Planting leggy transplants

[TomatoNut]

I'd give anything for loamy soil! So great for when you get way too much rain.

 

[headfullofbees]

Mycorrhizae only seem to help a plant avoid stress, so you won't see much in benefits if you molly-coddle your tomatoes.
A bit like an insurance policy.

 

[headfullofbees]

I'd give anything for loamy soil! So great for when you get way too much rain.

I know clay warms slower and holds water (and nutrients), but mix in a little gypsum and a lot of organic matter and you have fertile, moisture-retentive soil.
It's what I have (there are three brickworks in the area) and I'm glad of it.

 

[headfullofbees]

I have everything but the clay soil. My soil is loamy but it does drain rapidly. And it is difficult if not impossible to stress plants many years. This year for example it has rained a lot and the soil remains moist deep down so the only thing getting stressed is me. It is setting time for tomatoes and so far it has been poor. Temperatures have been on the low side and I am not getting a good set so far. Mycorrhizae I am not sure about. MYC seems to be a type of growth on the roots themselves sort of like scales on a fish that protect the roots like armor does on an English Knight. I am beginning to think that it is, on the whole, a late in the season beneficial fungi and therefore not a lot of help on tomato production. Last year for instance I had a hail storm come through and it killed a bunch of my plants which had ping pong sized fruits on them.. When I pulled the plants I was surprised at how small the root system was for such a robust plant. Then at the end of the season when I pulled the remaining plants I could barely get them out of the ground. A very large root system. I am still wondering about this. Just what does MYC actually do to a tomato plant. Is it fruit production or is it plant growth or is it both that it benefits. I would experiment and find out but the only fertilizers I can get here or afford already has mycorrhizae in it and I don't think that not using any fertilizer would be a fair experiment.

Do you think it would be easier or harder to water-stress your plants, if you only had THREE sets of roots?

 

[DirtMechanic]

Myco shows up when the plant trades carbon for it, so a stressed plant is more likely to develop relations with assistants?

 

[Chuck]

Do you think it would be easier or harder to water-stress your plants, if you only had THREE sets of roots?

Well, I would say I do the opposite of molly coddle them and normally I only have two set of roots, fibrous and tap. Myco is attached to the roots in a symbiotic relationship and are not roots. When I plant deep it is only when I must. I don't grow leggy plants on purpose. And If I cut the tap root off the plant I think it would die. So in essence I have 2 fibrous root systems and 1 taproot. And planting deep can be a big drawback to stressing tomatoes. In many cases planting on their side would be easier to stress them as soil tends to be dryer on top. Today either way would not work as the soil is still too moist 2 inches deep to stress anything. So to answer the question, the least amount of roots you have the easier it is to stress the plant. Here, it hasn't been this wet for a LOOONG time so this discussion is about an aberration of normalcy. I just wish it would happen every year.

 

[Chuck]

Myco shows up when the plant trades carbon for it, so a stressed plant is more likely to develop relations with assistants?

I don't think I quite understand what you are saying.

 

[vette-kid]

I wished you all would stop this smart business. All I am is old and the longer you do something the more you learn. I'll bet I have killed more plants than most gardeners have ever planted. I wouldn't call that smart.

It's not the mistakes that make us smart, or dumb... It's what we do afterwards. I'm betting your smart enough to realize when you've made a mistake and have learned from them. That's a lot of info to pass along!

 

[headfullofbees]

Myco shows up when the plant trades carbon for it, so a stressed plant is more likely to develop relations with assistants?

No. It is more likely to see benefit of that relationship when under stress.

 

[DirtMechanic]

No. It is more likely to see benefit of that relationship when under stress.

But what starts the myco relationship? Mere presence to begin with? But what food source if the plant has access to acceptable nutrients already and does not provide support to the myco as a result? Myco ebbs away until a plant becomes stressed and puts out chemistry and sugars from the root to get them back?

 

[DirtMechanic]

I don't think I quite understand what you are saying.

I am trying to understand more about the idea presented to me that if a plant does not need beneficial fungi because it is already getting what it needs, then the plant roots will not feed the relationship with the fungi, in the form of carbon, which we know as sugars.

 

[marlingardener]

What I am learning from this discussion is that gardeners do what is necessary/best for their plants and conditions. Gardening is not a science so much as an art, and the folks here are artists!

 

[vette-kid]

... Or loony... Just sayin

 

[Chuck]

I am trying to understand more about the idea presented to me that if a plant does not need beneficial fungi because it is already getting what it needs, then the plant roots will not feed the relationship with the fungi, in the form of carbon, which we know as sugars.
[/QUOTE
I will try to explain what little I know about myco. Plants feed themselves through roots but only partially because a plants roots are giganticly huge when compared to myco. Therefor your hypothesis that a plant is getting all it needs is for the most part false because a plants roots must be in contact with the soil to uptake nutrients and large roots half the size of a hair will deplete granules of soil of their nutrients in no time. Myco "roots" are extremely small and can encircle a granule of soil thousands upon thousands of times. Myco roots aren't really "roots" Myco feeds on sugars made through the plants leaves by photosynthesis and in return breaks down organic matter into compounds favorable to the plant in which the plant then uptakes as nutrients. There are at least two kinds or forms of myco and iirc are called endomycorrhizae and ectomyco. One of them encapsulates the plants roots and protects it from disease and the other on actually lives inside the plants roots and helps with nutrient uptake. And that's about all I know about myco except that it works and thanks to @headfullofbees doesn't affect or even like brassicas or maybe that's vice versa.

 

[DirtMechanic]

... Or loony... Just sayin

Its an actual thing. Here is another version. Pigs, because they let us eat them, have had a population explosion to the extent that they have more individuals than us. Thus the question, are you truly smarter than a pig? There is an author by the last name Pollan from which I draw that thesis.

It would be a good tv show. Are you in control of you or are the pigs in control of you and why.