Cool ... the brassicas are a chemically interesting group.

Arthrobotrys, a fungus that attacks nematodes, and Dactylella oviparasitica, a fungus that parasitizes nematode eggs, were found only in the seed meal-amended soil. These nematode parasites were likely responsible for the long-term suppression of lesion nematode in the seed meal treatment. Another fungus, Oidiodendron, which is known to control Phytophthora was also only found in the seed meal treatment.

Why not just inoculate the soil with spores of these fungi?

A lot of people are working on it with seed coatings...everything from drought tolerance to disease control via "helpful" pathogens...

It's not new, but the scope of issues being addressed is getting wider.

Kingdoms working together (plants/bacteria/fungi/etc) is hot stuff.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Wed, Jan 7, 15 at 18:54

Glad you liked it lazy and nc.

Our entire Biosphere is inter-related and inter-dependent, that is why we need to look at the big picture in order to make sense of the narrow research picture.
We should look at plant life as the "whole" being greater than the sum of its parts. Biology is not just a collection of parts.
Worthwhile endeavor IMO. :)

Mapler: research very often has to be very narrow in biological systems as there are so many variables that must be controlled and or accounted for, otherwise, meaningful data cannot be collected. Experimental design is the place to begin looking at the big picture for areas to examine IMHO.

When I am putting together a 1000 piece jig-saw puzzle I often build the frame first. Next I will match up colors to form a roof perhaps, or clouds, a clump of tulips, etc.
Once these simple understandable elements are put together in their rough and incomplete pieces, the last step is to put them all together in context in relation to one another.
The framework of research is the starting point such as Science Research 101. SR 102 might involve the combination of simple and like elements to form concrete understanding.
SR-103 and beyond will be possible as a larger body of factors come into play and provide the glue for the puzzle pix to emerge in its entirety.
We seemed to be crippled scientifically because rather than expanding beyond SR-101 we make the excuse that ONLY this is meaningful, even though it is w/out CONTEXT.
I'm not trying to pick a fight or be unruly but am expanding the thinking beyond the repetitiveness of 101, for over 50 years. :)

What usually happens is a researcher either notices a link or wants to investigate a link...or "something happens" out of the ordinary in a plot and probable/possible links are investigated.

Keeping it simple(ish) at this point...ignoring things like proposals, funding, people/time/space concerns...

At this point appropriate researchers or research departments figure out how to best test this link or links. This involves everything from growing environment to watering regimes to pot size (if grown in containers) and all kinds of things in between. Along with this, the type of data to be collected and how it's going to be "crunched" needs to be determined.

It's not just casually visual collected data. The plant tissue itself is studied...the roots...occasionally the soil. How the plant has reacted with the treatment on levels down to cellular and enzyme reactions is studied.

After all of this, data has to be turned into a report of sorts...making sense of what just happened during the 2-4 months of actually growing the plants and collecting the data. This can add more weeks/months (usually months) to the process.

...and after all that it may be (usually is) either a dead end or the effect is so minimal that it either is called a dead end or further avenues are investigated in conjunction with what was found.

If you find something good then it's another clusterfu..fudge.

You have to convince sales/marketing or others that call the shots that you have a product worth developing. This is a whole another months/year+ long drag because everything promoted is a lost opportunity to promote something else because of the personnel and man power involved.

This is a real basic overlay, but it happens like this a lot.

Maples: I strongly urge you to go to a nearby land grant university research station and start asking questions about the research being conducted there. Hopefully, they will be doing veggie research and you can also get in touch with the researchers ( PhDs) conducting the trials. By all means, ask them about your, " context" concerns. If you're lucky they will have time to see you.

or "something happens" out of the ordinary in a plot and probable/possible links are investigated.

It's oice to have your ideas confirmed, but those WTF moments are when things REALLY start ...

I've done better than talking to PhDs at the research stations, I've read various papers written by these people and analyzed the testing and the findings to see what the conclusions might be.
I also learn from those large scale operations, nurseries and lifetime successful gardeners to analyze the long term truths about practices that are considered old fashion and out of date with new findings.
The reason I even bring this up is because when one might challenge the "new data" the answer comes back: "Too many factors" and the other big one is: "This is how it IS."
This type of double talk and circular reasoning is not an acceptable way to lean Botany. :)

Mapler: again, talk to the researchers about their experiments and the papers they wrote about them. You will glean a far better and deeper understanding of the how's and whys of the research that way. The papers, while very useful are just the tail end of a long process with many reasoned steps.

By all means, keep doing what you are doing talking to successful growers and applying it to your growing system(s) where applicable.

The reason I even bring this up is because when one might challenge the "new data" the answer comes back: "Too many factors"

So ... can you figure out a way to limit the number of factors that might mess with an experiment? Getting the experimental design RIGHT, so it will clearly show if what you are testing for is really happening is not easy.

Most of the time it's a huge challenge to incorporate a lot of factors unless the interaction of almost all (or all) of the additional factors are known by themselves or in a known combination.

It's hard to tell what's influencing what's going right (or wrong) if you don't grasp what it's "expected to do" on it's own.

A seemingly basic, insignificant, slow-moving, or "duh" work can build upon itself with further research.

This is the million dollar question as presented by, lazygardens.
"So ... can you figure out a way to limit the number of factors that might mess with an experiment? Getting the experimental design RIGHT, so it will clearly show if what you are testing for is really happening is not easy. "

I believe that a number of factors are sorted out in the minds of people gardening or farming for most of their lives. Certain new information from a particular study will likely find a contextual home in the mind of those folks. These people can lend insight to new ideas that the narrow focus of research might miss.
Sometimes a narrow focus is blindness, is all I'm saying.
If I disagree with a conclusion, then the other guy must justify his POV. When the response comes back, "Too many Factors" then I call it a cop out. :)

Farmers are involved in every research operation I've ever been involved in.

Whether they're visiting the greenhouse/labs, we're visiting their farms, or we're at conferences talking to each other...ideas and observations are listened to.

A lot of researchers will build on their interests or their leads when they're not being directed on other projects. There's generally a good amount of time and budget to cover these kinds of projects, too.

Lazy: yes, hell yes, getting the design correct is paramount or you'll never have a clue what just happened and why. This includes deciding what your treatments will be, how many repitions are required, the plot sizes and the data you'll be collecting; in addition, other things may be done to flesh out any possible unexpected responses such as pre-plant soil sampling and site selection. Plant tissue and other sampling may be done throughout the growing season. Of course all of your yield and other data will be useless if analyzed with the wrong statistical model. Often experiments, to be made more robust must be conducted over more than one year to be meaningful.

This kind of research is expensive and time consuming, often only universities have the resources to do it. A simple experiment of determining the response of peppers to 4 different levels of pre-plant, incorporated dairy manure is greatly more resource intensive for the researcher by adding another variable to the dairy manure experiment such as adding two levels ((treatments) of fish emulsion applied once through the irrigation or foliage applied.

It isn't impossible and researchers often do look for interactive effects of 2 or more treatments. Ag research isn't as narrow as you for some reason believe. Been there, done it, I know of what I remember.

My first post was complimentary of research that took the big picture into consideration as the use and study of microbes replaced the fumigation.
The ability for us to understand that favorable microbes can exist in the soil over the 2nd year with the use of seed meal is a big step.
So for me the wider scope of this research is that the proper soils will be providing beneficial microbes and keeping pathogens under control, if certain foods are employed.
Do we need to wait until someone gives us the exact formula for which foods, for which microbes, for which soils and which crops?
All I'm saying is that there is a general idea here that is larger than the one seed meal to orchard transplants. :)

Yes indeed, they got a good start with that study but much more wok may prove beneficial. Time to do a literature review and come up with a grant proprosal.

Just the growing medium can influence microbial root colonization. As a college intern I conducted a demonstration of bacterial root colonization on a ultra dwarf wheat called Yecora Rojo. I sowed seed in rock wool, a peat lite mix and a forgotten 3rd medium and sampled roots to count bacterial colonies on the roots; in the end there was a difference. The project was loosely linked to work NASA's CELSS project Controlled Ecological Life Support System under development at the time.. The plant pathologist I was working under took me to KSC one day, WOW, that was the thrill of a lifetime for me!!!

This post was edited by michael357 on Wed, Jan 14, 15 at 18:30