Melaleuca mycorrhizae

[greg27]

I have what I think is a melaleuca linariifolia (I "collected" it from the top of someone's green bin so unsure of the species). From memory when I found it it was completely bare rooted and I potted it up into ordinary potting mix and crossed my fingers. For months I was sure it was dead but then it slowly put out some new growth. I slipped it out of its pot today just to see how the roots are going and what I saw looked pretty healthy - quite a few little earthworms and a bunch of what I'm guessing is mycorrhizae.

Is this unusual to see in a mel? I haven't noticed anything similar in any of my other pots.

If anyone wants to have a crack at IDing the species that would be appreciated also

[Ryceman3]

It looks to be a M. Linariifolia “Claret Tops” given the colour of the new growth.
As far as mycorrhizae and Mels... I’m all ears!

[GBarb]

This is awesome, what type of potting mix did you use?

[greg27]

This is awesome, what type of potting mix did you use?

I was hoping you'd jump in here Gareth

My usual stuff is just Osmocote Premium from the big green shed. I potted this guy up about 8 months ago and thinking back I don't think I used or did anything different to normal. For fertiliser I use Charlie Carp (and Seasol). I've just slipped out a couple more mels and eucs that I've had for roughly the same amount of time and there's no sign of any mycorrhizal growth so it seems confined to just this one pot.

[GBarb]

Interesting, my thoughts are it came with the roots.

That use of potting mix with composted pine bark and Charlie carp fish fertiliser (especially if it is the organic form, not fortified with chemical fertiliser) will feed the root fungal mass.

Here’s an experiment, scrape some of it off and put it in the other pots, see if it cultivates.

I put all my healthy root offcuts into the worm farm, adds diversity back and results in that microbial and fungal diversity being fed back to trees when the castings are harvested

[greg27]

Here’s an experiment, scrape some of it off and put it in the other pots, see if it cultivates.

Done! I've spread it around in three other pots and will see how it goes.

[GBarb]

Hi Greg,

Inspired by your post I have taken some mushroom compost seeded with rock dust and ground oats to encourage some fungal growth for an upcoming batch of compost tea.

I’ll post more in the reporting/soils forum when I get it going.

[greg27]

I repotted this mel - I skipped my usual bucket of water to help remove the soil and tried to save as much as I could, which I then spread around to a few of my other pots.

It looks like the small amounts I spread around earlier have slowly started to take off too.

[treeman]

mycorrhizae doesn't ''spread''. It needs a host first. I think that is just a decomposing fungus feeding on carbohydrates etc in an immature (meaning nut fully composted) potting mix.

[greg27]

Thanks Mike, I think I'll do some reading to make sure I'm using the correct terminology / work out what exactly I'm doing!