@calliandra for $15. dollars it can't hurt , From what I understand there is not much -P - in the tropical soils because of leaching , I have added the [P] microbes to help with the bat guano to be come more available , but in saying that I am building my own soils . I am limited to what I can get due to cost so all I am trying to do is on a low cost basic . As I delve deeper I get a better understanding , Now can you explain why it is a waste of time .
OK haha
provocative question: so in nature around you, all those lovely pix you've been posting, a widespread P deficiency is manifesting itself?
Nah, right?
P leaching! That can only become an issue when P is being added in soluble forms (think industrial agriculture), expensively mined elsewhere, processed, trucked and shipped.
In soils with intact biology, it's not even a thing.
And in soils with intact biology, you will inevitably have everyone on board to take care of all the many different tasks, with the right cooperation partners.
Soil health is a team thing.
...and megalomania is a people thing. LOL
Think about this: just recently, the estimate of species globally has risen to the trillions, their composition disctinctly shifting from plants and animals to microbes, which now are seen to probably make up over 90% of all species. It's just a feel they have based on the discoveries in the past few years, but the direction alone is speaking, never mind a few millions up or down lol
So of 90% of trillions, and we have the cheekiness to assert that we know which SINGLE species are going to guarantee what functions in our soils?!
That we know what cooperators must be in place for them to actually perform that function?
We actually believe nature has no redundancies in place, local variations climatically adapted?
Nah.
In truth,
bacillus subtilis is just one that is easy to propagate in the lab. it's relatively large and easy to identify. And it's omnipresent in the wild too, in fact, one of the species to be known to be present in soils all around the globe.
But we go and find this one bacterium, discover what its main function seems to be, get all excited at our ingeniousness, and start pouring it all over our soils in glee lol
We really don't know much, but we DO know that it's a LOT more about how the whole ecosystem works
together than about specific single species, and even more so when it comes to bacteria. So if it's about bang for bucks - a scoopful of that lovely wild turkey compost added to a wormbin is bound to bring more of it -- actually, bang
without bucks haha
Following this line of thought, the only situations I can go along with single-species approaches is when we're talking of toxin remediation. because it's an extraordinary event, not something meant to work systemically in the long term...
Anyway, if you're really really worried about your P supply, you're bound to have more of inoculating your seedlings with endomycorrhizal spores - again, a mix of species being preferred over just one kind. If there is really a problem, your plants will grow themselves a mycorrhizal network to help them out
At least, that's the understanding I have of it at the mo, and why I say you don't need that stuff
Just my humble 2c though, always!
Cheers!
