Reply to #9439
So I only have to keep attention to be a little fungal dominant around bluberries? What is anyway important because bluberries are perennials.
I've looked at what life is present in soil for every major crop on the planet, I think, and there is a clear pattern to the need for fungi versus bacteria. Highly disturbed soils that grow weeds very well contain almost strictly bacteria, and nothing else except for occasional bursts of protozoa. Nutrient cycling is limited,and weeds are selected for these pulses of nitrate availability. No desirable crop plants do that well in these conditions.
But weeds have structural materials in them, which are mainly only decomposed by fungi, and thus eventually fungi will arrive and start to decompose that plant material. Thus the soil now has a very different set of interactions happening, and this sets the stage against weeds,and more for mustards, brassica, Bromus and bermuda grasses. These plants shift the life in the soil just a little more fungal, and with time, a little more fungi will build up. This helps to build better soil structure, shift soil pH, increase nutrient cycling of certain types of nutrients, and ultimately, shift the plant species that grow best in this higher fungal soil.
Each step in the successional process increases the fungal foods,and thus increases the amount of fungal biomass and fungal diversity. given time, vegetables are now selected for when the right fungal-to-bacterial ratio occurs Then when fungal and bacterial biomass are equal, and both above 300 micrograms per gram soil, then row crops are selected for.
Fungal biomass continues to build and the soil will become fungal dominated, then shrubs, then deciduous trees, then conifers will be the selected.
So, how do you exit weeds from your life? Shift the life in the soil, change from a bacterial alone soil to the right ratio of fungi to bacteria for the plants you want to grow.
What is the right ratio for the plant you want to grow? Go to the place where the plants you want are growing without disease, without pests, without weeds, without chemical applications, inorganic fertilizer amendments, etc needed. In other words, where the plants are healthy all by themselves, in the natural system. Take a soil sample from the ROOT SYSTEM of the plant you want to grow, and see what ratio of fungi to bacteria is present, what protozoa, nematodes etc are present.
Now you know what your plant needs. Look at the life in the soil is where you want to grow that plant. What's missing? Fix i
Blueberries are shrubs, perennials. Perennials require fungal dominance, shrubs need around 5 times more fungal biomass than bacterial biomass, up to 10 times more fungal biomass than bacteria. Blueberries also need ericoid mycorrhizal fungi.. They need more fungal-feeding nematodes and / or microarthropods than protozoa or bacterial-feeding nematodes.
Find a place where the kinds of blueberries you want to grow are growing in a healthy fashion, not needing any inorganic fertilizer applications, no pesticides, no weeds, etc. Look at the life in that soil. Look at the life in your soil where you want to grow blueberry. What do you need to improve? Make compost that you get those missing organisms to grow in. Apply that compost to your soil......