A Hypothesis Regarding Fungi:Bacteria Ratios

17.02.2023 / Feburary 17th 2023 / 19:01

it's been a long time since i was spacehey at all--my bad guys, i've been going through a depressive episode lately. i came here today because i was getting ready to write some stuff down in a notebook about fungi:bacteria ratios and i was like hey, all these thoughts could pretty easily go into my blog, i feel like i never get back to what i write in notebook entries. so here i am. i'm just going to get into it or else i lose motivation to write...

Fungi to bacteria ratios are just how much bacteria biomass vs fungi biomass there is in soil and it's a pretty big part of restorative agriculture. Even so, there isn't much done about it. Like, we've known about fungi:bacteria ratios since the 70's or something, and still it's not even close to common plant or soil knowledge. Lately I've noticed that sometimes a plant who isn't suffering from root rot will start to go yellow (houseplants mostly). I have a theory that this is because the fungi:bacteria ratio is too low for that plant. Recently I created a soil mix that was pretty mulch-heavy because I was about to plant some vegetables. These are pretty big pots since I'm trying to maximize soil health and that means including companions to whatever main plant I have in there. Anyways, I make the soil, pot it, insert some seeds to see if they would germinate, add a cover so the humidity can stay in, and let it sit for a couple weeks. Honestly it was like one or two (idk man I have no sense of time) before i started really paying attention to it again. I noticed there must have been some small mushrooms that popped up because I could see where the mushroom caps hit the plastic covering and withered. I saw quite a couple actually in my bigger pot (there were two) that I had planted carrots and pepper (I think?). I saw bits of fuzz and telltale signs of fungi. One of the major reasons I started thinking about the yellowing and improper fungi:bacteria ratios was because in this little hydroponics set up I got for christmas I had planted chamomile. It sprouted super fast but became stunted just as quickly. I noticed some of the leaves were yellowing and I thought that maybe since the little sponges where the plants grow are pretty inhospitable to traditional mychorrizal fungi that maybe there was too much bacteria. Also, oh my god, I decided I would take the sponge out of the hydroponics set up and put it into one of the soil pots that was already colonized and when I stuck my finger in there to make space I could feel the soil rip apart. As if there were roots in there!! But barely any plants had grown!! THAT MEANS THAT THE MYCELLIUM WAS THRIVING IN THERE!!!!11!1 It MEANS that the mycellium was tying the soil together!!! That is FANTASTIC NEWS. Though I am mildly concerned that fungi had already eaten the first seeds I put in there so I might wait a bit longer to see if more sprouts before putting more seeds in. Turns out there were some rouge chia seeds left in the soil and those sprouted super quickly, but in the carrot-pepper pot im seeing something grow right in the middle :oo, I'm thinking its carrot, but im unsure. It's absolutely not chia, so thats pretty cool. Anyways, I'm thinking about houseplants, right, and I'm thinking I'm going to get more mulch and add it to any houseplants that seem to chronically go yellow. Also I would really like to do more research into these ratios and read some scientific studies. Yknow, get up to date on modern restorative agriculture before I try to do an independent study experiment at my school. Anyways, that's all I have to say today. I'll start just thought-dumping into spacehey from now on (I'll try at least). Okayyy byyeee