Feeding Your Soil - Step #8

Microbe to Fungi Ratio & Plant Maturity

The Microbe to Fungi ratio is another important one to consider when trying to maximize the effects of your active biology in high-profit cultivation. In the early stages of a plant’s life, it prefers approximately a 2:1 Microbes to Fungi application rate. There is a very specific reason that we prefer this strategy. Soft-stemmed plants prefer microbially dominant soils. We want to encourage a soft-stemmed environment because soft-stemmed plants have more flexible cell walls. When we are trying to encourage rapid growth, we don’t want our plants to be encumbered by hardened plant cells.

During the transition phase (2-3 weeks before and 2-3 weeks after your “flip date”) we want to encourage a 1:1 Microbial to Fungal ratio. We want to start encouraging the growth of our mycorrhizal shelf. This can take 3-5 weeks to begin to establish in some conditions so the sooner we can get it going so that we can time everything properly, the better. We don’t want to wait so long that by the time these Mycorrhizae establish themselves they will be of no use to your plants.

During the later phase of a plant's life when it is in full bloom, fungal dominance is preferred. 

Tune in Monday when we introduce our next series:

Genetic Selection