Farmer's Fungus

Farmer’s Fungus

Micorrhizae (plural, pronounced my-cor-ry-zay) are soil fungi that live symbiotically with most plants, including almost all crops. They are incredibly important to healthy crops and provide yet another example why synthetic fertilizers cannot begin to rival nature.

The word itself is built from ancient Greek. Myco means “fungus” and rhiza means “root”. The words literally mean, “fungus-root”. Back in the 1920”s researchers began studying how plant roots interact with soil life. They noted that living fungal threads invade the young roots in plants. They learned this isn’t damage or disease. Its symbiosis. The fungus takes energy from the plant’s photosynthesis while the roots gradually digest the fungus providing nitrogen directly to the root system, while the digested proteins enter the sap as soluble nutrients.

In modern times research shows that only some micorrhizae invade the roots. Many form a sheath around the roots without penetrating them. The result is a fungal reservoir in the root zone providing a vast storage capacity for water and carbohydrate the plant can draw on. Powerful enzymes released by micorrhizae dissolve and make available hard to capture nutrients like phosphorus and iron and fifteen other nutrients necessary for plant growth. The list of benefits keeps going on. Colonization by micorrhizal fungi protects the plant from parasitic fungi and nematodes, and all the while they excrete antibiotic substances that protect the plant from disease. The filaments that make up micorrhizae improve the soil in other ways. Their sticky threads tighten up loose sandy soils and loosen up hard clay soils.

Its gets even more amazing folks. In the 1990’s research at Oregon State University showed that networks of micorrhizae connected trees of many different species. Birch trees growing in bright sunlight subsidized fir trees in the shade by sharing sugars through the micorrhizae network. A dominant tree can provide nutrients to seedlings, herbs and shrubs in its shade!

Unfortunately modern synthetic agriculture views fungus as an enemy. Broad-spectrum fungicides destroy the target disease and also the beneficial fungi needed for a healthy crop. Synthetic fungicides get washed off the plant and into the soil, or are applied directly to the soil as fumigants or in coated seed thereby destroying the micorrhizal network. The destruction is long lasting too, because it takes several years for the micorrhizae to grow back. All tillage practices change the soil and longer we work it the more we shift the soil balance from fungal to bacterial, and that’s not good for crops. This is why organic growers keep tillage to a minimum.

Micorrhizal fungi are now sometimes referred to as ‘farmers fungus’. The cost is only about $10-$20 per acre and the economic benefits outweigh the costs due to increased crop yield, and less expense in irrigation and fertilizer. One neat thing nowadays is that you can now purchase micorrhizae to inoculate your garden’s soil. The best information is found on the web. I did a quick search and it turned up hundreds of companies selling it by the packet. Although it’s a for-profit organization, check out www.micorrhiza.com It has a super description of micorrhizae application agriculture.