Redwood Reader

Daniel continues to lead us into interesting and useful fields of thought. The value of fungi as wildlife food is underscored, as well as showing the critical value wildlife plays in maintaining a diverse fungal base, in turn prompting the trees to grow into the carbon machines the fungi need. The fungi secure minerals and store water via soil aggregation caused by glomalin deposited by the fungi.
I intend to continue posting my collected articles, especially concerning mycorhizzia, because it is a lot of dense but useful information relating to specifics of our original theme. From these two posts we get a good idea of the relationship. We will continue posting our knowledge base for fungi and Douglas fir, as well as explore the mechanics of the mycorhizzial partnership.
While I may appear to be going backward, from the landowners point of view this is the initial interest. Discovery of glomalin came years later for me enriching an already amazing tapestry of forest activity.
From: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=author:dwheeler%40teleport.com+ (dwheeler@teleport.com)
Subject: Mycorrhizal fungi importance
Newsgroups: bionet.agroforestry
Date: 1999/01/02
WARNING: This is not intended to be spam, but some may consider it so.
Last week I bought Chris Maser's Forest Primeval, an important work IMO for
all people working in either forest products or forest management. Although
the work is skewed to the Pacific Northwest, the interrelationships of
organisms will apply elsewhere too.
Maser notes in this 1989 book the importance of large (more than 3" diameter)
woody debris and its importance as animal habitat, truffle formation, water
reservoirs, and soil creation. Maser is a small mammal specialist, and was
responsible for getting the California Red-backed vole (Clethrionomys
californicus) OFF the Endangered Species List. In fact, Maser has called this
ubiquitous animal "the most common mammal west of the Cascades [Mountains]."
Several years ago Dr. James Trappe received a live vole late on a Friday. He
weighed the vole, placed it in a darkened cage (voles are so timid that
without cover, they literally die of fright) and placed an equal weight of
fresh truffles in with it, before locking up and going home. Early the next
morning he returned and found the vole dead. The truffles were gone. An
autopsy of the vole later showed it had died of starvation. This indicated a
vole must eat at least its body weight in truffles each day. While occasional
pieces of vegetation and probably some seeds are included in its diet, the
vole is the most abundant mycophagist in either forest or plantation, and is
one reason why trees continue to grow well in Oregon (at least in some
places).
Maser notes that truffles contain Clostridium butyricum, a "classic nitrogen-
fixing bacterium" and Azospirillum spp., a "nitrogen-fixing bacterium". When a
tree seed sprouts near truffle innoculum, the rootlets become quickly
innoculated with nitrogen-fixing bacteria as well as mycorrhizal truffles.
Maser goes on to note that Rhizopogon vinicolor, a common truffle frequently
collected near Douglas fir, is especially important to seedling tree survival.
Because of the increased absorption of water, phosphorus and potassium through
R. vinicolor mycelium, it greatly increases the health of its host tree, and
enhances the growth.
Last year I sold some R. vinicolor to create a slurry for a 50-acre
plantation containing slighly over 50,000 Douglas fir, Western hemlock, Grand
fir, and Ponderosa pine seedlings. As I recall, about 30-50 grams of dried
truffle were ground into paste, then a small amount was added to water
buckets into which the seedling roots were dipped. Last August I was invited
to visit the site to view the results.
It should be noted that in 1998 Oregon experienced an 83-day drought which
caused most fungi not to fruit.
Most of the trees were less than 20-inches tall, and had been planted in
stubble of an old wheat field. As I recall, most of the trees were planted in
late March and early April of 1998. In late August, 1998 I saw only two trees
which had not survived. I admit there were probably more. But the point is:
transplantation shock typically responsible for up to 15% mortality in
seedling trees locally, was minimized.
Using data supplied in Forest Primeval and The Redefined Forest (another book
by Maser), I calculated that a 20 gram vole consuming 20 grams of truffles
would contain approximately 9,000,000 spores. These spores would be
concentrated into 300 fecal pellets each day, containing about 300,000 spores
each. Since Maser considers this vole to be extremely abundant (between
500-3,000 individuals per acre), it is easy to see how new seedling trees get
inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi in nature.
What is less well known is that a single Douglas fir can be host to at least
50 mycorrhizal fungi at one time. The greater this mycorrhizal diversity is,
the more rapid trees are likely to grow. As individual trees mature, there
appears to be a change in the association of mycorrhizal fungi with the tree.
Few mycorrhizal fungi found with seedling trees are found in old-growth
forests.
In nature, according to Maser, truffles and other mycorrhizal fungi are
consumed by a plethora of animals including deer, elk, bear, voles,
squirrels, chipmunks, moles, gophers, mice, porcupines, pika, mountain
beaver, and other indigenous animals. At least 60 species of animals are
known to eat truffles on a regular basis based on analysis of fecal pellets.
(See Key to Spores of the Genera of Hypogeous Fungi of North Temperate
Forests with special reference to animal mycophagy, by Michael A. Castellano,
James M. Trappe, Zane Maser, & Chris Maser.)
In tree nurseries seedlings typically become innoculated with Hebeloma
crustuliniformis. However, according to work done in New Zealand, this fungus
is insufficient to grow trees rapidly. Until it is replaced, Douglas fir
seldom grows more than a few inches a year.
In 1986-89 I did several innoculation experiments at a Douglas fir Christmas
tree farm near Oregon City, Clackamas County, Oregon. One of the first
innoculations was with Rhizopogon vinicolor, R. parksii, R. villosullus, and
R. villescens, Suillus sps, Laccaria laccata, Laccaria
amethystina-occidentalis, Boletus zelleri, Boletus chrysenteron, and other
mycorrhizal fungi. Within 2 years of this multiple inoculation, most of the
trees were growing 3-8 feet per year! And where a 13-foot Douglas fir
Christmas tree was removed in Nov., 1990 and replaced by a 22-inch tall
4-year-old Douglas fir seedling (where Tuber gibbosum (Oregon White truffle)
was known to be fruiting) that seedling grew between February and October of
1991 at least 9.5 feet. That nearly allowed the tree to reach the height of
nearby trees. The following year it grew an additional 6 feet, and is now
(1998) nearly equal to its 40-60 foot tall neighbors.
Makes you kind of wonder how much tree cultivation is actually done, doesn't
it?
BTW, this stand was producing between 300-1300 pounds of Tuber (true
truffles) per acre in 1989-93, depending on the definition of species. Some
trees have several different species associated with them, allowing multiple
yearly cropping of fungi with the same trees, in addition to increasing the
tree growth rate exponentially. This suggests that fungi are worth far more
than the trees as timber. Each year. For 50 or more years.
I have some dried Rhizopogon vinicolor available, if anyone is planting
Douglas fir.

Daniel B. Wheeler
http://www.oregonwhitetruffles.com/

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