What’s up Dude, Scotty, Guru and the DGC. I’ve binged my way through almost 100 episodes in the 2 weeks since I learned about the Dude Grows Show and I’m close enough to real time that I’m ready to fire off a question. Are there any ways to build or enhance the rhizosphere in a hydroponic system? I’m working a DWC perpetual grow, keeping it simple with the Lucas formula GH (micro and bloom)while I get things figured out. I’m currently only using bacillus (So. Ag Family Friendly Fungicide) diluted 20:1 then applied 1ml/gal and Cal/Mag at .5ml/gal. Nutes are changed every 10-14 days, topped off with pH adjusted water in between. Everything has been going fine for my first 3 harvests but I’m not afraid to try to build a bigger, stronger plant. Thanks guys for all the knowledge already bestowed and the High(I)deas yet to come.
833-420-2420
I’ll say up front that I’m not a hydro grower and I never have been. However, I do know a bit about mycorrhizal fungi and I can’t see how DWC (or ANY hydro system) can benefit from Mycorrhizae. In order for Mycorrhizae to work with a cannabis plant it needs to invade a root hair and then it needs to begin building a hyphal network that would eventually mine and transport nutrients. This process takes months in it’s natural environment – soil – before the network is large enough that it even begins to be capable of contributing to the plant. This particular fungi is incredibly delicate and I can’t see it surviving (much less thriving) in DWC, without the protection that soil offers the mycelium. I see people posting pictures of (supposed) “Mycorrhizae” but the reality is that mycorrhizal mycelium cannot be seen with the naked eye and requires a stain to be seen under a microscope. So, those pictures are a different type of mycelium (and NOT myco) and you can probably see my point about how unlikely it would be to survive the DWC environment. The aeration alone would almost certainly tear apart the hyphal strands.
Secondly, it’s a well known scientific fact that an abundance of plant available phosphorous (the primary nutrient mycorrhizae provides) will shut down/render inoperable mycorrhizal networks in soil. This is because, when the plant can slurp up all the nutrition it need through its own root tips (without needing the myco’s help), it just doesn’t have any need for the fungi to do anything. So, given that DWC and any hydro system operates on 100% plant-available nutrition, the notion that any mycorrhizal network that DID exist would function doesn’t make any sense.
There may be people who claim they have seen a benefit from adding mycorrhizal inoculant to their DWC system but I’m pretty confident that they’re mistaken. Any improvement they think they may have seen is almost certainly the result of something else that they’re done or added, and not the result of the fungi. I find any science that would support the idea that adding myco to something like DWC would provide a benefit. In fact, there’s a lot of science that indicates mycorrhizae is really far more beneficial in things like no-till beds than typical one-run, smaller soil container grows. So, I’d save your money for now.
I’m open to any science that refutes this – I always want to learn. So far, though, I haven’t run across it. The cannabis space is over-run with bro-science that’s got the tiniest connection to actual science but still seems to easily separate growers from their hard-earned money. LOL! DWC is already the ‘hotrod’ of grow styles. How hard you gonna try to push that poor plant? HAHA!
Hope this helps!
@dtom420
Thanks for all the info and insight DTOM. I agree with the hot rod analogy. I’m looking for opportunities for healthier and stronger as I know that they are really being pushed. I was wondering what might be done to help generate/enhance a beneficial microbial environment in my reservoirs
Use tm7 by bioag and the kelp along with the kelp use half strength a lil bubbly foamy but it’s k my friend