A New Bio-Weapon in The Rhizoc Wars?

Comments

1. Michael Stachowicz says

   April 16, 2015 at 9:43 AM

   Trichoderma has intrigued since the 90’s when research at Cornell was pointing to it. I am waiting for a granular formulation to be able to use it on the Mall.

    

   I am curious as to the comment of building up a population in the soil of Trichoderma, or anything for that matter. It is my understanding that it is the soil conditions are what really dictate what your microbial populations are. I would be interested to see a follow up story later in the year looking at results on the turf, but also looking at what has actually happened to the soil microbiology.

   Reply

2. Mark Hoban CGCS says

   April 16, 2015 at 11:14 AM

   Hey Michael, I agree that management of the soil dictates what microorganisms survive based on your inputs. If I use lots of inorganics and salts and pesticides I still have bacteria, fungi, protazoa, nematodes… in that envirornment. However, I believe I can increase the good guys with introducing them into the turfgrass. Dr. Zuberer states in an article published in the Green Section Record, July 20, 2012 entitled Microbes . ” Results from a “community swap” experiment show that soil is an overriding factor influencing microbial population dynamics. More specifically,

   when the same microbial community was inoculated into two different soils, it developed in a different way in each soil (on left). Conversely, when different

   communities were inoculated into the same soil, they developed in the same way.

   The authors of this particular study concluded that “. . . it appears that the soil

   physico-chemical conditions determine what specific microorganisms thrive in that

   soil and so determine microbial community composition” (Griffiths et al., 2007). I manage by focusing on soil health and feeding the organisms to increase their #’s. One way is to introduce specific fungi and bacteria, and the other way I do it is to use both a tested compost for biology using both thermal and vermicompost as well as compost tea so that I maximize diversity.

    

   We have trails set up by UGA using compost and we see 80% + reduction in dollar spot and this is repeated on bermudagrass and zoysiagrass. The checks have very heavy infestations. I am seeing it with some trichoderma’s as well, three of them reduce dollar spot and one has shown significant reduction in brown patch. All my other food inputs are the same in checks and trials, so that is where I am surmising that establishing increased #’s is showing very good benefits. I have other greens where I have put out 1/3 the amount of trichoderma’s and they had more rhizoc on them vs.. the heavy rate trial plots. Lastly, one of the bio companies compares % of inoculation of their trichodermas thru soil samples 15 days after each application to check #’s and evlauate how it is performing.

   Also, some of them do have granular and one is in the process of releasing the granular and I plan to put it in the trials as well.

   Reply

3. Michael Stachowicz says

   April 20, 2015 at 12:30 PM

   Mr. Hoban,

    

   Thank you for you thoughtful answer. I cannot wait to see how this goes.

    

   What I spend a little time railing against when it comes to “organic” lawn or sportsturf care are the snake oil selling consultants that talk about changing the soil microbiology with addition of bugs from a jug while ignoring the importance of aeration and other healthy practices for soil. While I had hung onto Dr. Zuberer’s research over the past few years as a basis of making some agronomic decisions, I had not that to approach it the way you are. I am very interested in what you learn.

   Reply

4. Mark Hoban CGCS says

   April 20, 2015 at 1:47 PM

   Hey I’m not that old at least in my own mind! Call me Mark, I just want to make sure you know that it is a voyage and I haven’t found land yet, I am learning and wanting to share. We have had tremendous disease pressure due to high humidity and non stop storms. Good news for rating disease on my plots, but I have to keep saying am I out of my mind not spraying a fungicide. In today’s ratings I am seeing more pressure on all plots but my observations so far is that when weather changes they recover rapidly and much faster than the checks. I really want to know what effects it has on the roots and I will be able to see this summer, something I do not look forward to. I am also weighing out bio mass and root mass after drying and so far I have seen increased weighs in roots on one of the trichoderma’s by 11.4%. I need more samples for bio mass readings

   Reply