The proof is in the pictures! I totally agree with Al's statements. I often say that I wish I had been exposed to a few basics in plant science and physics long ago, when I first became interested in growing plants, but the basics are not what circulates through the general gardening community, nor are they anything promoted by the gardening industry. The first thing I wish I had learned is that growing in the ground or garden, and growing within the confines of a container, are two very different environments that each require a different approach. I've come to think of the garden as organic, and growing in pots as more inorganic and something I have more control over. I think if I'd had that separated in the beginning, I'd have had much better success, and a lot sooner. I'm also fond of saying that a green thumb is nothing more than applied knowledge. And that's very true. There's no luck or magic to growing plants. It's all skill from applying the basics of science and physics. And the more I learn, the more I realize that the industry exists to help itself, and not necessarily the gardeners. Once we learn what containerized plants really need, we are more or less forced to search down various ingredients and mix our own mediums better suited to how plants respond when placed in a confined space. As Al says, we can't make a case when it comes to personal choices or convenience, but we certainly can show how various practices benefit or limit our plants. And to be honest, I don't find it inconvenient to grow healthier plants with healthier roots, anyway. To me, it's worth it to mix my own mediums custom to my unique environment, more in keeping with what is beneficial to my plants from a scientific angle. So, I save organic methods for the gardens... and I go with a more controllable, inorganic approach to growing in pots.

Zen, Being the scientist I am, I went on google scholar to find out what I could about the use of Glomus Intradices in tomatoes. I found a publication that you might be interested in. All I could obtain was the abstract. The peer reviewed scientific study was published in the journal Biological Control, vol 5, issue 3. The title of the publication is "Biological Control of Fusarium Crown and Root Rot of Tomato in Florida Using Trichoderma harzianum and Glomus intraradices." I could not get the full text version, but I can post the abstract: "Field experiments were conducted to evaluate commercial formulations of two beneficial fungi, Trichoderma harzianum and Glomus intraradices, for the control of Fusarium crown and root rot of tomato, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. radicis-lycopersici. Tomato seeds cv. "Sunny" were planted into soil nonamended or amended with the biocontrol agents, the former treatment serving as the control. After 6-7 weeks, plants were transplanted into beds fumigated with methyl bromide-chloropicrin in commercial tomato fields with a previous history of Fusarium crown and root rot. Disease incidence and severity were recorded at harvest maturity. Large and extra-large fruits (greater than or equal to 6.27 cm) also were harvested, counted, and weighed at maturity. Total marketable fruit yield was also determined. Compared to the controls, significant decreases in disease incidence were obtained with treatments of T. harzianum (1993), G. intraradices (1991), and T. harzianum + G. intraradices (both years). Significant decreases in disease severity were obtained with the treatments of T. harzianum (1993), G. intraradices (1991), and T. harzianum + G. intraradices (1993). Yields of large and extra-large fruit or total marketable yield were not significantly different over the controls. These data suggest that commercial biological control agents may be effective in reducing Fusarium crown and root rot and that further evaluation of these agents is justified." From that I take it that if fusarium wilt is a concern for you in tomatoes, that you could find significant resistance by using this Glomus Intradices laced product. Makes me go mmmm.

DWD2, thank you for posting your methodology. It always good to see how others grow their seeds and compare methods. I have grown my own starts (36+ tomato varieties) for the past 5 years. Before last year, I had not had too many plant health problems, except for the first year when my light system was not close enough to my plants. In that year I had problems with leggyness. I strongly suspect that my problem last year was the seed starter mix, but it could have been a few other things. I may have introduced disease into the first batch by incorporating compost into the mix. I think this is unlikely because in other batches and other treys I did not use compost in the mix but still had the same problems. Also, once the plants were in the ground they recovered and grew well the rest of the summer. If it were a disease I would have expected that the plants would still have had problems after planting, which they did not. Tomatoes are really amazing in what they can take early on and still produce well. For example, I had a mouse eat all the leaves of two plants shortley after they were in the ground. There were only stems left and I thought they were done, but I did not pull them out. Both plants sprouted new leaves again and became bushy healthy plants. I was astounded. I have had others suggest that with an approximately 50/50 mix of vermiculite and peat, I may have had water retention problems that suffocated the roots. Thats possible, but I was pretty careful about my watering. I can't totally rule that out. It may also have been too many nutrients from a dilute solution of fertilizer at watering as the problems occured shortly after that. I have read that new seedlings don't need many nutrients becuase they get what they need from the seeds/cotyledons. Some have even suggested that you will cause more problems by fertilizing than just not fertilizing. The reason why I fertilized is because we had a number of storms in May that pushed my planting date back 3-4 weeks longer than our average frost date. So I fertilized a little. I may also have had root binding problems. There is another possiblity which DWD2 suggested. I used a seed heating matt for the first time last year and most of the tomatoes had it under them for at least a day. So I may have over-heated the soil a little and damaged the roots. However on the last seed trey that got started late, I did not use the heat matt because I suspected it may have caused the problems. Yet I still had the same problems in the last trey. My strongest suspicion is still the starter mix. I have read the ingredient list on several seed starting mixes. In most cases, they usually contain peat (as the main medium plus it has high cation exchange capacity) + vermiculite (for micro nutrient exchange and water retention) + lime (to balance the PH of the peat). They sometimes include perilite, but sometimes not (example Jiffy), they also sometimes include a few other things (mycorrhizae for example or a source of nutrients). The main ingredient that I was missing that most starter mixes have is lime for ph balance. I could not find lime in any stores in Utah at the time. They do sell it here, but it is not a common soil amendment in Utah because most Utah soils are slightly alkaline (PH 7.8-8.2). So most folks would not want to add lime. This year I am interested to try mixing my own starter again but I wanted actual recipies to get an idea of the right proportions to use. Also I had no idea that mycorrhizae was available so I am defintley going to use that in my mix. Alternatively I could just buy a pre-made starter mix, but I wanted to save money and its a learning experience as well.

The funny thing that got me ready for motherhood the most was that while I was pregnant with Rhiannon and couldn't get a teaching job, I worked in a nursing home. I did just about anything, and towards the end I did mostly baths. After changing all the adult undergarments a babies diaper was nothing. Also learned lots of tricks about putting on clothes on those who aren't cooperative. But the biggest thing was that we had residents that couldn't eat solids so every meal that they served, they would put in a blender. It could be a ham sandwich, pizza, roast, apple pie, broccolli, anything that the regular meals consisted of was purreed for the residents who needed help eating or didn't have teeth or other problems. I learned so much about respecting the elderly and have such an appreciation for them now because of my experiences. Stacie