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applestar
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Modern tomatoes can't get same soil microbe boost as ancient ancestors

Modern tomatoes can't get same soil microbe boost as ancient ancestors
https://phys.org/news/2021-01-modern-to ... boost.html
Tomato plants are especially vulnerable to foliar diseases that can kill them or impact yield. These problems require a number of pesticides in conventional crops and make organic production especially difficult.
A Purdue University-led team of scientists has evidence that tomatoes may be more sensitive to these types of diseases because they've lost the protection offered by certain soil microbes. The researchers found that wild relatives and wild-type tomatoes that associate more strongly with a positive soil fungus grew larger, resisted disease onset and fought disease much better than modern plants.

PaulF
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The study as far as I could tell did not elaborate on what was considered ancient and modern. I think every tomato home gardeners grow would be considered "modern". The wild tomatoes must be those still grown in South America up in the mountains with berry-like fruits.

Vanisle_BC
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Maybe the authors of the article would have been wiser to leave out the words 'ancient' & 'modern'; stuck to 'wild' vs 'domesticated'. But even those could be hard to define with scientific precision.

It doesn't seem surprising that domesticated, 'soft, pampered' strains would be less naturally robust than their wilder ancestors. Don't let Queen Anne's Lace get in among your tender carrots.

But if the research leads to safe, improved performance of my 'heirlooms' (define that!) I'd be pleased.

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TomatoNut95
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By modern tomatoes do you mean hybrids? Or open-pollinated dehybridized creations?

I would love to be able to grow a wild type tomato. Anybody know of any?

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Gary350
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I want beneficial fungus how do I get it??? It is natural for wild plants to develop a resistance to things that kill them other wise they be dead and gone. Potassium improves root growth, it makes healthier plants and plants with more blossoms that become more fruit & larger fruit. Potassium shortage & blossoms fall off. The more potassium & calcium I give to my plants the more tomatoes they produce. TN blight is a killer every year about July 15th.

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applestar
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You can *buy* mixed or single beneficial myco and bacteria* — but you are culturing them when you make good well nurtured compost with plenty of aeration. You can also culture them by making AACT (actively aerated compost tea). In addition, I personally believe — don’t have specific reference links — that adding a bit of yogurt/sour cream/cottage cheese whey or buttermilk to milk solutions for spraying as fungal disease preventive helps. Also saving a burying or composting all culinary mushroom scraps.

You can also grow edible garden mushrooms that have been shown to benefit in symbiosis with cabbage family in particular as well as corn In pre- or companion- planting.


...it would be interesting to find out if adding the fruit wine must (scraps) to compost is also adding beneficial microbes ... or are they not good since they feed on fruits? What about beer grains and hops?

*as an example, Maine Potato Lady site sells beneficial soil microbes that they say help to prevent potato diseases. I don’t remember who they were but I once came across a conifer-only nursery website that included a bag of soil from under their mature trees that they said helps to inoculate the soil where you want to plant a purchased seed-grown treelet with microbes that are symbiotic with the specific conifer.

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:53 pm
You can *buy* mixed or single beneficial myco and bacteria* — but you are culturing them when you make good well nurtured compost with plenty of aeration. You can also culture them by making AACT (actively aerated compost tea). In addition, I personally believe — don’t have specific reference links — that adding a bit of yogurt/sour cream/cottage cheese whey or buttermilk to milk solutions for spraying as fungal disease preventive helps. Also saving a burying or composting all culinary mushroom scraps.

You can also grow edible garden mushrooms that have been shown to benefit in symbiosis with cabbage family in particular as well as corn In pre- or companion- planting.


...it would be interesting to find out if adding the fruit wine must (scraps) to compost is also adding beneficial microbes ... or are they not good since they feed on fruits? What about beer grains and hops?

*as an example, Maine Potato Lady site sells beneficial soil microbes that they say help to prevent potato diseases. I don’t remember who they were but I once came across a conifer-only nursery website that included a bag of soil from under their mature trees that they said helps to inoculate the soil where you want to plant a purchased seed-grown treelet with microbes that are symbiotic with the specific conifer.
I put compost in the garden almost every day. Garden gets aeration with tiller too but not sure how much aeration it needs. I am still fighting chickweed I might till soil again today. When I mow, grass, tree leaves, pine needles, pine cones, sticks, etc, it gets chopped very small by the lawn mower blades and I mow it the correct direction to blow all that chopped material directly into the garden. This year was an amazing year for pine cones I mowed back and forth many times finally got about 20,000. pine cones chopped to saw dust size pieces and blown into the garden. Pine needles were 2" deep lawn mower blew them in the garden. Tree leaves 4" deep lawn mower mulched them blew them in the garden. Lots of kitchen scraps get thrown into the garden. Empty yogurt containers, empty sour cream containers, empty cottage cheese containers, empty milk container all get washed and thrown in the garden. Dead bean plants, dead pepper plants, dead corn stalks, lawn mower chopped them they blow in the garden too. Only thing not thrown in the garden is blight infested tomato plants when dry I burn them with dead sticks then put wood ash in garden. I throw lots of potato peals in the garden too but for the past several month I have been throwing potato peals in a bucket to ferment like wine then pour that in the garden. I burn paper & cardboard in the garden. Garden gets lots of organic material all the time it is less work to use lawn mower to chop everything blow it into the garden then till it into the soil. Garden is 1 large continuous compost pile. I mow back & forth over things several time lawn mower blades chop it very small before it gets tilled into the garden. My garden soil sure does look good it is black soft powder.

imafan26
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I find that the quality of the compost you make depends on the quality of the source material you put in. Modern hybrids of any plant are usually bred for vigor and productivity. That may be that they require more nutrients to support that and not so much that the microbes are less efficient. There are so many diseases out there and many plants are bred for disease resistance, often at the expense of flavor.

In general I have found that plants grown at least in partly organic conditions are healthier than those grown with purely synthetic options.

That being said. When I do grow things, I do not practice mono culture, and I have to space plants more to keep diseases down. I choose what grows best under my conditions. Composts stay so wet, that I will have more fungal issues because of the increased humidity. I think of my garden not as a garden patch but as an ecosystem.

Wild plants, even those growing in clumps, rarely are alone. They are near weeds and trees, and animals fertilizing them. They grow in the best place that suited them. They tend not to be over achievers and only produce enough to reproduce. Reproduction requires a lot of energy. They survive not just because of the soil microbes, but also because they live in a balanced ecosystem.



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