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Hi All,

In my continuing further research on VAM's I have discovered some interesting facts about them. I just thought that I would pass some of it on.

They apparently came into being in the Devonian period approximately 350 to 460 million years ago.It would seem that it was due to their presence that the land was colonised by plants.

VAM's can survive in the soil for long periods of time both as spores and as hyphae( filaments). This would therefore rule out digging of the soil as a disadvantage to their well being.

The life span of a VAM is apparently between 20 and 27 days dependant on class.This means that crops like sweet corn, potato, leek, onion and all other alliums should produce large quantities of spores. However this is, I believe, based on the VAM culture employed. We need to find a culture which will achieve best results, especially with alliums!!! This is my present quest, however I am mindful that specific mycorrhiza must be present within the product!!!

Both host VAM plants and VAM's have preferences as to what is an acceptable symbiotic relationship. This may, I believe, be the problem with Rootgrow. It has been suggested in some articles that our native VAM's may no longer be fit for purpose and that foreign VAM's be employed to regenerate the symbiotic link
between the hosts and VAM's.

This sounds like good logic to me, if a major part of our crop potential is faulty we need to fix it. This is not something which will have an ill effect within our soil, VAM's are VAM's no matter where they come from!!!!!
Its a no brainer to expect our government confront this problem, its only the city, stock brokers and banks that they have an interest in!!!!! Call me cynical if you will, but that's how I see it, If we want to solve this problem we need to do it ourselves!!!!

VAM's produce spores with relatively thick walls which makes them all but impervious to attack by natural predators within the soil. They are also relatively immune to soil diseases. However they are killed off, and or, denatured by the poisons we now use to cultivate crops!!!

VAM's , as I have found out,have a symbiotic relationship with EM bacteria which have been found to be resident in a sac within their spores, and said spores appear have great longevity within the soil. The period of dormancy will last until conditions are suitable for their revival. These EM's within the spores facilitate the growth of VAM's once contact with a VAM type plant is made. I have often thought that EM's make symbiotic relationships with all life on this planet. They seem to be one of Mother nature's greatest tools for the preservation of life in all of its forms on this planet!!!!

VAM's also have another ability, they appear to be capable of changing into another class of mycorrhiza if the vegetation changes within the soil in which they inhabit. This happens when their dormancy is prolonged over a great period of time. In this situation the VAM spore will alter its class to that of the most abundant VAM vegetation growing within the soil. This I believe is one of the reasons why they have survived for hundreds of millions of years. However they now require to deal with manmade chemicals, poisons which alter how they function within the soil. As I have often said before, Mother nature's rule is, "do what you must do in order to survive". This edict is not harmful to microorganisms as they will mutate to survive whatever assails them to ride out the condition This is how they work, We modern humans have a lot to answer for in
how we presently cultivate our soil for commercial cropping to feed the population.

This is why the never ending battle of science with bacteria and viruses will ultimately fail, their ability to mutate will only cause them to become more resilient to whatever we use to kill them off!!!

It is very interesting to note that the most often used subjects of VAM experiments are carrots and tomatoes!!! A very few sites have done experiments with leeks and white onions, so why is it said that alliums have a great affinity with VAM's?????

I copied this statement from one site which I thought was need to know as to the advantage of viable VAM's within our soils :-

The AM symbiosis therefore determines the flow of huge quantities of carbon worldwide—an estimate of 5 billion tons of carbon annually may be reasonable. The cost-benefit analysis (for review, see Douds et al., 2000) and underlying mechanisms are thus of no small ecological and agricultural importance.

In the ago these microorganisms were abundant within the soil. However 50 odd years of contamination have I believe denatured, and or, killed the majority of these indigenous life forms. It is viable VAM's and EM's which now require to be purchased to revitalise our earth!!!

I have for some time now been cataloguing the specificity of individual VAM types to particular symbiotic VAM crop types. This has been a slow and laborious task, however I am now seeing the worth of this venture. The deeper I dig the more useful insight I gain as to why certain VAM types are both drawn to and reject a symbiotic relationship with specific VAM type crops.

I read a very interesting article about the VAM pathway which permits the transportation of phosphorus from VAM to plant. There is a specific gene which permits this action to take place, if not present within the VAM no phosphorus will be transported through the Hyphae to the plant roots!!! To me this sounds like the denaturing of VAM's that takes place when we circumvent Mother natures laws on how to feed the soil organically.

Most of the experiments which I have perused employed chemicals, which to me are not found in the natural habitat of VAM life forms. This leads me to believe that results from such experiments are flawed. If you wish to find out how a naturally occurring microorganism really performs you need to place it in a natural environment!!!!

These are only my thoughts, others will disagree!!