Myco-Support: Investigating Companion Cultivation with Fungi and Plants

Overview

Commercially available compost is not always accessible and cannot always be trusted to be environmentally safe. The most basic problem with commercially available compost is that one doesn’t know what it contains. Some commercially available composts have been found to contain residual herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals. Companion cultivation may offer a sustainable alternative to commercial compost use. Companion cultivation is when two or more species are established in close proximity for the benefit of one or both species. Some fungi are well known as companions to plants. A common symbiotic relationship is observed with fungi and plants in mycorrhizal associations. Approximately one third of the mushrooms growing in our forests are mycorrhizal. Of the 2,000 species, many are edible and can potentially be used as a secondary crop. Very little research has been conducted on companion cultivation using ectomycorrhizal fungi, such as mushrooms, with herbaceous plants. The purpose of this research was twofold: first, to determine if companion cultivation with fungi (oyster mushrooms and garden giant mushrooms) was beneficial to bell pepper plant growth; second, to compare the effects of companion planting to the effects of two commercially available soil treatments - compost and mushroom compost. It was hypothesized that plants that were companion planted with the mushrooms would grow better than the plants in the other treatment groups. To conduct this study, eight 28-day old pepper plants were placed in each of five treatment groups – companion planted with garden giant mushroom, companion planted with oyster mushroom, mushroom compost, compost, and a control group. After a nine-week treatment period, the plants were harvested and data was collected. Based on this study, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1. The plants that were companion planted with oyster mushrooms were taller, produced more leaves and had greater wet and dry mass when compared to the plants in all other treatment groups. The results were statistically significant. 2. The plants that were companion planted with garden giant mushrooms did not outperform the plants in the other treatment groups suggesting that the specific type of mushroom chosen as the companion for the plant is important when choosing companion planting as an alternative to compost addition.

Competition history

• AJAS 2018 Category not listed

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Plant Sciences projects
• AJAS Plant Sciences projects
• Every AJAS 2018 project