I kinda did an "experiment" and I think its kinda failing, so I need your help!
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2022 6:41 pm
Sooooooooooo
Where do I start this...
I put cotton wick on the bottom of my pots where it forms a tight spiral on the inside bottom of the pots and leaves in the middle to the outside (it also has a "tounge" reaching higher inside the soil from the other end of the spirral).
Why I did this?
Wellll to have easier time watering, and not even only from the bottom but also from the top, so it sucks out water, and in case of overwatering a plant I can just let it drip out and the gravity + capillary forces would draw water out, or so I can place it on some towel and the capillary forces will suck out excess stuck water.
Does it do its inteded job properly?
Hell yeah, it does it great there is just one problem... It does also another thing that I kinda hoped wouldn't be a problem since I tHoUGhT I did necceseary precautions to avoid it.
So whats wrong?
Well it started getting all moldy but in a bad way, with some unknown black mold growing on it, which from what I understand, its not really a good sign since saprofitic and beneficial molds often have white color and there is a lot of root rot fungi that are black. I also emailed the myc. powder producer and they told me their product keeps the soil clean and roots white, so overall, the only color of a mold should be white. (unless I got some lazy responce but idk I dont think so)
Here is the important thing:
As I said I took the precautions to avoid it, I added to my coco gritty mix "great white mycorrhizae", which is a powder containg bacteria, myc. fungi and 2 species of trichoderma in it. So I thought that its gonna basically protect the plant from any bad stuff, and its (the beneficial culture) gonna basically just colonise the wick the same way it will coco coir.
I think I did few mistakes tho
I also decided to mix with my beneficial culture something called "bac sugar candy" and biohumus
First is a sugar mixture with I think some other things that is supposed to feed the microbes (I was hopping it will feed well the myc. culture I added)
Second is a liquid worm casting extract, basically organic fertiliser made from worm castings in a concentrated form, probably like evaporated worm tea or something, and the one I used was comercially made. (I used it to fertilise the coco coir with something that wont burn the beneficial culture I added, since Ive heard that inorganic nutes can actually harm those microbes, also since I was transplanting my plants I decided to use it instead of mineral nutes to not add too much salts into it that plants wont utilise since they havent developped a propper root system yet.
(I think adding it right with the myc. powder was a mistake since it could have contained something bad but hey... everyone says that worm castings contain beneficial bacteria and somehow the worms do their magic since they have the good stuff in their guts...)
another thing is probably that I did not inocullate the wick with the myc powder after boiling it and before drying it out.
Furthermore
I will mention that, yes I understand that those bacteria and fungi might not really help the plant much and I probably need the ones from native habitat, but that wasnt the point, the point was to add a product containing trichoderma and other beneficial microbes so even if they dont work that much with plant, THEY will colonise the soil before something else from the environment that might be harmful.
So now lets get to the point where I ask you what to do?
As I said, the wick started to get really moldy, I discovered it once I accidentally knocked one plant out and had to repot it. The whole wick was looking like a dalmacian dog or a cow, all in black patches and yellow discolorations, it also smelled super musty and so did the mix/soil (yuck).
I probably should have taken out pictures once I could but I didnt want to touch my phone with dirty hands. I decided to boil the wick, inocullate it, and put the plant together (for now).
I would absolutely hate to have to repot all the plants that I potted up like 2 or 3 weeks ago but I made a peace with myself and Im ready to do it if its necceseary.
The thing is also that the plants look healthy for now, and the mold on the wick could also be something harmless but I understand that things like that take a bit more time.
Also, If I need to repot it, should I clean or desinfect the rootball with something like hydrogen peroxide or just wash it and add some of that myc powder on the roots.
Before you scream at me for overwatering, I will only say that since the plants were repotted I had to provide them some moisture to shoot out new roots into and it takes time before they colonise entire pot with them and I waited the precautionary week. also the soil wasnt sitting in water and had perfect amount of moisture because the wick was regulating that.
So yeah... Should I repot the plants or what, I still think that the wick is amazing idea, but maybe one made from plastic or fibreglass would be a right choice next time.
Should I also desinfect the rootball?
Or maybe its something harmless?
Drying the soil completly to be bone dry might take a while, since the top might dry out but the bottom will still be moist mostly due the mix I used (30%coco 50%pumice 20% gray lava rock that is not porous) as well as the fact that there are no roots at the bottom to suck out the moisture.
EDIT:
Here are photos that I can give you:
This is how the wick is placed on a pot where I havent planted anything since Im rooting a jade cutting:
Here is how much I would have to potentially repot:
Here is a mold on another wick, inside it probably is much worse:
Also sorry if its wrong index board, if you are a mod feel free to move it, I honestly dont know if it should go into cultivation or diseases.
Where do I start this...
I put cotton wick on the bottom of my pots where it forms a tight spiral on the inside bottom of the pots and leaves in the middle to the outside (it also has a "tounge" reaching higher inside the soil from the other end of the spirral).
Why I did this?
Wellll to have easier time watering, and not even only from the bottom but also from the top, so it sucks out water, and in case of overwatering a plant I can just let it drip out and the gravity + capillary forces would draw water out, or so I can place it on some towel and the capillary forces will suck out excess stuck water.
Does it do its inteded job properly?
Hell yeah, it does it great there is just one problem... It does also another thing that I kinda hoped wouldn't be a problem since I tHoUGhT I did necceseary precautions to avoid it.
So whats wrong?
Well it started getting all moldy but in a bad way, with some unknown black mold growing on it, which from what I understand, its not really a good sign since saprofitic and beneficial molds often have white color and there is a lot of root rot fungi that are black. I also emailed the myc. powder producer and they told me their product keeps the soil clean and roots white, so overall, the only color of a mold should be white. (unless I got some lazy responce but idk I dont think so)
Here is the important thing:
As I said I took the precautions to avoid it, I added to my coco gritty mix "great white mycorrhizae", which is a powder containg bacteria, myc. fungi and 2 species of trichoderma in it. So I thought that its gonna basically protect the plant from any bad stuff, and its (the beneficial culture) gonna basically just colonise the wick the same way it will coco coir.
I think I did few mistakes tho
I also decided to mix with my beneficial culture something called "bac sugar candy" and biohumus
First is a sugar mixture with I think some other things that is supposed to feed the microbes (I was hopping it will feed well the myc. culture I added)
Second is a liquid worm casting extract, basically organic fertiliser made from worm castings in a concentrated form, probably like evaporated worm tea or something, and the one I used was comercially made. (I used it to fertilise the coco coir with something that wont burn the beneficial culture I added, since Ive heard that inorganic nutes can actually harm those microbes, also since I was transplanting my plants I decided to use it instead of mineral nutes to not add too much salts into it that plants wont utilise since they havent developped a propper root system yet.
(I think adding it right with the myc. powder was a mistake since it could have contained something bad but hey... everyone says that worm castings contain beneficial bacteria and somehow the worms do their magic since they have the good stuff in their guts...)
another thing is probably that I did not inocullate the wick with the myc powder after boiling it and before drying it out.
Furthermore
I will mention that, yes I understand that those bacteria and fungi might not really help the plant much and I probably need the ones from native habitat, but that wasnt the point, the point was to add a product containing trichoderma and other beneficial microbes so even if they dont work that much with plant, THEY will colonise the soil before something else from the environment that might be harmful.
So now lets get to the point where I ask you what to do?
As I said, the wick started to get really moldy, I discovered it once I accidentally knocked one plant out and had to repot it. The whole wick was looking like a dalmacian dog or a cow, all in black patches and yellow discolorations, it also smelled super musty and so did the mix/soil (yuck).
I probably should have taken out pictures once I could but I didnt want to touch my phone with dirty hands. I decided to boil the wick, inocullate it, and put the plant together (for now).
I would absolutely hate to have to repot all the plants that I potted up like 2 or 3 weeks ago but I made a peace with myself and Im ready to do it if its necceseary.
The thing is also that the plants look healthy for now, and the mold on the wick could also be something harmless but I understand that things like that take a bit more time.
Also, If I need to repot it, should I clean or desinfect the rootball with something like hydrogen peroxide or just wash it and add some of that myc powder on the roots.
Before you scream at me for overwatering, I will only say that since the plants were repotted I had to provide them some moisture to shoot out new roots into and it takes time before they colonise entire pot with them and I waited the precautionary week. also the soil wasnt sitting in water and had perfect amount of moisture because the wick was regulating that.
So yeah... Should I repot the plants or what, I still think that the wick is amazing idea, but maybe one made from plastic or fibreglass would be a right choice next time.
Should I also desinfect the rootball?
Or maybe its something harmless?
Drying the soil completly to be bone dry might take a while, since the top might dry out but the bottom will still be moist mostly due the mix I used (30%coco 50%pumice 20% gray lava rock that is not porous) as well as the fact that there are no roots at the bottom to suck out the moisture.
EDIT:
Here are photos that I can give you:
This is how the wick is placed on a pot where I havent planted anything since Im rooting a jade cutting:
Here is how much I would have to potentially repot:
Here is a mold on another wick, inside it probably is much worse:
Also sorry if its wrong index board, if you are a mod feel free to move it, I honestly dont know if it should go into cultivation or diseases.