I could not have said things better! This is exactly the kind of path I am trying to take these days. So pleased to read more on the subject! Mark > Message du 05/02/16 01:56 > De : "Mike Rummerfield" " I have long taken the opposite approach to sterilization as it's never made biological sense to me. Plus, it seems it is often that the pests/pathogens are the first to colonize a sterile environment. I always use an unsterilized medium and add beneficial microbe inoculants, and it usually works for me, though I have no research on it. It only makes sense to me that plants/bulbs that have their own idiosyncratic, symbiotic, synergistic microbes available to them are much better to ward off pathogens and to thrive; both in the soil, and on the above ground parts where the beneficials take up all the "real estate" so that pathogens have nowhere to set up house and do their damage. Nature has had much longer to work this out than we have. Hopefully, someone with real knowledge on this subject will respond to your queries. An aside: I do sterilize something like coco husk chips that are imported from a foreign country so as not to possibly introduce organisms that are not native to the local biome, but then reinoculate it." _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/