Help with my white pine

River's Edge

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Well, for one thing, I don’t use a “jet” of water to clean roots when bare rooting. A soft spray, yes, but not a jet. The mychorazzae spores are in the air. If conditions are favorable, it will grow. It actually prefers dryer conditions. So, when we see root rot, or root balls that comprise a high percentage of organics, we don’t see much mychorazzae because it’s just too wet.

If you are repotting a healthy tree, and want to make sure you keep a good population of mychorrazae going, it does no harm to this s tablespoon of the old soil back in the pot.

That said, when I’ve been potting trees at Boon’s, I’ve been there for hundreds of repotting. Never, not once have we ever “inoculated” a pot with any kind of mychorrazae! It just happens on its own.

It has to do more of having a suitable soil mixture, and following good watering practices.

Let me add thatwe generally don’t completely bare root conifers unless it’s an emergency. Usually, we bare root half the root ball one year, then the next year follow up and do the other side. Most of the time,once a tree is growing in good soil, no barerooting at all is performed

Here is a root ball I just started to work:

View attachment 188843

The lower half had been bare rooted the year before, into Boon Mix, and was full of white mychorrazae. The dark upper hhslf was the original soil from the nursery. Mostly pinebark and sand. Very little mychorrazae present! That’s because the pinebark and sand mix just holds too much water!

I had just started working the bottom of the rootball when I noticed the striking difference between to two halves.

No mychorazza was ever added to this tree.
Thanks Adair, important to note the process of bare rooting is normally reserved for emergency repot. The other time i use it, is for collected tree's that are dormant and in very poor soil conditions. Cleaning away the compacted soil and rinsing away debris does not destroy the microbial activity or microhyzae. I have never had to add it and it is always present afterwards. Pumice seems to provide an excellent media for mycrohyzae, the grow beds and grow boxes of pure pumice are always loaded.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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Actually none of that is strictly correct. There have been trials done to see the effects with and without mycos. If there is none in the media or on the seed then there is no inoculation and plants perform less than optimally but they can continue to survive. There is no issue with myco ''warefare'' The one (or more) most adapted to the environment will prevail. It is true that there is no need to add new mycos if it is already present but then I never did suggest that.

You might be completely right.

I view it from a system point of view:
The one most adapted to the new environment might not be the current main symbiont. They might start a competition for resources which the main symbiont might lose before it's adapted to said new environment. Fungi battle as much as bacteria for resources. A fungus weakened by a weakened host, might not be able to competer with a fungus searching for a host (with a broader set of possible resources since it hasn't differentiated as much).
Once a host-symbiont relation is established, some fungi lose the ability to live without the host.

Plants in pots, being outdoors, get inoculations on a large scale. That's different than sterilized seeds in controlled, sterile, environments. Those same trails, will have that kind of info in the introduction.
As somebody who has to desinfect tissue cultures in the lab, I've seen how desastrous and/or beneficial it can be to expose plants to regular air filled with spores.
It's practically impossible to keep plants myco-free if you aren't growing them in a closed, airfiltered container. At least, as long as you're not using antibiotics.
I thought that by "adding myco" you meant adding a commercial dip or something similar, which might spark a run for resources I was warning about. Commercial dips can contain a million times more spores than the average air.

Anyways, I'll open a new discussion about this tonight. I think this might not be the ideal place to discuss this.
 

Japonicus

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Well, for one thing, I don’t use a “jet” of water to clean roots when bare rooting. A soft spray, yes, but not a jet. The mychorazzae spores are in the air. If conditions are favorable, it will grow. It actually prefers dryer conditions. So, when we see root rot, or root balls that comprise a high percentage of organics, we don’t see much mychorazzae because it’s just too wet.

If you are repotting a healthy tree, and want to make sure you keep a good population of mychorrazae going, it does no harm to this s tablespoon of the old soil back in the pot.

That said, when I’ve been potting trees at Boon’s, I’ve been there for hundreds of repotting. Never, not once have we ever “inoculated” a pot with any kind of mychorrazae! It just happens on its own.

It has to do more of having a suitable soil mixture, and following good watering practices.

Let me add thatwe generally don’t completely bare root conifers unless it’s an emergency. Usually, we bare root half the root ball one year, then the next year follow up and do the other side. Most of the time,once a tree is growing in good soil, no barerooting at all is performed

Here is a root ball I just started to work:

View attachment 188843

The lower half had been bare rooted the year before, into Boon Mix, and was full of white mychorrazae. The dark upper hhslf was the original soil from the nursery. Mostly pinebark and sand. Very little mychorrazae present! That’s because the pinebark and sand mix just holds too much water!

I had just started working the bottom of the rootball when I noticed the striking difference between to two halves.

No mychorazza was ever added to this tree.
Most excellent example Adair :) Of course the OP was in emergency mode...but I still add it when I repot my Pines.
I would probably bring a fire hose to a water gun battle, but I never seem to bring enough money when I go to a bonsai garden.

Still curious what @Phillthy unearthed...

I do have a question pertinent to his Wintering this particular tree though.
Being how these roots are so exposed, as with ROR...is healing such a tree into the ground up to the base of the tree
all roots below ground, better than just mulching high up. It appears to me, to be an awkward bonsai to over Winter
without a controlled environment near freezing. I'm certain the OP could see -20ºF. more than once during this trees care.
 
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