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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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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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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Latest ONfungi report highlights the benefits of FDC
Dec 22, 2021 — The Regenerative Effects of Fungal Dominant Compost: Pilot Study has been released. The report, prepared by Emma Roy, Scott Hortop and Hailee Turry, is part of our ONfungi citizen science project and research series. The work, done over the summer of 2021, continues to advance and expand the understanding of the utility of Fungal Dominant Compost (FDC). Download the 2021 report here. The report is a PDF of 1.34m in size. Our ONfungi compost is made primarily from fallen leaves high in cellulose and covered in fungal spores. After a lengthy two year composting period the leaves have been slowly digested; offering a higher fungi to…
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Fungi fruiting on ONfungi inoculated site
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Experiment Update: Field work complete
This update is an exciting one because we have completed the field work trial on fungal-dominant compost (FDC) made in Ontario. The results we have received are very promising. In the coming weeks we will be able to update everyone with a complete report outlining what we did and why we did it. Friday, October 15, we went out to the farm where we conduct our field work. With an unusually warm fall, there was still no frost and the plants were doing quite well. From a visual assessment, all of the plants on the treated plot were larger than those on the control plot. In particular, the flowers on…
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Farm experiment: making large batch compost tea
In this video, Mark explains how to use an at home brewer to create organic compost tea from our very own ONfungi compost. Though Mark is displayed using a large agricultural sized brewer, a similar technique can be used using a much smaller brewer for home applications. The ingredients in this “tea” include: For a 200 Gallon Brewer: -¾ Cup of Seaweed -½ cup of oat flour -½ cup of spelt flour -¾ cup of humates -¾ cup of Fish Hydrolysate -2 cups of ONfungi compost in a mesh bag. Place a bubbler within the brewer to allow for oxygenation, add the ingredients in whichever order you prefer and allow…
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Fungi fruiting on ONfungi inoculated site
Well, much to Emma’s delight, the fungal dominant compost (FDC) test bed has sent up fruit. This site is coming in very well, leading the sample sites in productivity, and now we have a mushroom.
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Latest ONfungi report highlights the benefits of FDC
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Experiment Update – Week 5
Emma Roy — So far at the farm everything has been going extremely well. I’ve received a variety of different results which I’m excited to begin analyzing. Here is an example of two sunflower plants, both were planted at the same time, in the same location, with the same environmental conditions and water levels. The only difference was during planting, I added ONfungi’s Fungal Dominant Compost to one plot of plants where as the other was left with no additions for control. These are the sunflowers after 5 weeks, the one on the right was innoculated with compost, the left is control. The right is taller by about 15cm and…
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Experiment Update – Week 4
Hi everyone, Emma here back with an update. On Friday, I went out to water the plants and take measurements and came to some interesting conclusions. In the control plot, all of the plants seem to be doing fairly well except there were signs of fungal disease & drought on the cucumbers and the African daisies. The plot with ONfungi compost added did not show any of these signs of disease on either of the species. In line with past updates, the rate of growth on the FDC (fungal dominant compost) plot is faster on almost all of the species, in particular the peas and the sunflowers.
