, there's still time to do so and this weekend there's 15% off your order using code Springtime15 at Unbound. You'll find the link in the show notes. If you're listening to this show on 25/26/27 March 2022, that code will be valid. Just an update on the book, it's in developmental editing right now, which sounds a bit daunting but means somebody who knows about writing is checking it out. There are lots more stages to go through. I don't have a publication date yet. I'm very excited about the book but it's hard for those of us who don't work in publishing to realise quite how long books take to go from a manuscript to actually being published! It's quite a long time, so I just want to manage expectations about the book. It's going to be a while until it's out and as soon as I have a publication date, I will let you know. It means that the resulting book will be the highest possible quality. So if you don't know what on earth I'm going on about, well, I'm writing this book called Legends of the Leaf. It's 25 iconic houseplant species profiled in depth, this is going in-depth, this is not just saying, "Oh put it in direct light and that will work!". No, this is in-depth information about every aspect of the plant culturally, historically, scientifically and I've loved writing it and I can't wait for you to read it, but we are going to have to wait a bit longer as I've already explained.

Now back to our soil legend, Ashley Esakin for more fascinating insights into the world of houseplant substrates.

Jane: Presumably, if you're going to go down the hydroponics route, your approach is completely different in that you are then trying to have very strict control on what's going on with that hydroponic substrate, or is there still a case for encouraging a rich microbial world?

Ashley: No, so hydroponics, semi-hydroponics, this is why some hydroponics people will be like, "Oh, I bought mycorrhizal fungi. Can I use it?" or they'll say, "I'm using organic fertiliser with my semi-hydro" and the answer to that is always going to be 'No' for me, because you actually want sterility whenever possible. It comes down to the fact that there's no air introduction, or there is high levels of air introduction, depending on what type of hydroponics you're doing, so you can very quickly build up anaerobic bacteria. Anaerobic bacteria without the presence of beneficial aerobic bacteria will equal root rot and it will equal problems, so, again, it comes to that balance. We don't have to worry about that so much in our potting soil mixes because we have the pumice and the perlite and the chunky mix, so we have some areas that are maybe anaerobic, we have some areas that are aerobic, so there's this really nice balance between the two types of microbes, but we can't necessarily achieve that in full water systems, unfortunately. That has to be relatively sterile.

Jane: Got you. What's your best practice if you do need to clean something up? For example, my listeners are doing ourSowalong at the moment, sowing houseplant seeds and, obviously, it's important that you, in that circumstance, that you have clean trays and stuff. Is hot soapy water enough, or is it worth investing in some horticultural disinfectant or something?

Ashley: When it comes to seeds starting, sterility is the exception and I have to laugh because I just made a video on seed starting. I was saying this is the only time you will ever hear this out of my mouth but we need to sterilise the soil. The soapy water would work, you can also do bleach if that's more accessible to you and then just make sure everything's nicely dried out. Then when it comes to actual potting soil that you're using, whether it be coconut coir or peat moss, whatever the case is, I always try to encourage people to skip out, in the initial stages anyway, any sort of compost additions. In particular, the reason for that is if you - and it depends on your scenario - but plants release chemicals and we call it allelopathic chemicals or allelopathic tendencies. So plants, as they're dying, or as their foliage is dying, it will release chemicals into the system around it and this is mother nature at its finest. It's trying to reduce potential competition of other seeds in its environment. If we compost a tomato plant, the tomato plant leaves are going to release a chemical that's going to suppress the germination of all the other plants around it, except for tomato plant seeds because it doesn't want competition for the light, the water, the nutrients, which makes sense. When we're using compost and we're mixing compost into our potting soil mixes, there's a potential for some sort of chemical release that's going to suppress the germination of a plant seed. If you want to use compost, or you're dead set on it, I suggest doing a germination test actually before you do the compost mix, and all you would do, is take straight compost that you're using, put ten pea seeds in the mix and make sure at least eight or more of the pea seeds germinate. If less than eight germinate then there's potentially a chemical release still happening there and it means that the compost isn't aged enough, or it's sensitive. But when we are dealing with tropical plants, it's really hard to say what compost will not cause a suppression in germination because they're so exotic and it's such a new industry. It's really difficult to say which composts are the best. I always aim for, especially with exotic seeds, just plain Jane, just coconut coir or just peat moss, whatever it takes with no other additions in it. I will wait until I bump up, which is an important process that gardeners use, but houseplant people should use as well, and it's just the bumping up from the single cells into a slightly larger container and at that point you can add your compost, your vermicompost. If you're using any sort of inoculant microbe you can dry apply that at that time and then pot up into a slightly larger container and that would be the time when you would add those other organic amendments. But initially, when it comes to seed starting, just go with the absolute bare minimum and the smaller the cell the better when it comes to all that.

Jane: That is so useful. Ashley, I have learned a ton from this chat and I'm sure my listeners have as well. My brain feels overwhelmed. I need to go and watch lots of your videos and absorb all of this fantastic information. Thanks so much for joining me today and I hope that I can get you back some time because there's loads more things to ask you about. I've taken up lots of your time, but thank you so much for joining me today.

Ashley: Yes, no problem - it's a good time; I enjoy it!

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Jane: Well, if your mind hasn't been blown by that interview then I want to know why?! Thanks so much to Ashley for joining me this week and check out the show notes for lots of awesome links to Ashley's stuff. That's just about it. It just remains for me to say if you're in the UK and you're into houseplants, have you signed up for The Plant Ledger, my email newsletter about houseplants for the UK scene? If you haven't, please do go and check out the show notes and sign up. The second edition came out today and it's a doozy, so go ahead and sign up for The Plant Ledger for a summary of all the latest news and views from the UK houseplant scene direct to your inbox. Right, I'm off to lie in the spring sunshine with a damp flannel on my face. Have a great weekend, everybody. Bye!

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J**ane*: The music you heard in this episode was Roll Jordan Roll, by The Joy Drops, The Road We Used To Travel When We Were Kids, by Komiku and Overthrown, *by Josh Woodward. All tracks are licensed under Creative Commons. Visit the show notes for details.

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Soil scientist Ashley Esakin of Gardening In Canada is back for part two of her interview about houseplant soils, plus I answer a question about a weeping fig that has had a shock.

This week’s guest

Ashley Esakin of gardeningincanada.net has a YouTube channel where you can find lots of information on houseplant soil science.

This is part two of a two-part series. Listen to part one here.

The Plant Ledger is here…

Sign up now to get the next edition of new email newsletter covering the UK houseplant scene and you’ll get my free guide to dealing with fungus gnats!. You can have a peek at edition one and edition two.

Check out these tips from Ashley as you listen…

Mycorrhizal fungi form what is known as a parasitic symbiosis - in other words, specific fungi species attach themselves to specific plant species, so you can’t add an “all purpose” mycorrhizal fungi to your pots and expect it to work.
If you purchase mycorrhizal fungi for your plants, check if it has a known symbiosis with the plants you are growing. If no symbiosis exists, the fungi won’t do harm but will just sit as fungal spores in the soil, waiting for the right plant to come along! You can also go for a broad spectrum of mycorrhizal fungi in the hope that the right one for your plant is included. The product Ashley mentions is Root Rescue and Myke, both based in Canada.
Also check for CFU - colony forming units - this means how much fungi is actually in the packet - it should be in the region of 10 to the power of 8 or similar. Check out Ashley’s video on mycorrhizal fungi products here.
Bear in mind that lots of houseplants are epiphytic, so the likelihood of having a mycorrhizal fungi that it forms a relationship with is unlikely.
There are two types of mycorrhizal fungi. Ectomycorrhiza lie on top of the root or in the rhizosphere, where they benefit from sugary exudates given off by plants. Endomycorrhiza actually tap into the roots themselves, so the plant can extend its reach for nutrients and water.
Labs or lactobacillus are probiotics for soil can be made at home as a beneficial addition to water when giving houseplants a drink, helping to introduce some of the main types of bacteria that decompose organic material and help nutrient release to the plant. It’s also found in the bokashi bran used in bokashi food waste fermentation systems. You can use the leachate from bokashi buckets on your houseplants when watering. (More on my experiences with bokashi in this blogpost).
Check out Ashley’s post for more on this, and how to make your own Labs. Also check out this video from Ashley on microbe-based products for soil.
Say nutrients and we usually think of the “big three” - nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous - but there are actually 17 nutrients that plants need. Micronutrients present in rockdust (which is basically pulverised rocks, as the name suggests) products are great for adding to your substrates, but microbes make these micronutrients available to your plants - you can do this by adding a teaspoon of soil from your garden!
If you are growing hydroponically or semi hydroponically, you should aim for sterility rather than a rich microbial environment: if you don’t, anaerobic bacteria can build up and cause problems such as root rot.
Another caveat: you should also sterilise the soil when seed sowing, and make sure containers are cleaned with hot soapy water or a bleach solution - just rinse and dry well.
Don’t add homemade compost to seed compost mixes either. Ashley explains why here.

THIS WEEK’S SPONSOR

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QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Lisa’s weeping fig (Ficus benjamina) lost ALL its leaves after being left outside in the cold for two days, It recovered, but still looks rather sad and has some dead branches. Check out how this tree grows in the wild in this post on the Sseful Tropical Plants website.

I suggest Lisa checks the roots as these may also have been damaged by the cold. Gradual pruning to remove any more dead branches, or ones that are ruining the outline of the tree, will help. Check back to the RPM episode for some general tips on pruning. Remember, pruning stimulates growth, so work gradually and work on the overall health of the plant.

Want to ask me a question? Email ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com. The more information you can include, the better - pictures of your plant, details of your location and how long you have had the plant are always useful to help solve your issue!

HOW TO SUPPORT ON THE LEDGE

Contributions from On The Ledge listeners help to pay for all the things that have made the show possible over the last few years: equipment, travel expenses, editing, admin support and transcription.

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CREDITS

This week's show featured the tracks Dill Pickles by the Heftone Banjo Orchestra, Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops, The Road We Use To Travel When We Were Kids by Komiku and Overthrown by Josh Woodward.

Houseplant science, Houseplant care basicsJane PerroneMarch 25, 2022soil and compostComment