Fertiliser-mushroom compost

Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:47:27 PDT
When I first discovered that horse manure (really stable bedding mixed with
manure) was available from the local stables maintained by the park police,
I went on a binge bringing the stuff into the garden. I tried it on all
sorts of things. 

I planted a few bulbs of Iris histrio aintabensis in it – directly into a
shovel full of it, without any admixture of soil or anything else. Those
iris really went to town – they not only bloomed but they provided dozens
and dozens of fat little bulbs when I dug them.  When I ran out of manure
and those same plants were moved into regular soil, the faded away within a
year or two. 

Another year I did something so counter-intuitive that the results amazed
even me. I have this hypothesis that fungi in the soil are very aggressive
to one another. I decided that if I could establish a non-pathogenic fungus
in the soil, bulbs which are often victims of pathogenic fungi would be
protected. To test this hypothesis, I used the horse manure. I noticed that
if I kept it in plastic bags, it soon developed a very pleasant mushroomy
odor. I wasn’t aware that any of the Agaricus fungi were pathogens of live
plants, so I decided to store some tulip bulbs in this mushroomy horse
manure during the summer. 

I put a handful of tulip bulbs into a plastic bag full of the mushroomy
horse manure/stable bedding. The plastic bags were clear plastic, and during
the summer I could see that the fungal mycelium was filling the bag. Every
once and a while I would open a bag and take a tulip bulb out to check it.
They were always fine. 

When fall came, I took out all the tulip bulbs and looked them over. They
seemed fine. Except for the peculiar surface texture they had – rough, not
smooth like dry bulbs – they were fine. They were also a bit warm – the
stable bedding was evidently still decomposing a bit, although not enough to
harm the bulbs. There was one other difference: the tulip bulbs were not as
heavy as comparably-sized bulbs stored in conventional ways. The fungus was
apparently monopolizing the moisture. 

I like to tell this story to beginning gardeners, the sort who freak every
time they see any evidence of fungi. The point I try to make is that only
some fungi are pathogens; most are not. The other point is the concept of
host specificity: even pathogenic fungi have specific hosts. They are not
wild cards which will destroy everything they touch. Fungi are everywhere,
and we’re still here, right? 

Jim McKenney
jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone
7, where it's warm right now and the scent of magnolias fills the garden.
My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/
BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/
 
Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS 
Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ 
 
Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/
 
 
 
 
 
 


More information about the pbs mailing list