June 20, 2023 — 10:00 am – 5:00 pmEarly Bird $125.00. After June 4, $150.00.Lunch is included.Location: Appleseed Farm, 549 Kippen Rd, White Lake, ON K0A 3L0Payment etransfer to mark.mackenzie@appleseedlawn.com(Cangro Enterprises Inc.) Garden to large scale: this program suits municipal waste, farmers, compost operators;As well as gardeners, soil lovers and the nature curious REGISTER HERE Join Appleseed Farm for a compost learning adventure Ground breaking research into the soil foodweb is presented by instructors Keisha & Casey Ernst. Go deeper into understanding the life of soil. Learn practical, hands on, techniques useful for a wide range of composting methods, from backyard to large scale. Plus, discover how microscopes improve your…
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Early science education worksheet
Young scientist worksheet now available Its four weeks of “magic soil” fun suitable for classroom use. Thanks to Madeline Seward who created the project. Click to view the full project. Its in .png format. Educator? We’re still working out how to get the FDC to educators, so for now, if you’d like to run a workshop for kids, contact us through our contact page. Probably best if you can pick up in Newboro/Perth or Almonte. Grandkids? If you’d like to try the program with your grandkids, please order one of the FDC kits in our store and download and print the instructions. We will mail you the FDC. Pick up…
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2022 fungal dominant compost record — 24 full bioreactors and 400 bags of leaves readied for 2024
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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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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How To: Build your bioreactor
Full instructions for large bioreactors can also be found here: Due to file size limitations and bandwidth issues the video has been temporarily removed. https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/bioreactor/bioreactor-instructions.shtml Why do we ask for money? We rely on volunteers for all our work. We're incorporating as a not-for-profit: But we are doing science! And, for our science to progress we need things like Microbiometers (to measure soil carbon and fungi:bacteria ratios), pallets, wire, BRIX refactors (which measure sugar in leaves which tells nutrition levels) and other groovy stuff. Your money pays for all of this. Which keeps our science going. Thank you! How to build your bioreactor will look at two methods: the Large…
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ONfungi video demonstrates “Mix, Strain, Apply” the 2021/22 lawn experiment
In this video volunteer participant Janice Reid applies the biotic tea to an area of grass under a maple tree. Conditions noted included the poor health of the tree and the Microbiometer tests came in at 300 ug/g in the first area and 365 in the second. Both those results indicate "poor" soil and low carbon. Low carbon means few carbon lifeforms such as protozoa, nematodes, bacteria, or fungi. No wonder the tree is struggling. We look forward to our test results coming spring 2022. Special thanks to Janice Reid for her generosity of time and spirit. Kelvin Hodges for yet another video. Bensound for putting his jazz online. In…