Rootgrow on flowering houseplants

I'm wondering if anyone has experience of using rootgrow mycorrhizal fungi on flowering houseplants. Would be good to see your experiences.

I'll be repotting some African Violet rooted leaf cuttings soon and will be giving it a try. My reasoning is this: African Violets have shallow roots and I usually use a half pot or half fill a regular pot with gravel and compost on top. But if I fill the bottom half of a regular pot with compost and rootgrow and then the AV on top the AV will have access to nutrients it would not otherwise have with consequential better growth and more flowering.

 

I think there is a case because the peat in Multie purpose compost won't have any fungi - and maybe whatever else is used is sterilised and won't either ...

But whether Mycorrhizal will benefit African Violets, specifically, I don't know. Potting up one without Mycorrhizal and seeing how it compares would be a useful exercise I reckon

Why half-fill the pots with gravel? (rather than use a shallower "pan")

 

I think we need more people doing experiments like this.

I'm sure there is something in this friendly fungi thing, fairy rings on lawns show fungi will improve growth, and pot grown plants are isolated.
A bit like people these days being out of touch with bacteria and causing all kinds of strange allergies.

Just like to add that when I grew AFs years ago I always watered them from the bottom.
This wont work if the pot is half full of gravel.

 

lots of folk are getting very good results with Biobizz Root juice .... costs approx £8.95 per 250ml bottle, but a little goes a long way (4ml per litre of water, so, 250ml makes 62 litres)

and some say that you should use less (2ml per litre) .... I have some, and will try it next week ... not available from normal garden centres (can be bought online or from most hydroponic stores) ....

it's not the same as Mycorrhizal fungi though .... (use it in conjuction with the Mycorrhizal fungi)

 

I've used Canna Tera Vega ( ... the Hydroponic stuff reformulated for soil-based growing), particularly for growing under lights. It was that which enabled me to grow Cannas from seed sown in September to flowering in November! and prompted my wife to say "How amazing that they have fertilizer specifically for Cannas" - bless her!

Very hard to know which of these things actually do good without a side-by-side trial. I can't see Which? doing a trial on the best Cannabis fertilizers!!

 

If we look at African Violets in the wild we find that they grow in amongst rocks which is why they have shallow roots. So a pot with gravel at the bottom is a home from home for them although I haven't seen any evidence that they grow better than in half pots (half-height pots) or as you say shallow pans.

 

I mentioned it because gravel at the bottom half of a pot drains less well than a pot without gravel (contrary to conventional thinking), plus the point that Pete made about it preventing bottom-watering.

But if its working for you that's all that matters

 

Probably depends on the gravel. I use sterilised gravel from an aquarium shop which is 4 doors away from where I live.

There are a few fallacies connected with African Violets: One of them is that they must be watered/fed from the bottom but the only reason to do that is to keep water off the leaves. I water by sinking the pot in a bowl of water and then drain it for an hour. The other one is no direct sun whereas they get an early recovery from the winter rest period in early spring on an East facing windowsill.

I don't get problems with water-logged soil because I use clay pots and moisture evaporates through the side of the pot: The reason why I'm resorting to gravel because smaller size clay half pots are hard to find and the smallest I can find is 5" (plant-directory.co.uk) which is too big but I can go plastic with three-quarter height pots (dibleys.com).

 

on a sidenote, has anybody tried using the new airpots? (not cheap though)





have read a bit about these and people who have tried these seem very happy

 

I was always led to believe that mycorrhizal fungi (such as rootgrow) could only be used in the bottom of the planting hole at the time of planting

The other method was that if the plant/shrub/tree was already planted and established, one could target the roots by planting 3-5 small plants (such as ferns etc) around the base of the tree/shrub, and use mycorrhizal fungi on those .... in turn, the fungi would multiply, and attach to the shrub/tree

then there was the other method, where they 'inject' mycorrhizal fungi into the soil around the tree/shrub using special equipment

but now, there is a liquid form or mycorrhizal fungi that can be watered into the roots (as far as I understand?)



there are several liquid brands on the market, and from what I have read, one of the better ones is one that is marketed for potato growers

 

Its the change of "substrate" from "fine compost" to "rough aggregate". Apparently been known for 100 years or more, but the advice to "crock clay pots" and "put gravel in containers to improve drainage" is still in common parlance.

So (in theory!) compost to the bottom of the pot will drain better than compost, then gravel, then bottom-of-pot.

 

My understanding was "Must be in contact with the roots" - so in the bottom of the planting hole probably achieves that in most cases, alternatives seem to be to "pour" onto the rootball, over the planting hole so any that drops off is in touch with the bottom of the rootball, and for bare rooted dunk the roots in water, than sprinkle on the mycorrhizal fungi so they" stick", then plant.

I had read about planting "companion plants" with mycorrhizal fungi ... but I'd forgotten about it! Thanks for that, I'll try that on some of my planted plants that I want to see if I can get to "hurry up"

 

Didn't know that. Oh well I'm an old guy and it's hard to beat the habit of a lifetime. But there is an excuse for lining the bottom of the pot when using clay pots. The hole in the bottom tends to be big in proportion to the size of the pot: Without lining, compost is lost every time it's watered depending on the type of compost. I make my own compost mostly with 3 parts coir and 1 part vermiculite which is very fine.