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organicadam

help with making fugal dominated compost pile

OrganicAdam
9 years ago

I have compost which I bought from the local land fill made from ground up branches and such its almost like a mulch but broken down. So I used that as my base an I layered in a bag of mushroom compost, espoma bio.tone starter plus (because it contains mychorizae) and oat meal(as a fungal food source) then watered it down and I am hoping the beneficial fungi reproduce making it a fungal dominated pile. I also get left over produce from the market to compost an feed my worms. I often get Portobello mushrooms, my question is:

A. is this going to work?

B. Should I add the cooking mushrooms to the pile. Are they going to add beneficial fungi or bad fungi..?

Comments (6)

  • glib
    9 years ago

    what you are doing is too much effort for something that happens naturally. You can get mycorrhizae by just adding some forest soil, and the compost you have already has a couple different fungi (or more) which were responsible for the successive degradation of those chips.

  • Kimmsr
    9 years ago

    Mycorrhizae (myco = fungi, rhizza = root) refers to a relationship different fungi form with plants, a mutually beneficial, or symbiotic, relationship. There are no fungi called mycorrhizae. The fungi that might be found in the forest most likely will not be what flowering or vegetable plants form that mutually beneficial relationship with because the fungi the work with trees and shrubs are not the same as those that work with flowers and vegetables,
    As long as the mushrooms added to a compost pile are edible they are good.
    To get fungi to form that mycorrhizae relationship work on getting the soil plants grow in into a good healthy condition with adequate amounts of organic matter and they will come. An article in a recent issue of Fine Gardening magazine by Jeff Gillman, phD in soil science, pretty much said spending money on "stuff" containing mycorrhizae is a waste for the above reasons and the storage and shipping of the material most likely will kill any fungi that might exist in the package unless very strict attention is paid to temperature and humidity.
    Whether the finished compost is bacterially or fungally dominate will depend on what you put in. If the majority of the material is vegetative then the compost will be bacterial. If the majority of material put in is woody then the finished compost could be fungi dominated, just as the forest floor usually is.

  • OrganicAdam
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I think you guys are missing the point. I want fungal compost in a few months as appose to a few years. that's why I inoculated the pile with the Endo an ecto mychorrizal fungi(Ectomycorrhizal Fungi: 97,440 propagules/gram of 8 species: Endomycorrhizal Fungi: 2.640 propagules per gram of 2 species:) and added the oatmeal as fungal food. I want to have a very high fungal content by spring. that's why I used a finished compost to start with so it would not have to decompose much more. when you by commercial mushroom compost they first compost straw then when its almost finished inoculate with fungi. This helps speed the process... has any one tried this or a similar method?

  • klem1
    9 years ago

    IMO unless one is a trained professional in the field,quick,fast and rapid shouldn't be the primary goal while composting. Even with advise of professionals on how to go about it,there are day in day issues that must be recconized through firsthand observation in order to be sucessful. Having said that,there is no harm in trying ( matter of fact it's fun) as long as your whole garden hinges on the undertaking.

  • Laurel Zito
    9 years ago

    I am going to suggest coffee grounds from starbucks, because they do speed things up. I notice huge amounts of fungal stuff in the compost bin in the center after the heating phases ends, then fungus takes over and breaks down more stuff. But, it is not clear if this compost is the kind you want. It seems like you are combining composting with hugle culture. If you just make some good compost, it will help your plants, you can add what ever types of other fungus, but you won't get anything better, that way. What are trying to grow? Are you just improving soil around trees, do you want to grow mushrooms? They have kits and things for that. If you put a lot of bread in the center of your pile and have browns green and a lot of coffee grounds, the bread in particular will create a lot of mold spores. I hope you can find throw away stale bread somewhere like a donate place.

  • toxcrusadr
    9 years ago

    I'm no expert on creating fungal conditions, but from what little I know, fungi tend to degrade woody materials. I would have thought sawdust or wood chips would be a good ingredient. Maybe your use of 'finished' compost (in quotes because it's never really finished in the time scale we make and use it) - maybe that will work fine, but as a general rule there is not much point in putting compost INTO a compost pile.