Scott and his team did an amazing job this fall. 24 bioreactors. 24! That’s over 400 bags of leaves now on a journey to 2024 use. 400 bags were also used for two new field improvement experiments. Can anyone count the number of bioreactors full and composting? Can anybody see Scott in the middle there? Congratulation to Scott and his amazing team. Well done all!
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MicroBiometers now available … get the tech that ONfungi uses to measure soil carbon and fungi to bacteria ratio
Kits shipping now This microBIOMETER® Starter Kit estimates microbial biomass and fungal to bacterial ratio with a smartphone app. The kit includes supplies for 10 soil tests and comes in a sturdy, reusable box. Included: Shipping Policy Free shipping across Canada.Note: only available for Canadian shipping. Free APP does all the work The app helps you time the test, offers a guide and tutorials, stores your data collected as well as taking the measurements. A MicroBiometer reliably tests your farming and gardening methods MicroBiometers are a new tool that measures soil carbon and fungi to bacteria ratios. These tests give you indicators of soil health and allow you to track…
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Community Garden starts first row of ONfdc beans
July 8, 2022 — Update from South Lanark Community Garden The SLCG has partnered with ONfungi representative Kelvin Hodges to grow some plants inoculated with the fungi inoculant that they make in their reactors. The SLCG has installed 4 of their bioreactors to create fungi inoculated compost for the garden. Our Youth Community Garden Program has inoculated and planted 3 varieties of bush beans to see how they perform in comparison to non-inoculated control beans of the same varieties. To our amazement the inoculated beans have emerged first. Their progress will be monitored throughout the growing season. Pictured are some of the youth and Coral Sproule of the Table Community…
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Scott’s favorite FDC podcasts and videos
Hi everyone, this is a grab bag of YouTubes & Podcasts that have been big for me. I would suggest starting with the John Kempf interviews from his Regenerative Agriculture Podcast. The Youtube videos that follow are also excellent. Interview with Derek Axton – Canadian “disciple” of Gabe Brownhttp://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/intercropping-and-regenerative-soil-management-with-derek-axten Hay/Dairy, Alvin Peacheyhttp://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/episode-68-alvin-peachey Hayfields/Forage/Cover Crop, Rick Clarkhttp://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/episode-77-rick-clark Orchard, Steven Bierlinkhttp://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/episode-70-steven-bierlink Innovative Vineyard, Kelly Mulville https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3JlZ2VuZXJhdGl2ZWFncmljdWx0dXJlcG9kY2FzdC5jb20vcnNz/episode/YjBmZDA3NjAtMGQ5Mi00YTU0LTgyZGEtYTViZGMzMmFjOGQy Gabe Brownhttp://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/from-dirt-to-soil-with-gabe-brown &http://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/social-impacts-of-regenerative-agriculture-with-gabe-brown John Kempf interview of David Johnsonhttp://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/microbial-communities-for-carbon-sequestration-with-david-johnson Vermicomposthttp://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/episode-72-nicole-masters Youtube features Starts as a primer. Looks at the mechanisms of how FDC works and changes in the soil. Looks at proofs. David takes questions. Some time links 16: Looking at carbon efficiency — really shows…
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Building a small backyard bioreactor
While ONfungi’s Scott Hortop is the wizard of compost with his large bioreactors, there’s room for smaller bioreactors. In today’s post, ONfungi’s Kelvin Hodges builds a simple home bioreactor. For the inoculate see our shop here. Buy your bioreactor starter kit here. Remember, the bioreactor inoculate kit greatly improves your fdc by introducing a large fungal spore range right from day one. Kelvin’s bioreactor build Hi everyone, for my home bioreactor build I started with some basic 1×2″ wire mesh fencing from a local hardware store. I used tin snips to cut the mesh into two pieces. One piece would be for the main bioreactor and the second piece was…
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April 23rd ONfungi talks and shows!
Thank you for all the visits and friendly joy! Saturday, April 23, ONfungi’s Scott Hortop and Kelvin Hodges were at the Kemptville Sustainability Fair. We had hundreds of avid gardeners and nature lovers of all ages come by. Stories were told. ONfungi FDC was given out — by donation: and we raised over 110 dollars, not including coins and US dollars! We also sent more than 50 packages of FDC along with promises to try some citizen science out into the world. Huzzah. Many young people discovered a new way to act on the climate. Many moms and dads got new garden ideas. Many grandma and grandpa’s found a new…
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New experiments are here
For spring 2022 we are testing the FDC in three ways: 1) using seeds for germination and growth tests 2) applying to a lawn, or top dressing a lawn 3) use with seedlings (already started plants) Each method has a few variations, but the processes are pretty straightforward. General rules when applying and testing FDC You need to do “twins” — for each plant variety or tree type or lawn area, try to select a roughly identical pair of plant and locations. Apply the Fungal-Dominant Compost (FDC) to only one of the two plants (trees, lawn areas); the second plant will be your reference. Both plants must be exposed to…
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Will soil regeneration improve plant nutrient density?
The study authors are asking for citizen scientists to help confirm these findings. Well, that’s what ONfungi is doing in 2022 already. So please. Join in. Make a real difference with science! One of the key experimental cycles for ONfungi in 2022 is looking at how ONfdc (fungal dominant compost) can work with other soil-building techniques — such as minimal plowing (no till), cover crops, and diverse crop planting — to improve plant nutrient density. In fact, we have been able to purchase a refractometer to measure plant nutrition thanks to our 2021 ONfungi citizen science supporters! In the article “Farms following soil-friendly practices grow heatlhier food” we see that…
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Technology improvement casts doubt on long term carbon sequestration
If you’ve read through ONfungi’s ruminations regarding carbon sequestration you’ll have noticed that we think its happening as we restore soils but we don’t think it works the way some folks were hoping. Pretty early on in our research we realized that for carbon sequestration in soil to work you needed to renew the soil on an ongoing basis. So things like cover cropping, no till, our ONfdc may be more than useful but actually essential to carbon sequestration in soil. Recently Biocycle.net’s Sally Brown looked at some of the new technology being applied to the issue and came to the same conclusion we did. If you want to store…
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Spring 2022 garden upgrades start now
New for spring 2022 are more, more and even more for gardeners and soil regeneration citizen scientists ONfungi will be opening 5 of Scott the wizard Hortop’s bioreactors (filled in the fall of 2020), a record for ONfungi, and an FDC (fungal dominant compost) bonanza allowing: Alberto Suarez of Nature’s Apprentice Farm will be doing multiple controlled trials of the FDC on selected vegetable plantings; as well as on small plots of wheat and oats. ONfungi will be working with Cliff Neudorf and the South Lanark Community Garden to supply FDC for garden and student experiments, as well as start their first bioreactor. Mark MacKenzie will be doing 5 lawn…
