I don't understand your confusion nor your questions, my friend.

First of all there are beneficial microbes, and the there are disease and pathogen forming microbes. There are good fungi and bacteria, and the there are bad fungi and bacteria. There are aerobic bacteria, and there are anaerobic bacteria. Almost all good gardening and soil building microbes are aerobic. Almost all good fungi are aerobic.

Corn meal and all other corn products are rich in sugars and starches. Sugars and starches are great food sources for beneficial soil and composting microbes, especially beneficial aerobic fungi.

In order words, corn meal products feed aerobic beneficial fungi, which in turn either digest, control, or overpower bad disease forming fungi, either found in the soil, on plants, or in your compost pile.

There is absolutely no danger at all in using any forms of corn products in your composting, or any "compost tea brewing" methods in any truly organic gardening system.

Keep feeding the soil!

Happy Gardening!

You seem to be a little bitter. Cap. Compost gave you an accurate answer. Our organic controls control without killing. They work by stimulating life. I would be more than happy to discuss this further. Give me a call on the show Sunday.

I read the Captains post & what I got from it was that cornmeal feeds the good fungus which in turn kills the bad fungus. This makes sense but makes me wonder how this applies to using the cornmeal on ones body for fungus control (are we still feeding good fungus to control bad)?

The key to all this is that the food products, cornmeal, sugar, molasses, garlic, etc., work by performing a balancing act. All microbes, even the so-called pathogens, are beneficial when in their proper populations. The natural products we use don't kill, they just suppress the diseases by stimulating the good guys such as trichoderma.

dup

I understand his concern perfectly. I've asked the same question myself. I think there are a couple things at work. First is that hundreds if not thousands of us have been using ordinary corn meal for 10 years with no apparent issues with other beneficial fungi. Apparently there is that balance of nature thing at work and it needs to be taken into consideration. Secondly I have come to learn that different fungi are extremely particular about their environmental conditions needed to survive and thrive. The mycorrhizal fungi live underground and deep underground. Trichoderma seem to live and thrive at the surface. How deep they can go in search of food is a mystery to me.

The underground food chain is so complex it has been named the soil food web. We may never know the reason why Trichoderma, as a fungal predator, can live in harmony with other beneficial fungi. But it's a great area for further research.

My understanding is that the bad fungi can grow really fast by itself, but the benificial fungi that may grow a little slower is much stronger. So even though we may be feeding both, the laws of nature will overcome. The good will over power the bad!