Soil mycorrhizae. What is it? If you’ve seen any of the “Avatar” movies, you would know that James Cameron probably has a good grasp of the subject…and you would have a basic understanding of what we are going to talk about today. Without mycorrhizal activity, there would be very little gardening.
To return to the “Avatar” comparison, you know how in those movies, if anyone fell ill or was near death or they needed to call in the National Guard, they could stick a tree root in their ear and they’d get healthy or victorious, and then the movie could have a happy ending? To quote the “Avatar” Wiki:
In Avatar, tree roots are critical, bioluminescent conduits for Eywa, Pandora's neural network, allowing Na'vi to connect to their deity and ancestors. Key structures include the Tree of Souls and Tree of Voices, featuring complex, willow-like root systems that facilitate tsaheylu (the bond) for communication and data transfer.
Can you see mycorrhizae activity? Yes! If you have a microscope:
(p.s. “Arbuscular”: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are soil fungi (subphylum Glomeromycotina) that form symbiotic relationships with roughly 80% of terrestrial plant species. They colonize plant roots, forming tree-like structures called "arbuscules" inside root cells that act as exchange sites. AMF improve plant uptake of phosphorus, nitrogen, and water, in exchange for plant carbon, increasing plant biomass and stress tolerance.)
Aren’t you glad you asked?
What about if you turn over the mulch that’s beneath your persimmon tree. Is that white stuff on the bottom of the mulch that’s in contact with the soil…is that mycorrhizae?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: That white stuff on the bottom of mulch is a decomposing fungi, saprophytic fungi. Saprophytes act as decomposers breaking down dead organic matter, while mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic partnerships with living plant roots.
Falling asleep yet? Here’s Ben Faber, a soil, water, and subtropical crops advisor for the Ventura/Santa Barbara UC Cooperative Extension, with his more astute look at mycorrhizae. This is from his newsletter, “Topics in Subtropics”:
Mycorrhizae means fungus (myco) root (rhizae). These root-associated fungi predate the evolution of terrestrial plants, and the partnership with mycorrhizal fungi facilitated the establishment of plants on earth. Mycorrhizae form symbiotic associations with more than 70% of land plants across a broad range of terrestrial ecosystems. Plants supplies mycorrhizae with photo-assimilated carbon in exchange for nutrients and water. This is the definition of a perfect relationship whereby the two sides support each other and have a personal interest at maintaining their counterpart well-being for survival. Once mycorrhizae colonize the host plant, its mycelium can grow over large distances to neighboring plants connecting them together by a common network. This extension of the root network allows plants to acquire water and nutrients (especially nitrogen and phosphorus) far beyond its root zone, rendering plants more resilient to drought and nutrient deficiency. The ability of mycorrhizae to form this underground web also enables the connected plant to communicate with each other through chemical signals and exchange water and nutrients. For example, in forest ecosystems, saplings rely on nutrients and carbon supply from older trees sent through the mycorrhizal network. This underground mycorrhizal web has also great physical properties because they improve the soil structure by forming stable soil aggregates thereby limiting erosion and leaching of nutrients.
Today’s podcast features two interviews. The first is with Sacramento County Master Gardener Pat Rosales. We discuss the chances of you buying living mycorrhizae that might be an alleged part of that bag of potting soil you’re coveting. Or even more doubtful, an ingredient in the fertilizer you’re reaching for. Science says: doubtful. Science also says: “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
We do discuss ways to create your own soil mycorrhizae, as well as how to keep what mycorrhizae you already have in top shape.
The second part of today’s podcast features Alaskan garden writer Jeff Lowenfels, author of the “Teaming with…” series of books about what’s in the soil below your feet, including microbes, fungi, bacteria, and nutrients. Lowenfels, besides talking about fungi, is a fun guy. He talks about his previous career (he’s a self-described “recovering lawyer”), and his short stint as a Congressional candidate, campaigning on the platform of, “don’t rake your leaves!” Joining us in the conversation is America’s Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, Debbie Flower, who thoroughly enjoyed geeking out with Jeff.
Warning: this podcast runs nearly 90 minutes. You may want to change drivers frequently if you’re listening to it on a car trip, so no one will doze off at the wheel.
On the other hand, THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF AND IT’S WHY PLANTS GROW.
Be advised: this material may appear on the Final.
If you’re still reading this, you must be a curious gardener! Free or paid, either is welcome. However, I am praying for the eternal salvation of the souls of the paid subscribers. No pressure.
Soil Mycorrhizae TRANSCRIPT
Farmer Fred:
Today on the Beyond the Garden Basics podcast, we’re talking mycorrhizae. No, don’t go away. Don’t go away. Please. Just listen for a minute or two, would you? Mycorrhizae is the reason you have successful plants. If we didn’t have mycorrhizae, you wouldn’t have a garden. So how can you make more mycorrhizae? Well, you can. You don’t have to buy it. We’ll tell you how. Pat Rosales is with us, Master Gardener in Sacramento County, who wrote an excellent article for the Sacramento Master Gardener newsletter in April, all about packaged mycorrhizae. Now, I think we have to establish something right off the bat. A lot of people think mycorrhizae are critters. But no, Mike and Cora don’t live in your soil. It is a relationship that’s called a mycorrhizal relationship. And it’s because it’s a mycorrhizal relationship is the reason a lot of these fungi, these various funguses, if you will, are called mycorrhizae because they’re involved in a mycorrhizal relationship. It’s basically a two-way street between the roots of your plants and the fungi in your soil taking care of each other, which makes your garden thrive.
Farmer Fred:
But there are things you could do to it that could destroy it. There are things you may not be even aware of, and you may not even realize you don’t have any mycorrhizae. There are certain conditions where you need to have some mycorrhizal relationships going on where none existed before. And we’ll tell you how.
Farmer Fred:
It’s mycorrhizae today on the Beyond the Garden Basics podcast. By the way, if you think this is daunting, stick around for part two of today’s podcast, where we talk to Jeff Lowenfels, the author of several books about soil microbes: Teaming with Microbes, Teaming with Fungi, Teaming with Bacteria, Teaming with Nutrients.
Well, you get the idea, and Jeff will really give you the lowdown and delve deep into the science of mycorrhizal relationships and why they’re so important in your garden.
Pat Rosales, French horn musician and Master Gardener, pleasure to have you with us again to talk mycorrhizae. And a lot of people think that, “okay, I’ve heard about the benefits of mycorrhizal relationships and mycorrhizae now for, oh, most of the 21st century. I guess I’ll go buy me some”. Well, before you do that, let’s talk about exactly what they are and what they do, Pat. What are they? What do they do?
Pat Rosales:
Well, mycorrhizae are collectively the mycelium of the fungus that lives in our soil. And they develop this, as you said, a very symbiotic relationship with your plants. And so the plants produce a carbohydrate because they photosynthesize from the sun. And they produce this carbohydrate, which they exude at the root tip. The mycorrhizae come along and they live near the root tip. And they use the carbon from the plant as nutrients. In exchange, the mycorrhizae provide nutrients, make nutrients available to the plant that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to use.
Farmer Fred:
It sounds like a fair exchange to me. One of the big ingredients that the mycorrhizal relationship can provide to the plant is phosphorus. And this is where a lot of gardeners might go askew because if you add your own phosphorus fertilizer, you inhibit the mycorrhizae, the beneficial fungi that are in there. It doesn’t necessarily kill the fungi, but it sidelines it because the plant says, “hey, I’ve got all this fertilizer falling down as a little blue powder. I’ll use that instead. You go play with yourself or something. Just leave us alone.” And the poor mycorrhizae basically just have nothing to do, so they do not thrive.
Pat Rosales:
And then the plant can’t really use the phosphorus in that form.
Farmer Fred:
That’s right. Somebody has to change it to something that they can use.
Pat Rosales:
That’s exactly what the mycorrhizae do. They make the phosphorus available to the plant.
Farmer Fred:
And that’s soluble phosphorus that we’re talking about. When you apply phosphorus via a fertilizer, that’s usually soluble phosphorus. And that, again, sidelines the mycorrhizae. Mycorrhizae, though, are very good at using insoluble phosphorus and converting that to something that the plant can use. So this is one of the reasons why mycorrhizae are so popular in agriculture. It’s cutting fertilizer costs for agriculture for those who are farming organically or farming sustainably or just want to cut their fertilizer costs by having a thriving soil with mycorrhizal relationships going on. There’s all the phosphorus you need so those ships can just keep circling in the Strait of Hormuz and your plants will just be as happy as ever.
Pat Rosales:
Absolutely. So there are things that you can do to promote the development of microorganisms in soil. For example, if you grow dill periodically or dig to any depth, what you’re doing is disturbing the soil and destroying the mycelium. So every time you do that, it has to build itself up again from scratch. So that’s detrimental. Another thing you can do is to create pathways so that you’re not compacting the soil because the mycelium, that contain the mycorrhizae, can’t live in a compacted soil. And also avoid chemical fertilizers and herbicides because they both kill mycorrhizae. And something we don’t think about a lot is to have something growing in your garden, even during the off season. For example, you might have one plot where you planted tomatoes and you pulled up the tomatoes and you just want to leave that fallow until the next season. But your mycorrhizae need the nourishment that comes from the roots of plants. And so if the tomatoes are gone, plant something else in its stead, something over the winter that can nourish the mycorrhizae.
Farmer Fred:
Sure, you can put in cover crops. And you can also, instead of yanking out that tomato plant, just cut it off at the base of the soil and let the roots remain in the soil to help the mycorrhizae thrive during the winter.
Pat Rosales:
Absolutely.
Farmer Fred:
So there’s a lot of ways that you can encourage mycorrhizal activity without too much work on your part. Cover crops are a great idea. It works well. Mulch too. If you’re using an organic mulch, be it compost or leaves, you’re also increasing the mycorrhizal activity as those leaves or that compost breaks down and, again, feeds the soil. We should also point out, too, that mycorrhizae aren’t just waiters and waitresses feeding plants. They also help to offer them some protection from certain pests and diseases, like nematodes, for example.
Pat Rosales:
Yes, actually, mycorrhizae will attack nematodes that are attacking your, for example, your tomato plants.
Farmer Fred:
There are some circumstances, though, where you may need to add commercial mycorrhizae. And a lot of people don’t think about this, but maybe right now you’re building some new raised beds because you’ve heard about how great it is to have a raised bed in your garden. So you call up the sand and gravel place and order five yards of their gardener’s blend, which in the case around here, it’s usually some river bottom soil, a bit of compost, and probably some sort of forest by-products or something like that.
Farmer Fred:
The problem is there’s probably no mycorrhizae in there because mycorrhizae only survive where there is plant material. So if there are no plant roots in that mix, chances are there’s no mycorrhizae. In that case, you may need to inoculate the soil with mycorrhizae. Now, the problem with going to the store and buying mycorrhizae is how do you know that stuff in that box or bag is alive? And the fact of the matter is, you don’t know if it’s alive or not, and chances are it’s dead. There have been studies done by scientists with their results published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, for instance, New Phytologist, which is a scientific journal, in volume 246. They talk about the viability of commercial mycorrhizae, and they say mycorrhizal colonization in the commercial products they tested was less than 10% in both the old study of 2004 and the newest study in 2024, indicating that even for viable products, they have low symbiotic potential that is not improving over time. And they’re looking for regulatory enforcement along with the cost of independent product assessments in order so that people know that when they’re buying something, they know that there really is mycorrhizal activity going on in that bag. But chances are, if that bag has been sitting out on a parking lot, it’s probably gone through some rather severe temperature extremes, in which case that mycorrhizal may have gotten, shall we say, fairly cooked. And again, you’re talking about mycorrhizal activity commercially purchased where you have a 10% chance of it being effective.
Farmer Fred:
Here’s a better idea. If you have an area in your yard where you have plant activity, where you’ve got plants growing. If you don’t have any soil problems, if you don’t have any things like verticillium wilt or fusarium wilt, nematodes, things like that, take some of that soil and put it around your plants that you just planted in that new raised bed because there’s mycorrhizal activity in that soil you bring over. And you can’t just put mycorrhizal activity fungi into a raised bed, a new raised bed, without plant material. Those critters need roots to feed on. So you plant the plants first, then you include the inoculant, the mycorrhizal-laden soil, if you will, from other parts of your yard. And it’ll live happily ever after and keep growing and thriving. And Pat, like you said. All you got to do really is just keep some food there for the mycorrhizal activity. In this case, it would be the roots of the plant and maybe add some compost and maybe add some mulch. But try to avoid rototilling as much as possible.
Pat Rosales:
Yep. Another thing that we don’t think of very often is an area where perhaps there was a shed and you removed the shed and it had a concrete foundation and you remove that and you think, well, you’re going to put a plant bed in there. There’s not going to be any mycorrhizal activity because it’s been crushed under—the soil has been too compacted. So that would be another instance where you would want to add some, as you said, inoculant from another part of your garden.
Farmer Fred:
Right. And when we usually talk about rototilling, we usually give you a pass as far as rototilling the first time. If you are dealing with a new situation like what you just described, you can till in some compost and some worm castings into an existing piece of dead soil that didn’t have plants growing in it, to help give it a head start. And then put your plants in right away. This is why it takes years to really get raised beds to function effectively the way you want. It’s a slow process, but it’s worth it. It’s worth the time. And by the way, a lot of people don’t realize that mycorrhizal activity also can help those plants stave off drought.
Pat Rosales:
That’s good information. Okay. I would like to add that some commercial potting soils will actually advertise that they contain mycorrhizae. And I would really question that if it’s been sitting out on a pallet in the hot sun, like you said, or it’s been driven across country in a 16-wheeler. You know, the heat is going to destroy that mycorrhizae.
Farmer Fred:
Which goes back to what I always say, “all gardening is local”, and that includes buying soil products too. Try to buy your soil products from somebody local where that trip isn’t so long. There are a lot of good soil manufacturers, if you will, potting soil companies within an easy one-hour, two-hour drive of probably wherever you live that can get it there quicker. And if you want to go one step further, go to your local nursery and say, hey, when are you going to get the next load of potting soil in that claims to have mycorrhizae in it? And if they say, yeah, it’s coming in Friday, well, go there Friday and pick it up. Chances are you have a 10% chance of being successful.
Pat Rosales:
Fred, let me ask you a question. What do you think of the mycorrhizal in the little foil packets?
Farmer Fred:
There are a lot of just mycorrhizal products sitting on the shelf inside the nursery. And it’s something like, what did I read? Like a $900 million industry now of mycorrhizal products that are out there. And you’re taking a chance. That’s all. You don’t know. As this study pointed out, there is no way for the consumer to figure out if there are living mycorrhizal activity going on inside that bag you buy or that pouch you buy or whatever you buy.
Pat Rosales:
So there’s no way to test it, huh?
Farmer Fred:
Well, there is because they do it commercially. They do have tests. And that’s one thing this study was arguing for is get these test kits out into the people’s hands so that they can test the bag to see if there is mycorrhizal relationships. And that’s not a bad thing for a retailer to do. If they get products that claim to have living mycorrhizal activity going on in them, the retailer should be able to check to make sure that what they’re buying is what they will be selling.
There are some ways, though, that you can also create problems. And we should point out, too, that you only need, as Pat pointed out in her article, you only need to encourage the thriving of mycorrhizal activity through proper cultural practices. Pat, you talked about don’t disturb the soil by digging or rototilling and to create those pathways so you avoid compacting the soil. And also, I’m scared when I see these fertilizers that claim to have mycorrhizae in them because, well, it’s like... If they do, they’re either dead or very small in number, and it really depends on the amount of phosphorus in that fertilizer.
Pat Rosales:
Yep.
Farmer Fred:
And you have to stop using herbicides and fungicides if you spray it on your soil because a fungicide, I don’t think, can discriminate between good guys and bad guys in the fungus world.
Pat Rosales:
I think you could think of mycorrhizae as the beneficial insects of the plant world.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah, there you go. And basically have something growing in your garden year-round to sustain the mycorrhizae during the off-season. Don’t leave a bed bare in the wintertime. Like Pat said, have a cover crop in there. Have at least the old plant roots of whatever you cut out from there remaining in the soil. Add mulch on top. that’ll help feed the soil during the winter and keep encouraging the mycorrhizal activity. And again, you don’t need to add as much phosphorus fertilizer, if any, if you’re trying to encourage mycorrhizal activity. Most soils, if you get a real good soil test done, especially in our area, you will notice that there is a plethora of phosphorus in the soil and you need to get that phosphorus level down to a point where mycorrhizal activity can really start thriving. So go easy on the addition of phosphorus and that means looking at that middle number that you might see on a fertilizer bag. You’ll see three numbers on the bag of any fertilizer. The first is nitrogen, the second is phosphorus, and the third is potassium. You want to make sure that second number, the phosphorus, is non-existent, a zero, or really low. Now for instance, my go-to fertilizer, as you longtime listeners probably know, is fish emulsion, because that has a phosphorus content of one. It’s a 5% nitrogen, 1% phosphorus, 1% potassium. My plants are doing okay.
Pat Rosales:
I like to use fish meal. It’s a little easier to work with than fish emulsion, but it’s hard to find these days. I go to several different stores before I find it.
Farmer Fred:
Describe fish meal for us.
Pat Rosales:
Well, it’s ground up fish product. I imagine it’s the part that doesn’t go into the fish market and its dehydrated and ground up. So it’s got the bones and the guts and the head and everything. And it’s got the nutrient mix that you pretty much described with your fish emulsion, but it’s a powder, not a liquid. And so I can just sprinkle it on top of my bed before I plant. And fish emulsion is, well, it’s smelly and you have to mix it with water and I just don’t like it as much.
Farmer Fred:
All I have to do is shake the bottle and the cats come running.
Pat Rosales:
I bet.
Farmer Fred:
We’ll have a lot of links in the newsletter about what we’ve been talking about today, the studies the authorities who talk about how to increase the mycorrhizal activity in your soil.
Pat Rosales:
Good, especially Jeff’s book.
Farmer Fred:
Jeff Lowenfels. We’re going to have that chat on today’s podcast that you can listen to, and you’re going to learn a lot. And if you really want to delve into the subject of mycorrhizal activity, get his book, Teaming with Fungus, or is it Teaming with Fungi? I forget which.
Pat Rosales:
I’ve got it right in front of me. Teeming with Fungi. Fungi, plural version.
Farmer Fred:
Okay. Yep. So teaming with fungi, Jeff Lowenfels, it’s a great interview.
Pat Rosales knows a lot about a lot of things, including E minor and C sharp and other things in the French horn world. Pat, thank you so much. And thanks for the great article about mycorrhizal activity in the Sacramento County Master Gardener newsletter.
Pat Rosales:
Okay.
Farmer Fred:
There. Was that confusing enough for people?
Feel free to share this post with others that you want to torment.
RESOURCES:
• Mycorrhizae | Under the Solano Sun, UCANR Blog. Sept 17, 2019: https://ucanr.edu/blog/under-solano-sun/article/mycorrhizae
• Fall 2018 CG final.pdf, “The Marketing 0f Mycorrhizae” by Trish Grenfell, Placer County Master Gardener:
https://ucanr.edu/sites/default/files/2025-07/Fall%202018%20CG%20final.pdf
• “Soil Health is Big Business But Some Research Show Fungal Products Don’t Work as Promised” - Nebraska Public Media:
https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/soil-health-is-big-business-but-some-research-shows-fungal-products-dont-work-as-promised/
• “Meta-analysis reveals globally sourced commercial mycorrhizal inoculants fall short”
New Phytologist, volume 246:
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.20278
• “The Truth About Phosphates and Mycorrhizal Fungi”
https://www.lebanonturf.com/education-center/biological-plant-treatments/the-truth-about-phosphates-and-mycorrhizal-fungi
“Mycorrhizae: What the Heck Are They, Anyway?” by Linda Chalker-Scott, WSU Science Editor
https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/mycorrhizae.pdf
Jeff Lowenfels Teaming with Bacteria TRANSCRIPT
(originally aired in Garden Basics Ep. 238, Nov. 4, 2022)
Farmer Fred
You’re probably familiar with Farmer Fred’s 11 Garden Rules. And two of them are, “Everything you know is wrong”; and, “If it works for you, fine, but keep an open mind. And what you’re going to hear in this interview is going to blow your mind. It’s going to change the way you garden for the good. You’re going to save money. Debbie Flower is here as well. Debbie Flower, America’s favorite retired college horticultural professor. And we are talking with author Jeff Lowenfels. Jeff has written many, many books. I remember interviewing him on the old radio show back in, I think it was 2006. It was about one of your first books called “Teaming with Microbes”. More have come since then. In “Teaming with Microbes”, he revealed the fascinating facts around the soil food web, all the tiny organisms that live in the soil and aid a plant’s growth. Then, there was “Teaming with Nutrients,” exploring how those organisms ate and about the uptake of nutrients. “Teaming with Fungus”, where Jeff Lowenfels details the symbiotic relationship between plants and fungi, the most important organism living in the soil. And his latest book is, “Teaming with Bacteria.” And Jeff lives in Alaska. And you’re probably thinking, “oh, so he doesn’t garden?” Oh, no, no, no, he even writes a garden column. He’s had a garden column in the Anchorage newspaper for well over 40 years. Jeff Lowenfels, it’s a pleasure talking to you again, after a 15 year respite or so.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah. Wonderful Introduction you did there. I’m wondering who this guy is.
Farmer Fred
Oh, but wait, there’s more. You have a fabulous history, but one of my favorite parts about your life is the fact that you are a recovering lawyer.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yes. In fact, when I only had two books, I used to bill myself as, because they were both on soil, “America’s dirtiest lawyer”.
Farmer Fred
that’s appropriate.
Jeff Lowenfels
that was my moniker for a little while. But yeah, I’m a lawyer, when you can’t do anything else. That’s what you end up becoming.
Farmer Fred
But the fact that you had a garden column for over 40 years,
Debbie Flower
the longest running garden column in the United States, correct?
Jeff Lowenfels
Actually it is 47 years now. I’ve been told it’s the longest in the world, from a gardening column perspective, and maybe in terms of consecutive weeks. anyway, it’s a long time. And the reason why I do it is because when you’re not there, my particular newspaper puts your picture in the paper and says, “ this is XYZ columnist who is on vacation, and will return in two weeks”. If you write the column and you’re thinking about it, and you’re a lawyer, you’d begin to think that just sort of advertises “He’s not home”. Yeah, so I I always have a column and it just become a religion. Uh, you know, it’s like, Ty Cobb the baseball player. I I don’t want to miss a week and, and I don’t want anybody robbing my house. I always have the goal not to repeat yourself, which I don’t.
Debbie Flower
That would be tough over 47 years every week.
Jeff Lowenfels
There are only so many ways you can tell people to grow tomatoes.
Farmer Fred
A lot of people think, how can you garden in Alaska? But it’s probably not very different than living in a city in the mountains, like maybe Colorado Springs or here in California, in the Sierra, Truckee, California. It has a lot of altitude, and you have a growing season of a couple of months. you can grow anything that the people in the flatlands can grow. It’s just got to be a little quicker. That’s all.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, yeah. And actually, it’s not as quick as you think because of our daylight situation. But yeah, one of our favorite phrases of gardeners in Alaska is, “How can you stand the weather Outside? That’s what we call where you live, we call it the Outside. Because we really have a season that starts by Memorial Day weekend. And then of course, we can continue sometimes right on through October 15. That’s a long season.
Debbie Flower
When I look at this at this gardening calendar, when to plant vegetables in Anchorage, Alaska by garden.org, the dates I see on this gardening calendar look very much like the ones I adhere to when I lived in New York and New Jersey, typically nothing before Mother’s Day, right? And then through the summer, and then frost comes in. It’s over. I’m amazed.
Jeff Lowenfels
That’s right. I mean, and there’s been a big change from when Fred and I first talked, it’s an even bigger change from when I got to Anchorage in 1975. We’ve added probably 20, maybe even 30 days on to our growing season. So those who are listening and don’t think that global warming, of course, I don’t have to convince anybody in the Sacramento area that Global warming doesn’t exist, you’re crazy, it does exist. And I’ll give a statistic that people always go nuts about. They used to keep records in Talkeetna, which is a little further north than Anchorage. What a wonderful name, Talkeetna, the town that has a cat as an honorary mayor and has for 20 years. But in any case, they keep records there and they kept those records. I think they started around 1875 or there abouts. And lo and behold, we’ve added well over 100 days to the growing season, that’s amazing. You know, it just smacks you in the face. And of course, we have another saying that gardeners in Alaska like to use that you might not appreciate. And that’s “global warming. It’s our turn now.”
Debbie Flower
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Lowenfels
So you know what one of my friends grew a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago… okra. It’s the first okra I know to have grown in Anchorage, and probably all of Alaska. It’s very hard to grow okra. Grew okra. I couldn’t believe it. It was just a stunner. It’s always an interesting experience watching our climate change. it’s amazing, just completely different than it was when I first got here. So yes, we all garden. And the reason why we garden is because you go nuts during nine months of winter. And it’s not so much the cold as it is you can’t garden! It’s dark and the ground frozen. I try to convince my readers and anybody who gardens and has a warm season like like we do, in winter you should have lights, period. I mean, it’s just you spent all that time for two and a half months in the vegetable garden. You can be grown vegetables all winter long.
Farmer Fred
yeah, I would think stores would have plenty of grow light fixtures and little, inside greenhouses.
Jeff Lowenfels
Absolutely, absolutely. And of course, cannabis has been legal in Alaska since 1975, in the privacy of your home. And so the grow light business well developed in Alaska. There are two or three good grow stores, and it’s something everybody needs to do everywhere. But in a place like Alaska, Fairbanks just makes tremendous amounts of sense because it is such a long season. Nonetheless, the plants grow exactly the same way. So it’s the same kind of excitement, the same kind of satisfaction as you normally get when you go out and plant out in the garden. I would say there’s one other difference between the Alaskan gardener and maybe the gardeners where you are, and that’s that many people in Alaska have plants that they brought up from the lower 48 states. Those plants are Family, “this isn’t my grandmother’s Christmas cactus” or, “I took this clipping from my grandfather”, and they come up the highway with it in the back of the Volkswagen bus. And you don’t want that to die. So that gets people going in the wintertime. we got to keep those special heirloom plants alive.
Debbie Flower
Yes, I have several of those in my house that I take from place to place. And around here the local utility was, at least when I was teaching, they wanted us to teach how to grow in basically a metal box, an outdoor truck body or something like that, and have the lights on at night so that they could balance out power usage. Everybody’s using the power during the day, then everybody goes to bed, the power need goes down. And the utility wanted us to teach how to grow at night inside these enclosed environments so that that they could even out their power needs.
Farmer Fred
Wow. But are greenhouses, outdoor greenhouses, cost prohibitive in Alaska?
Jeff Lowenfels
no. if you’re a serious gardener, everybody has an outdoor greenhouse. whether it’s a little plastic hoop house, or whether it’s a permanent structure. we don’t necessarily use glass, there are a couple of those. But we’ve got the outdoor greenhouse for the tomatoes, because if the temperature drops below 55 degrees at night, you don’t get tomatoes. And tomatoes are the holy grail. Well, they were the holy grail of gardening in Alaska. And so, you know, people just everybody seems to have a little outdoor greenhouse, some bigger than others. And we grow cucumbers and tomatoes, and peppers.
Debbie Flower
You have a lot of white fly control information, then.
Jeff Lowenfels
We have a lot of white fly control information. We try not to get white flies. From my perspective, when you have an outdoor greenhouse, the white flies come from the nursery when you buy your plants, even if you have grown it yourself. Okay. Nothing is worse.
Debbie Flower
You’re right.
Jeff Lowenfels
It’s a difficult one. And particularly now, since I think we have fewer insects that might take them out. This year, I noticed we don’t have any mosquitoes in Anchorage anymore. Seriously. It was just dumbfounding to me. We have far fewer birds. But we don’t have any mosquitoes.
Debbie Flower
Are you drier than you’ve been?
Jeff Lowenfels
We had the driest spring and the first half of summer and then we literally had the wettest other half of the summer. So we’ve had both extremes, it is very interesting. We are again, I think the bellwether, so you should be keeping an eye on all this. We know we’re losing insect populations. But to me, it was it’s just dumbfounding the bird population differences. So some will want to be worried about them today.
Farmer Fred
so would any of this have a bearing on your congressional run that you attempted earlier this year for that open congressional seat?
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, I really left myself open for that one. And I have to say, it was one of these crazy experiences. For those who don’t know, we had a beloved longtime congressional representative, we only have one, and he died. And so there was a special election. And many of us, probably because of our stupor from COVID isolation, decide, “okay, I could do this job, and I could do a good job at this. I’m going to put my name in there and run for this office.” And then we discovered that there 50 other people running, including Sarah Palin, a guy who had been running against our representative for six months prior to that, who had a massive fortune, and a guy who had run for Senator a couple of years ago, who had $80 million left over from that. Anyway, it was one of these situations where because of the press rules, it’s not like gardening. You know, if a carrot doesn’t come up, another carrot does. You’ve got to be fair. And so there were no debates. How do you debate 51 people? There really weren’t any one to one interviews, because how do you do that? Unless it was public radio, and they had to do all 51.
Farmer Fred
Hey, Jeff, you work for a newspaper.
Jeff Lowenfels
I worked for a newspaper. And thank God the newspaper was gracious enough, I think, to sit back and say, “he’s gonna lose let’s not get rid of his streak.” Frankly, I sort of was the Garden Party candidate. I mean, I’ve got some name recognition. And it’s one of those situations where I was an attorney. I represented native corporations, I did mining law, environmental law, pipeline law, public utility, I did all the things, you know, and more important, I represented clients, which is what a congressional person does. And I dealt with the acts that ended up resulting in the formation of the legal system in which Alaska reacts to the federal government, called the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which was passed in the 70s and 80s, when I was there. And in any case, I had the qualifications. So it was gonna be fun. And then it turned out not to be so fun. I have to say that I had one gardening moment, there was only one event, which allowed 14 of us to appear in front of a group at breakfast. And we each got a minute to say our piece, just one minute. And then they asked us five or six questions. We just got a minute to answer three or four questions. And then they had the panel thing. I’m sitting next to Sarah Palin, who’s a friend of mine, I don’t agree with her politics at all. But I know Sarah. Well, I just had written my column. And in my column, I always have been pointing out not to rake your leaves, because it is a waste of time it’s bad for your yard . It is a terrible thing to do. You know, those leaves decay, then they disappear.. Because I think it’s an it’s an interesting topic of conversation these days. That has to do with the soil food web. But anyway, Sarah is sitting next to me. And she begins, “I’m gonna go to my dad’s house in Wasilla and I’m gonna help him rake leaves”. I couldn’t help it. Because I am a wise guy. So, I just blurted out, “You’re not supposed to rake the leaves!” And of course, everybody knows who I am. I’m Jeff the gardener. I’m not Mr. Lowenfel,s a congressional candidate. And of course, it got a gigantic laugh, embarrassed the hell out of poor Sarah. It was the only little funny thing that happened during the entire campaign.
Farmer Fred
Don’t sell yourself short. You there were like 48 to 50 other candidates, and you finished eighth.
Jeff Lowenfels
And I think I was seventh. Actually.
Debbie Flower
Well, one guy dropped out.
Farmer Fred
One guy dropped out. But it was still worth almost 6000 votes. You made a good representation for yourself. Even though Santa Claus did beat you.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yes, he did. And, you know, I like to moan and groan about the son of a gun. People thought it was funny, you know? And I got to sit back and say, Wait a minute. But I have to say that the woman who won, and she called me after that vote came out. and the first thing out of her mouth was a really clever, cute gardening question. You watch her name is Mary Peltola. And she walks on water. I have never met a politician and I dare say any person, who’s more charismatic than this woman, and more sensible. It’s unbelievable and better yet, for a state like Alaska, to have a native who becomes a leader. So anyway, it was a terrific experience. I’ll never do it again. I thought writing a garden column was hard. I thought writing books about gardening was hard. No. Sitting around, wondering what you’re supposed to do when half the people have COVID, nobody’s answering doors, and there are no debates or public forums, and you’re running for Congress.
Farmer Fred
All right, let’s move on. Let’s sell some books here. “Teaming with Bacteria is your new book. The follow up to, “Teaming with Microbes” “Teaming with Fungi”, “Teaming with Nutrients”. Is bacteria the missing link in all of this? And according to your book, this is going to be the next hot thing. Are we going to be inoculating every seed we plant from now on?
Jeff Lowenfels
Not right away, but at some point in time, we’re going to certainly be thinking about it. Let me put this whole thing in context so that people know why I wrote this particular book. When we talked about Teaming with Microbes in 2006, it was an eye opener. it was Dr Elaine Ingham’s science and ability to be able to go out and talk about this stuff, and deal with the ridicule that people threw at her when she said, “Here’s how the system operates.” There’s photosynthetic energy, maybe 30-40% of it is used to produce exudates that drip out of the root system. She called them cookies and cakes, their carbon filled molecules, they attract bacteria and fungi that are in the soil to the rhizosphere, that little area right around the root system. And they’re happy, they need that carbon, because they don’t photosynthesize. Along come nematodes and protozoa and they go, “we’re hungry too”. And so they eat the bacteria and the fungi. And, they do so because they also need carbon, they’re not able to photosynthesize, you and I eat toast because we need carbon. They don’t need it all. And so they poop out the excess. And the excess that gets pooped out, basically is in plant usable form. We learned that from “Teaming with Nutrients,” the second book. The microbes, bacteria and fungi put the charge onto the nutrients so that they can get into the plant. So you have this production in the soil that then migrates to the plant. And then “Teaming with Nutrients” talks about how they get absorbed. And then what happens to them once they’re in there. Lot of studies on mycorrhizal fungi since then, but it was a paragraph in “Teaming with Microbes”. It was revised, I put a whole chapter in. And finally, it came to be that there was enough for an entire book on fungi, and so “Teaming with Fungi” added to the way plants get their nutrients and these mycorrhizal fungi that are in that area are attracted by the plant. It’s not the fungi going into the plant. They go in between plant cells, and they trade water and nutrients, and they they get the exudates. They have a nice symbiotic relationship. They never invade the cell, but they’re there. So everything’s happy and copacetic and then a friend of mine in about 2010 sends me a one word text: Rhizophagy. I had no idea what he was talking about. I looked it up. Rhizo, I know, means roots. Phagy means eat. okay, what the hell was he talking about? it didn’t make any sense. And he wasn’t the kind of guy that I call up on the telephone. lo and behold, there was a discovery in 2010 by an Australian team, led by a woman, with a hyphenated name that I always forget.
Debbie Flower
Doctor Paungfoo-Lonhienne.
Jeff Lowenfels
God, I wish I could just record that and push a button. And anyway, there was also another woman who I don’t think I gave enough credit to I think her name was Miller. But in any case, this team was funded and the funding ran out. But what they discovered using conical microscopies, special kind of microscope, they discovered that bacteria were all inside meristem roots cells, and they theorize that what was happening was that you were getting the meristem, which are very thin walled cells, very young. That’s where they started. As meristem opened up and let these bacteria in, and sort of ate them. They really weren’t sure exactly what was going on. That was the theory, the funding must have run out. And then it was picked up by a guy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, named Dr. James White. And Dr. James White has done some unbelievable work. Those bacteria that Dr. Elaine’s taught us were attracted to the rhizosphere, some of them are not eaten. And that’s where the rhizophagy story begins.
Debbie Flower
You know what, I read the book, I read the entire book, I loved it. I learned things. it open new worlds to me. And one of the things I really, really loved was, pretend you’re a bacterium. On page 109, it starts. And it’s like the Disney ride of the bacterium from the soil into the plant. What it does in the plant, and then it gets spit right back out. That was just, that was a hoot.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, funny. You know, Dr. White, who I wrote Teaming with Microbes, basically with Dr. Elaine Ingham, she’s the guru of the soil foodweb. And this book doesn’t take anything away from her by any means. But I was talking with Dr. White and he loves that particular passage, by the way. But I said, how come everybody doesn’t know about this? Can’t get traction? And so I said I’ll write a book. And that’s, that’s where the book came.
Debbie Flower
Rutgers, by the way is my alumni.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, if I could go back to school.
Debbie Flower
Yeah, right. I do it too. So much new stuff.
Jeff Lowenfels
Maybe they would take a 73 year old who would pay them. But in any case, let’s talk about this rhizophagy.
Farmer Fred
What is your consumer definition for Rhizophagy.
Jeff Lowenfels
Oh yeah. Okay, so here’s what happens. Let’s pretend you’re a bacteria. What happens is the bacteria form a slime, everybody knows about bacterial slime. The example, of course, is that’s what’s on your teeth every morning and right now, everybody is licking their teeth. But that bacterial slime contains lots of different kinds of bacteria in the soil and formed right up there on the meristem area. The very tip right right after those slough off cells, they begin to smell popcorn, buttered popcorn, and like anybody else in the world, they go, “I wonder if it’s free.” In fact, it smells like there’s a whole popcorn factory. They’re looking for bacteria and so they move through that bit that’s butyric acid, which is released by the plant and they move through the cell wall into what’s known as the periplasmic space. And they go, “What the hell happened there? Where’s the Popcorn?” while there is no popcorn, but when they move through there, there is a spray of super oxide, which is designed by the plant to strip off the cell wall of the bacteria. The cell wall gets stripped off, the bacteria goes, whoa, I don’t like that at all. And two or three things happen. The first is the bacteria says, I gotta weaken this stuff, or I’m dead. And so they produce nitrite, the nitrate is converted to nitrate. And both the cell wall and the nitrate are then continued through the membrane into the cytoplasm, where there are nutrients, up to 30% of the nutrients come from this nitrogen fixation inside the root. You could stop right there. And it would be eyeball dropping, but it continues. Now you got a bacteria in there that doesn’t have a cell wall. But it’s still alive. It’s called, L class. it doesn’t have a cell wall, and they divide every 20 minutes, it divides. And behold, it divides probably even quicker than 20 minutes, because you don’t have a cell wall in the way anymore. And at the same time is producing this nitrate to be an antioxidant to the superoxide, which, incidentally, the superoxide production to the plant goes, “I gotta make sure it’s not killing me, it’s gonna, it’s going to destroy my soul.” So it causes the plant itself to strengthen its own cell wall, heavy stuff, and it continues on through the life with a plant incidentally, then the circulation takes over. And these L Class, they circulate around the inside of the meristem cell. Now, you probably say, what does this look like? Picture a tofu container, that common white plastic tofu container with the water. And then it’s got the tofu on the inside. So the outside that white container, that’s the cell wall, they then move into that watery area, that’s the periplasmic space. And lo and behold, it cycles, and it goes around. Now, another thing is happening, the bacteria are producing one of their phytohormones. Because a lot of bacteria make phytohormones. This one, ethylene. Ethylene causes the meristem cell to grow to stretch. So you’ve got the nitrite, you’ve got the ethylene, you’ve got the cell wall, this L form circulating, multiplying, and they end up forming quads. They form these quads, sometimes six months, but mostly quads. And they circulate around, producing this ethylene, taking a little bit of carbon from the cell wall. And everything’s happy until they get too many. And they begin to back up against the cell wall. And when they back up against the cell wall, the ethylene stops circulating and instead causes a tube to grow in the meristem cell wall. And bingo, the tube is known to me and you as a root hair.
Your stem cell is part of that cell, you know it’s not a separate cell. And it’s very thin walled, which is probably why it allows nutrients in there. But the real reason why it forms is because of this ethylene bacterial backup and engulf the bacteria. A low tidal wave creates a pressure and boom they pop out of the tip of the growing hair, and boom, it closes up and more of them come in and it grows and boom they go on. You can go four or five times you can open up and drop out or throw out or eject the wall-less quads of bacteria, and they in the soil, use the nutrients there to regrow the cell walls. And lo and behold, they multiply and…
Debbie Flower
they say that was fun. I’ll do it again.
Jeff Lowenfels
Right. and they go back in and they do the same thing again. Unbelievable. So when you don’t have the bacteria, you don’t have the root hairs. Who knew? Not me.
Debbie Flower
but you cited, I Don’t know if there were experiments or, or cases where people did grow plants without the bacteria. And the plants. Lo and behold had no root hairs.
Jeff Lowenfels
Right. They had no root hairs and their roots themselves were all deformed and grew the wrong way.
Debbie Flower
Yeah, that was pretty amazing grew in the wrong way.
Jeff Lowenfels
then what was even more amazing when you put the bacteria in, they were back the right way.
Debbie Flower
Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding from the book was that directional growth had to do with metals that were brought into the root by the bacteria that helped the plant Orient, to gravity. And without the bacteria bringing those metals in, there wasn’t that ability.
Jeff Lowenfels
I don’t know if I put that in the book. But it makes sense to me. A lot of sense. It might be.
Debbie Flower
There’s a lot of information in that book. Yes.
Jeff Lowenfels
I know. I just read it. It came out. September 27. yeah, I had to pick it up and read it. I mean, I literally it’s, and if we can interrupt just for a second, we’re talking bacteria, and people really need to understand bacteria. So let me do this. Google bacteria, a head of needle, head of pin. And you’ll see in the images that were too expensive for me to to buy. But there they are. And so we’re don’t think of one car in a driveway. don’t think of that as a bacterium. Think of the Hartsfield airport in Atlanta. You know, that’s bacteria. You know, they’re everywhere. That’s five second rule. Last week, and if you can find this on Google, it’s well worth getting. Also, Google bacteria and tongue cell.
Debbie Flower
Oh boy. Do I want to?
Jeff Lowenfels
a single tongue cells, from someone’s mouth.
Farmer Fred
The pictures I’m looking at look like Hostess Twinkies.
Debbie Flower
Rod shaped bacteria,
Jeff Lowenfels
gazillion bacteria on this one cell. I mean, did you start there? And why? And of course in America and everyplace else, we study dinosaurs. Yeah. Because they’re useless. You know, instead of studying bacteria and microbes, which are so important. So one of the problems in the book was I had to, you got a list of which ones do what they’re not, they’re not language that we’re familiar with, just like plant names. If people are not really familiar with them, they’re much more familiar with plant names. And we need to change that system. Stop studying dinosaurs. They’re useless. The oil and gas they produce is useless. We need to study bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa, all that stuff. And we’re at the point now where the databases exist. Our phones will have applications where we can learn a lot of this stuff, but I digress. Look up bacteria. Think about the numbers, the sizes are so incredibly small, they have flagellum because they’re so small, that if they were if they tried to roll in water, they couldn’t get anywhere. The shapes that they create are because of the water. the movement situation. they’re absolutely spectacularly fascinating organisms. But the fact that they enter a plant and create root hairs and repeat doing it, changes the soil food web in a serious way. So yeah, 2006 version, plants were farmers, they threw out the nutrients and you know, the exudates, and they ended up farming what they got. And then they bought that stuff inside. Now we know that they are also ranchers, they’re taking in the sheep, shearing off the wool eating the occasional chop, and then putting the rest out into pasture again, so they can regrow the wool and come back in and have the process repeated. So they’re farmers and their managers. It’s really a very big change. Again, not to take away in any way whatsoever from Dr. Elaine Ingham. But Dr. James White and his students who really have come up with an unbelievable fascinating situation.
Farmer Fred
who would have thought.
Jeff Lowenfels
it’s only because new kinds of microscopes and the ability to be able to dye test the kinds of bacteria.
Debbie Flower
Yeah, technology advances. Your books. We’ve said the title “teaming,” but talk about how you spelled that word.
Jeff Lowenfels
All right, so I spell the word t e a m, you want a team, with microbes. And the reason why you want to do that is because you want them to do the work. Instead of you. Gardeners like to think that we’re in control. We are not the boss, we do this and do that. And, we only mess things up, basically. So if you team up with a microbes, and listen to them, you will end up with a wonderful yard, not just your garden, there’ll be any indoor plants too. For that matter. The system that works outdoors also works indoors.
Farmer Fred
Let me interrupt here just to remind you, you’re listening to the Garden Basics podcast, the episode entitled “geeking with the hort experts”, Debbie Flower. Jeff Lowenfels, the author of “Teaming with Bacteria” is here, the organic gardeners guide to endophytic bacteria and the Rhizophagy cycle or something like that. Explain Jeff, what endophytic bacteria means.
Jeff Lowenfels
Endophytic bacteria are bacteria that live in there. Incidentally, endophytic fungi that live at least part of their life inside a plant and they don’t do harm to the plant. So we’ve just described one kind. the rise of algae, bacteria, those are Endophytic bacteria, they spend part of their life inside and then they get they get the rest of their life in the soil. There are other bacteria that get into the plant in slightly a different way. They they sneak in through cracks when roots begin to branch. They come in through stomata, they come in through injury. Not quite as often because, who wants to injure plants? And they get into the plant and they live inside the plant? First of all, why would a bacteria want to live inside a plant and isn’t that basically becau is there’s less competition in there?
Farmer Fred
Well, it’s buttered popcorn in there too.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, there certainly is down on the root system. I’m not quite sure there is up in the upper half of the plant. It isn’t only if you have too much of that butyric acid, it begins to smell like your stomach vomit. I know this because when I was in 10th grade, we had a biology teacher who decided he was going to show us osmosis. He went over by the window and he poured a tablespoon of butyric acid. But he slipped and it went into the vent system and they had to close down the school for days. Anyways very strong smelling stuff. a plant only needs to produce teeny little bit so they have bad food sources inside. You know, there’s sugar inside plants, some pretty good stuff in there. And basically there’s no competition and it’s just a nice situation for him. Why would the plant let them in there? that’s that’s more important question. Plants understand that bacteria are usually bad, but there seems to be this dance where they get sprayed, they create a situation inside the plant that strengthens the plants. So plants are able to take a biotic stress like heat, cold, wind and biotic stress , like a pathogen coming in. The other bacteria say No, Get out of here. This is our area. They take out the other pathogen, the plant gets helped by this and, and must recognize this.
Debbie Flower
It’s almost like an exercise.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, it becomes important in many different ways in addition to just to the plant itself. So for example, with regard to tomatoes and cannabis have hairs, any plant has hairs. This was something that in the book was speculated on because the research hadn’t been done yet. You know, root hairs look an awful lot like the the trichomes on cannabis. Is there a connection there and there were certainly bacteria inside there. But now, it’s pretty well understood that there are bacteria inside the trichomes both on tomatoes and in any trichomes these bacteria gets sprayed by a soup with superoxide and other things in the plant cells. And in the case of cannabis, they get sprayed by cannabinoids so they help production of cannabinoids. Whoa.
Debbie Flower
So potentially we could influence what in the case of marijuana what cannabinoids are in the crop by choosing, selecting the bacteria that are in the plant.
Jeff Lowenfels
Exactly. And in fact, that’s already happening, isn’t it? I try not to use the word marijuana. so I try I use cannabis wherever I possibly can.
Farmer Fred
You could say hemp if you wanted to.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, not really, Well, it is THC. hemp. Yeah. Yeah.
Debbie Flower
But we could do that with with tea or a camellia. They tend not to have trichomes, however.
Jeff Lowenfels
but it definitely has bacteria.
Debbie Flower
I guess we could influence the flavor of tea by choosing the bacteria that are in the plant. Pretty fascinating stuff.
Jeff Lowenfels
it’s so fascinating that in fact, if you went back, if you have 400 year old corn, and and kept not breeding and there are strains, we can go back, it has the same bacteria 400 years later that it did 400 years ago.
Debbie Flower
So if we were to change the bacteria that we allow these plants to have or not have, we could end up killing the plant
Jeff Lowenfels
precisely. And we can end up feeding the plants at the same time because you get nitrogen fixation. And so when you buy a Landry strain of cannabis, it is because of the bacteria in that cannabis seed, what happens is the end result of all of the endophytic activity is that these endophytes end up in the seed, they get into the flower zone, again, hark back on the pictures. It is a big resilient bacteria stand up inside that seed they get inside that seed coat, and just inside, and bingo, they’re carried on to the next generation. So if you’re a gardener or farmer, and you’re using coated seeds, you may be killing those guys, you may be replacing them with a fertilizer instead of letting them get into the soil where they’re needed to do the rhyzophagy cycle. Or, you know, if you sterilize that’s a bad thing, you know, and a lot of a lot of cannabis growers do that. A lot of tomato growers like to sterilize their soil and craziness. Gotta let nature do its thing. And now that we know about these, what these bacteria do , bacterium is single, it’s just all the more reason to be organic.
Farmer Fred
You out in your book, the fact that in the 1800s, there were farmers who were moving soil that they had grown legumes in, into new patches of soil and found that the legumes grew even better.
Jeff Lowenfels
right. And so so a lot of people discovered a long time ago, and, sort of Dr. Elaine’s thing, if you find a plant that’s doing incredibly well, you find that orange grove or all the plants are growing gangbusters, you get some of that soil up near the rhizosphere and use it on your plants. You know, that’s the way you do it. And if someday we’ll have a gigantic database, and so on, we sorted Is it the fungal bacterial ratio, etc, etc. But it certainly has something to do with the residence.
Debbie Flower
So does that throw the crop rotation idea out the window that we should rotate our crops to prevent buildup of disease?
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, you know, again, I think there’s there is this intersection between disease and practice. And if you’re a farmer, you know, the only thing you’re thinking about as your end result is money. you’re gonna make if you’re fully organic, you generally don’t get these right, but how do you get to be fully organic , without getting them and that’s the big thing. I certainly advise people who grow tomatoes, people grow cannabis, people who do container gardening, unless they know they have a root problem, to use the same soil and not to rototill it. Just put the seed in and let the seed grow, it’ll use a lot of the exudates that are still in the soil, it’ll go down through the roots themselves and use a lot of that organic matter. It’s centered, all the right bacteria in there, all the right fungi are in there. It’s just a beautiful system. And it’s not just the bacteria, I don’t want to give people the wrong idea. There are some endophytic fungi as well that they go through the rhyzophagy cycle. I understand yeast. It’s not the same thing with all these bacteria. It’s really an unbelievable discovery. Yeah, it is 30% of nitrogen. And it’s just one that needs to be told. I remember going to a garden Writers Conference in 1998 or 99, in the Seattle area and I was with Dr. Elaine Ingham. And I introduced her, and of course, we had fights at the garden writers over the years between organic and chemical to the point where literally there was one meeting in New York where I thought this would be the end of this organization, we had such an incredible fight between organic and the other side. and then she got up. and I asked the crowd, before she got up, I said how many people here know what a mycorrhizal fungi is? And we were talking to 750 people, the New York Times on down, not one person raised their hand. But you ask today a garden writer what a mycorrhizal fungi is, they know what mycorrhizal fungi is. And they know what the soil food web is, and they don’t write about using chemicals, unless they’ve been paid. Seems to me by somebody to do that.
Farmer Fred
you point out, too, in your book, going back to seeds, the fact that people tend to store their seeds a little too dry, that there should be some moisture associated with it.
Jeff Lowenfels
a lot of people take all the oxygen out of the container and keep it quite dry. It’s really the oxygen you got , to make sure that because there’s living bacteria, and those seeds actually breathe. Then standard practice, you know, to put them in a little film canister and freeze them up and get rid of all their stuff. Yeah, that’s crazy.
Farmer Fred
I like your recommendation about spraying your lawn with compost tea made from compost that was heavy on grasses taken from the lawn when you want to garden with endophytes.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, yeah, it’s just not the compost tea, because a lot of people will point out that there is a dearth of studies that compost tea is really great. But but if you use compost itself, it’s just made from the same material, it just makes sense.
Farmer Fred
Which is better compost or worm castings?
Jeff Lowenfels
that’s a very interesting situation, because on some plants, worm castings are better. And for some plants, a thermal compost is better, they have a different bacterial base, each one was different. And I didn’t know that. I mean, I knew I sort of intuitively know once thermal and one goes through the body of the worm, but it’s very interesting that there’s research. if you’re growing strawberries, it may be that one’s better than the other. It is worth doing the experimentation to find out, particularly if you’re a commercial grower. But if you’re trying to grow that pumpkin for the fair, oh, my God, it makes sense to discover what’s best. And we’re getting to the point where there’ll be data, again, published, not databases, but published lists. And I’ve got a couple, we’ve got several listed in the book, there have been a lot a lot of research done, again, because of the use of the words, the bacterial numbers, it’s hard to get the general public’s attention about this stuff. If we can say, the rosy bacteria or the you know, the pink bacteria, you know, then people remember but it doesn’t work that way.
Debbie Flower
There’s a bunch of books designated as the science for gardener series. And you’re involved in that.
Jeff Lowenfels
I don’t know. Who am I?
Debbie Flower
well. Where did I read about it? I read that it was six books. Three of yours: teaming with nutrients, teaming with fungi, teaming with microbes.
Jeff Lowenfels
soon to be teaming with bacteria, I would hope as well.
Debbie Flower
I wrote bacteria question mark in my notes, because I didn’t see that that was included.
Jeff Lowenfels
Just came out two weeks ago. Oh, yeah.
Debbie Flower
So it needs some time to step up.
Farmer Fred
So are you saying you should get a lawyer? I know one.
Jeff Lowenfels
I need shows like this, to spread the word and not because not because of me or my writing, but because of the work Dr. White did, along with his students. I didn’t invent any of this stuff, just as I didn’t invent, teaming with microbes either. The scientists deserve Nobel Prizes. This is key stuff. And the reason is because we’re going to see a day when you’re going to be able to go to your nursery or go to your farm supply store, and buy specific bacterium that work and feed your plants. This is where nitrogen is going to be coming from, not from urea, and things that are causing climate problems, they’re going to be coming from bacteria that go into the plant and feed the plant and give the plant what it wants.
Farmer Fred
We hear a lot about mycorrhizal critters living in bags and boxes that you can buy at the nursery. Can those survive standing or sitting in a parking lot on hot asphalt?
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, I think mycorrhizal fungi can. I mean, obviously, they exist in Sacramento, in the middle of a sunny summer where it’s 108 degrees. And so I don’t think you got a problem there. But they have a shelf life. It’s certainly no longer than two years, that’s for sure. They tend to be ubiquitous after a while. I mean, in other words, if you’re using a myriad and you’re out there in your soil, so you would use them like we do in the in Anchorage, we do a lot of transplant stuff. So we want to set up a mycorrhizal situation as early as we can, we roll our seeds in it. But yeah, you gotta make sure you’re getting a good product, not one that’s four years old.
Debbie Flower
Do you think they’re able to go into their resting stage or spore stage for fungus?
Jeff Lowenfels
Oh, yeah. Fungi? Yeah. Yeah, my conversations with Dr. Mike Amaranth has indicated that, they’re there. It’s fascinating stuff too. But the bacteria are different because not every bacteria turns into an endospore, which is basically the form you want to have, to be able to have a good shelf life.
Debbie Flower
So they’re a little more fragile.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, there’s, there’s one that you have, it’s got to be freeze dried, and you’ve got to get facilities that are able to handle them. But there’s some bacillus that work very well. And you can get, cannabis growers are beginning to use it, asiscorium is another one, there are a few that that are readily available. And you can use and need to experiment with depending on what your crop is. It’s the future that people are looking at. And if you follow, what I would consider to be, you know, some of the evil companies. They’re, beginning to merge to my thoughts. They’re producing and studying and researching bacteria to replace, I think, a lot of the chemicals that they currently sell. And the future definitely is going to be a situation where your wheat field is going to be fed by bacteria, mostly, and not by urea.
Debbie Flower
It’s common. That’s wonderful. That’s what we need.
Jeff Lowenfels
we have to have it. I mean, we have 60 some odd years left of soil, seasons left of soil. It is blowing away. All of these agro practices destroy soil structure. And by the way, soil structure starts with bacteria. Bacteria produce that slime, that slime sticks together particles of soil, those particles of soil become bigger aggregates on each other, and you get the fungi that weave them all, all even in the bigger aggregates. And once you destroy that either by rototilling or using a chemical, we end up with bad bad problems. And it’s not fair for big agro to ruin our world, because that’s what’s happening.
Farmer Fred
I love your definition of heirloom tomatoes. You call it a strain of plant adapted to its locale. That’s perfect.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, yeah. And that strain is probably because of the bacteria that you’ve you’ve added to the system.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, and so people tried to grow Brandywine heirloom tomatoes in California. You don’t have Pennsylvania soil. It’s not going to work.
Jeff Lowenfels
Alright, well, it’ll be all right. No, it’s not brand new.
Debbie Flower
You got a tomato.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, when you’re in Alaska,
Debbie Flower
you get as a surprise.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, actually, you’re right though. Brandywine is one of those ones we always when you start growing tomatoes. You try it the first couple of years, you may get one good one but they’re not like your heirlooms. there’s a reason heirlooms were developed.
Farmer Fred
all gardening is local. And we found out that all bacteria is local, too.
Jeff Lowenfels
Again, not all of it, because you’re transporting it around in those seeds. So when I buy territorial seeds, and they ship them up to Alaska, I’m getting the bacteria that’s on that cosmos. is going to make that customers grow well. So that’s the beauty of being an organic grower or gardener. Your bacteria are being shipped right along with those seeds. You don’t have to roll anything in anything.
Debbie Flower
It doesn’t frighten you that we’re moving bacteria cross country and foreign countries? That that has me a little agitated.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, you know, I mean, I think I think it’s happening anyway, if not by travelers, it’s happening by wind. I mean, these guys are ubiquitous.
Farmer Fred
By the way, kudos to your editors at the book, because they do a fabulous job of making it very accessible for the common gardener.
Debbie Flower
It’s a great book, I really enjoyed it.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, I’ll tell you what I met, there’s a there’s one particular editor at Timber Press. Just, she’s a great editor. And she’s really, really fun to work with. And that’s what you gotta have. Writing a book is just not pleasant, you got to go down into a rabbit hole and spend some time down there. And you when your wife says come up for dinner, and you’re not ready to come up for dinner, you don’t come up for dinner, and she gets mad at you. And you’ve got everything laid out where it needs to be. And then I don’t care if the kid has a hockey game, I’m like, this is a real labor. You don’t make a lot of money on it. But in this particular instance, it’s so important that people understand that the soil food web is what makes life for us. This is a part of the soil food web that needs to be part of it. In fact, I’m telling people now, to start reading with teaming with microbes, then go to teaming with bacteria, then go with teaming with fungi, and then go to teaming with nutrients. Which was written because I was sitting at a restaurant, I think it’s called Pepys or something. it’s an Italian restaurant, chain restaurant. And there was a picture of five ladies eating bowls of spaghetti in front of me. And I kept saying to myself, how do plants get there food? What happened? How do they get the food inside? And I couldn’t figure it out. And so I had to read a book about it. I mean, my God, I gotta keep my eyes closed now.
Farmer Fred
So it’s your literary poop loop, so to speak.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yeah, exactly. You know, though, the thing is, is I’ve told the 100 people so far, I’m not writing another one.
Debbie Flower
Yeah, we’ll see if that lasts.
Jeff Lowenfels
You know, somebody said to me, Well, what if they discovered viruses are important, and they definitely do stuff. And, I had to cut off the bacteria at a certain point. I just couldn’t get into it. I mean, it was just one of those things, but it got me through COVID.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, there you go. All right. teaming with bacteria. Jeff Lowenfels is the author. from Timber Press. check his books out, you can find a link to it in today’s show notes. Here on the garden basics podcast, Debbie Flower had fun today.
Debbie Flower
I really did. Yeah, I’ve read, I’ve read teaming with microbes and teaming with bacteria. And I’ve got the other two and I’m gonna read them, fungi and then teaming with nutrients.
Jeff Lowenfels
You know, I learned so much from him. I mean, the point of these books is that, I’m not that smart, I had to dumb it down so I can understand it.
Debbie Flower
The amount of research you must have done, it boggles my mind.
Jeff Lowenfels
I do a lot of research. And I do it anyway. I mean, people, people should learn that Google is, or DuckDuckGo, or wherever you want to use, is your best gardening tool. And so for example, you put in “Lowenfels”. Once a week, my garden columns gonna show up at your front door, you put in rhizophagy. And whenever there’s something new about rhizophagy, you’re gonna get it.
Debbie Flower
But you have to know that what you’re getting is from a reliable source.
Jeff Lowenfels
Well, that’s right. You’ve got to have some smarts and you’ve got to learn. And that’s something we’re going to teach our kids yeah. But generally with obscure kinds of science like this, hopefully will not be for a long time.
Debbie Flower
I’m Rhyzophagy punk. Yeah, yeah.
Farmer Fred
And by the way, thank you to the audience for sticking with us if you made it through all of this. God bless you.
Jeff Lowenfels
See, you can hardly shut me up.
Debbie Flower
Well, and you do one other thing. I’m sure you do lots of other things that are wonderful, but talk about plant a row for the hungry.
Jeff Lowenfels
Yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, that again, that you know, and I’m not proud of the fact why it started but I really, I stiffed a guy. the coldest literally the coldest day Washington DC has ever had. And I was staying at the Willard Hotel on an expense account. and I’ve been there so many times, that when I stood there next to Henry Kissinger, they came up and took my bags, not his.
Debbie Flower
Oh my gosh.
Jeff Lowenfels
I mean, there wouldn’t be two candies on your pillow. There would be a box. and a bottle of wine and fruit. And I had my hand around money, and they emphasize, don’t give money to homeless people, We take care of them, do not give them money. And so I said, No to the guy. And I went into a restaurant and I had an expense account meal. Oh my god. I did not sleep well That night. I did not sleep well. When I went home. I was in first class. And I was having a steak and zucchini meal. And I thought, oh my god, you terrible person. And I thought about the zucchini and the joke about it in Sacramento: if your car is unlocked in Sacramento at night, you wake up the next morning, somoeone filled it up with zucchini. So anyway, I wrote a column because I had to submit a column that night as well. And I asked my readers to help my conscience and let’s all donate one row in our gardens to a place called Beans Cafe, which is our food kitchen in Anchorage. And then the garden writers came up and adopted it as a national program and it’s still going on, it is still important. And it’s spread. Oh, it’s so easy to do. And, and since you’re the one growing the food, you’re the one responsible for getting it to somebody that needs it. Nothing slips from the lip to the cup and administrative costs or any of that. It’s kind of wonderful program that can be adapted in so many ways. There’s no ownership to it, it’s just you know, go for it.
Debbie Flower
feed people. That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful.
Jeff Lowenfels
The old garden writers is now called Garden communicators, gardencomm and there’s a page now and in fact the directory is there, so if you’re wanting to talk to any people and they have a plant a row deal there, it tells you how to become a plant a row person and some ideas of things that you can be doing. so it’s well worth doing so easy and with this Ukrainian problem, fertilizer problems and just generally we have problems anyway, including 35 million people going to bed hungry at night.
Farmer Fred
Plant a Row for the Hungry. You can find it on the internet. Jeff Lowenfels thank you for spending a lot of time with us, talking about Teaming with Bacteria.
Jeff Lowenfels
You’re welcome. And thank you very much for doing that. And I hope Dr. James White becomes a little bit more famous, and Dr. Elaine Ingham does as well. Because the soil food web is it.
Debbie Flower
Yeah, it’s the basis for life.
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Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
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