Beneficial fungus....?

[tucker85]

I have read a couple of articles about the role that some fungii play in the uptake of nutrients by plants and specifically orchids. Living in Florida I use fungicides quite often. Am I killing beneficial fungii? Is there a product or a method for replacing the beneficial fungii?

[Lady_Vamp]

Yes, fungicide wouldn't discriminate between beneficial and harmful fungus, so both would be killed.

I'm studying in biology and my mycology teacher said there were some newly commercialised products sold as fungicides that were actually containing beneficial fungus (because beneficial fungi is a way to get rid/prevent the apparition of bad fungus, nematodes and even harmful bacterias). I don't have any names, but you could probably find some. It may even be sold as a fertilizer.

I doubt these beneficial fungus would help with the uptake of nutrient for orchids though, since orchids have a special type of mycorrhiza (orchid mycorrhiza) and the commercialised products will be made for a wide variety of plants (endomycorrhizal fungi), but it's still worth a shot.

[Bud]

I think the beneficial fungus is important when the plant is a seedling and becomes simbiotic to each other. But when the plant becomes an adult and established the fugus becomes irrelevant. I may be wrong; but as I discovered my Ghost orchids in their seedling stage had to be in a colony and on the center I put a large dead root from the adult mother plant so it can provide the fungal simbiosis...so far they are still alive and growing...as opposed to my first batch that all got decimated by the dry winter of last year

[Lady_Vamp]

Orchid seeds (which have no energy reserve) germinate when "infected" by specific fungi. At that stage, seeds are dependant on the fungi which feeds the seeds.

When the orchid has enough chlorophyll, it will be autonomous, but will share sugar with the fungi in exchange for other nutrients. Sometimes, orchids do not develop chlorophyll and depend on the fungi all their life, instead of dying like asymbiotic orchids grown in vitro would.

It is proven that symbiotic relations between fungi and plant will "better" the plant in the long terme : bigger plant, more vivid color (observed for peppers), stronger structures, higher survival rate to winter/droughts, ability to live in a more hostile environment, etc. This is due to the fact that a root can only absorb what is (almost) directly in contact with it and the root mass doesn't cover a lot of space, whereas fungi will have a wider absorption surface (because of bacterias living along side with the fungi and the higher number forms of nutrient it can absorb) and the fungi "web" will cover a lot more space than the roots of the plant.

Fungi "fertilisation" is rapidly developping in agriculture because it is highly effective (and it comes with the price too : a handsize bottle of spores is 15 000 $ or about )

Maybe in the future, we will see orchid-mycorrhizal fungi sold at our OS

[Bud]

WOW! Thanks for the infos, Lady Vamp ! Thats amazing !...I love the word "autonomous" as opposed to my word: "irrelevant"...yours is more positive energy

[Lady_Vamp]

Thanks! Mycology is one of my favorite subjects

(Was I wrong spelling it?) -*> I was worried for a second

[Bud]

nah...you got the spelling right...its just a more positive outlook in plants than what I used...

[tucker85]

Wow! Lots of great information. Thank you.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Achlorophyllous orchids depend on orchid mycorrhizal fungi associations throughout their entire lives.

Some chlorophyllous terrestrial orchids are heavily dependent on orchid mycorrhizae to survive in the long run even as adults. One good example would be orchids in the genus Caladenia.

[keithrs]

Not only do you kill beneficial fungi you kill beneficial Bactria. I have stopped using physan and other fungicides. Instead I had been using mycro teas with fairly good results. I'm not using as fertilizer but as a natural fungicide. I stopped because I'm taking part in a low k trial. If interested I use fungi perfecti. I use it
on all my other plants. If this low K trial works well I may try a organic tea fertilizer.

I might add that I do have mushrooms growing out of the pots with pine bark. Fungi live off of or eat the bark so you may have to replace more often. orchiata seam to be resistant to fungi growing.