Great White vs Bigfoot Gold Mycorrhizae Fungi Bacteria Inoculums for growing marijuana

[Bandit420]

Titan vs Titan of microherd products on display here then later, an underdog that can likely beat them both and cost way less to do it.

I'm pretty familiar with what these products can and cannot do. When they work, you know it.
If you're unfamiliar with microherds, the rhizosphere of plants, nutrient uptake, plant cell building, and how this all relates I cannot stress enough how good of a read Teeming with Microbes will help you the way it helped me understand this stuff.
I personally would not rely on chatgp or AI to help you here. Go with proven and well known and authored science out there. There's a good chance that book is at your local library and if not it's about $10 digital or paperback.
I have it on my ipad and open it when I'm waiting or need to waste time.

https://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microbes-Organic-Gardeners-Revised-ebook/dp/B008K8HACU/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

I won't go into details about each species in a microherd products because it's just too much and I don't have the time.
There's a few certain ones I look for in products and know what they'll do. They're the reasons I use this stuff religiously and am doing this thread.
I'm also intentionally holding back some info here to let the products speak for themselves without me influencing it. I have an idea about what will happen but I'll keep it to myself since I don't know 100% fact and I wanna let these critters do the talking.

Let's get down to the tale of the tape!




Each contender is a 4oz offering.
Both have expiration dates of January 2029
Both cost more than $35 but less than $40
Both can be applied directly to roots
Bigfoot Gold watered in is a ratio of 1tsp per 2 gallons of water
Great White watered in ratio is 1tsp per 10 gallons of water
Both can be mixed into soil or coco dry

For the most part I'd say they're each used in similar and multiple ways.

These pics are the ingredients and this is why I encourage people to read Teeming With Microbes so you know the functions of the species listed.

By reading these ingredients I can get information that will let me compare them to other products to find less expensive copycats but also know which is great for just veg and which can actually help me in flower and get my plants to be more resinous than they would if I did not use an inoculate.

A few of these species can be found in other sources as well. Compost teas, organic or naturally derived meals & sands, and coco all have some of this naturally occurring and doesn't need to be added but adding more also doesn't hurt anything.
It's very hard if not impossible or at least quite unreasonable to try and overdoes a plant with this stuff.
In other words, no reason to use an entire jar or pouch on a single grow. 4oz can last a while if you want it to.

 

[Bandit420]

Time to wake up the armies!

These products are living beings, pretty much dormant in spore form ready to be brought to life by a combination of water, warmth, and living plants.

The water quality here means so much in regards to performance I cannot emphasize that enough. I go back to Teaming with Microbes there.
You don't want chlorinated water so chlorine needs to be removed first if it's there.
You also don't want brackish water so sometimes well water may need to be purged of minerals and gasses like methane and co2.

High NPKs, unrefined salts or dirty nutrients, anaerobic conditions, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting all effect performance.
You want that water as pure as can be. H2O and nothing else. Not H2O + pathogens, nitrates, flouride, limestone, or any other mystery ingredient.

I cut to the chase in that and go bottled. It's so worth the few dollars it costs to have great water than waste $40 worth of inoculate and wonder why it didn't work.
If I have access to RO water, I'd use that.
With no RO water I prefer bottled spring water overall and wish I had access to a natural spring so I could get water that hasn't even run thru a pipe. Spring water may be the only water I hold in higher regard than RO. I don't bother with distilled. Fresh rain is possible but quite nasty so should probably be boiled first then ran thru an unbleached coffee filter would be something I'd do using rain or river/lake/pond water.
So for me there's only two roads here, bottled RO or bottled Spring, no substitutions.
In the world of microbial organics, purified water is pretty much high octane fuel in the engine.

I also take that extra step and aerate the water. Basically, I'm a big believer in stacking every odd in my favor so if there's any detail that can improve performance, I'm taking it. Microbes love some oxygen and purified water so it's a no-brainer for me.

I bring the water to room temp and let it aerate for a couple hours




I've set the stage with the pair using the same water for each. I'm keeping them separate and using 3D printed ID spikes so I know what's what.




First step since I have sprouts, this is for clones too, is do a direct to root application.
Some people apply the powder to the roots dry. Some put dry powder in the hole before the sprout. I like to a do a concentrated slurry and soak the sprout, plant it, then water it in with the rest of the microbial water.
I do the slurry over dry because dry adds the talc or clay used to transport the spores and I like to thin that all out. Each works well and is matter of preference.

For the slurry I add a pinch into each glass.
Even though Great White is concentrated at over double Bigfoot's concentrate, I can't over do it so each glass gets a pinch. It looks equal but in reality it's 5 million spores per capita vs 2 million per capita.
I could try to get super detail and try to mix it so it's equal but folks, I aint dividing shit up when we're talking in the millions. A pinch each it is.





Consistent sprouts are probably the hardest thing to get here for a good side by side versus demo. The vertical germinator's middle name is "Consistency" so I've got that going for me.
I want 3 sprouts of each strain to test...1 for GW, 1 for BF, and 1 with no product.
I think the best example I have will be from the strains Moroccan Peaches and Super Silver Strawberry. I'd love to have more samples and specimens but this is what I have to work with




To inoculate, I simply take a sprout and let it do some hottubbing for a few minutes then plant it.
I chose wine glasses here not to be fancy but because they're about as deep as I like my sprouts long so they fit well



After the slurry bath I dump the slurry back into the bottles, add another pinch each, and shake it up to mix well.
Once it's mixed I water in the sprouts using all of the inoculate mix while it's still fresh. After a couple days the mix will expire and go dead/stink

 

[Observer]

Time to wake up the armies!

These products are living beings, pretty much dormant in spore form ready to be brought to life by a combination of water, warmth, and living plants.

The water quality here means so much in regards to performance I cannot emphasize that enough. I go back to Teaming with Microbes there.
You don't want chlorinated water so chlorine needs to be removed first if it's there.
You also don't want brackish water so sometimes well water may need to be purged of minerals and gasses like methane and co2.

High NPKs, unrefined salts or dirty nutrients, anaerobic conditions, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting all effect performance.
You want that water as pure as can be. H2O and nothing else. Not H2O + pathogens, nitrates, flouride, limestone, or any other mystery ingredient.

I cut to the chase in that and go bottled. It's so worth the few dollars it costs to have great water than waste $40 worth of inoculate and wonder why it didn't work.
If I have access to RO water, I'd use that.
With no RO water I prefer bottled spring water overall and wish I had access to a natural spring so I could get water that hasn't even run thru a pipe. Spring water may be the only water I hold in higher regard than RO. I don't bother with distilled. Fresh rain is possible but quite nasty so should probably be boiled first then ran thru an unbleached coffee filter would be something I'd do using rain or river/lake/pond water.
So for me there's only two roads here, bottled RO or bottled Spring, no substitutions.
In the world of microbial organics, purified water is pretty much high octane fuel in the engine.

I also take that extra step and aerate the water. Basically, I'm a big believer in stacking every odd in my favor so if there's any detail that can improve performance, I'm taking it. Microbes love some oxygen and purified water so it's a no-brainer for me.

I bring the water to room temp and let it aerate for a couple hours

View attachment 130301


I've set the stage with the pair using the same water for each. I'm keeping them separate and using 3D printed ID spikes so I know what's what.

View attachment 130302


First step since I have sprouts, this is for clones too, is do a direct to root application.
Some people apply the powder to the roots dry. Some put dry powder in the hole before the sprout. I like to a do a concentrated slurry and soak the sprout, plant it, then water it in with the rest of the microbial water.
I do the slurry over dry because dry adds the talc or clay used to transport the spores and I like to thin that all out. Each works well and is matter of preference.

For the slurry I add a pinch into each glass.
Even though Great White is concentrated at over double Bigfoot's concentrate, I can't over do it so each glass gets a pinch. It looks equal but in reality it's 5 million spores per capita vs 2 million per capita.
I could try to get super detail and try to mix it so it's equal but folks, I aint dividing shit up when we're talking in the millions. A pinch each it is.


View attachment 130306


Consistent sprouts are probably the hardest thing to get here for a good side by side versus demo. The vertical germinator's middle name is "Consistency" so I've got that going for me.
I want 3 sprouts of each strain to test...1 for GW, 1 for BF, and 1 with no product.
I think the best example I have will be from the strains Moroccan Peaches and Super Silver Strawberry. I'd love to have more samples and specimens but this is what I have to work with

View attachment 130303


To inoculate, I simply take a sprout and let it do some hottubbing for a few minutes then plant it.
I chose wine glasses here not to be fancy but because they're about as deep as I like my sprouts long so they fit well

View attachment 130304

After the slurry bath I dump the slurry back into the bottles, add another pinch each, and shake it up to mix well.
Once it's mixed I water in the sprouts using all of the inoculate mix while it's still fresh. After a couple days the mix will expire and go dead/stink

View attachment 130305

View attachment 130327

View attachment 130328

View attachment 130329

View attachment 130330

Wait

You don't have a RO system?

Just curious

Why not?

 

[Observer]

Just dippin the babies in the innouclant solution

Sounds good

 

[Observer]

I do the same thing with the aeration, foliar and my base solution, I sit with airstone.

 

[TomH]

How are your results between the two inocculants?
I use one called Mykos as well, but I really like GW.
If you have something that performs better, I’m willing to jump ship!

When I first started using GW, it was like a match to gasoline. It made everything grow in a tremendous spurt.
Now I use it in small amounts in soil and occasionally in watering.
I no longer see growth spurts, but I figure it’s improving growth day to day not in a big spurt.

 

[Stoneyluv]

Great White always came with a scoop in the jar... Big Foot does not include a scoop.

Bandit, do those new pouches from Plant Revolution have one of those 1/2 tsp scoops inside?

 

[Bandit420]

Wait

You don't have a RO system?

Just curious

Why not?

I do but I don't use it. I plug in a dechlorinator filter between my home tap supply and grow storage tanks.
Once in the storage tank, it sits being aerated and off gassed for about a week.
The waste weighs on my conscience living in a drought state using RO. At minimum, it's wasting one gallon for every gallon used but most waste 3 gallons to get 1 gallon. This being agriculture, there's a few ways around that and not be so wasteful

How are your results between the two inocculants?
I use one called Mykos as well, but I really like GW.
If you have something that performs better, I’m willing to jump ship!

When I first started using GW, it was like a match to gasoline. It made everything grow in a tremendous spurt.
Now I use it in small amounts in soil and occasionally in watering.
I no longer see growth spurts, but I figure it’s improving growth day to day not in a big spurt.

I'm letting them go and will document side by side as long as the plants are alive.
I agree with what GW can do...Gas on fire is a perfect description. I've never used Bigfoot so I want to see if it can do that too.
I've tried others and always come back to GW but recently Plant Success brought back Soluble which is the same thing as Great White but not as concentrated and costs less.
Soluble has that gas to fire effect too.
Soluble is my go-to since it's return but it was sold out in the 4oz version and with Bigfoot making some claims it's time to see what's up!
Mycos and Tarantula and a laundry list of other brands made similar claims and it didn't go well lol. It's been almost 20 years and GW still holds the throne.

The Tale of the Tape says a ton. Bigfoot is missing trichoderma and sacchanomyces while GW is loaded with them.
I believe saccho' which is a probiottic for you and me but a growth stimulant for plants, is what causes that gas to fire effect.
The two species of trichoderma are antifungus fungi that can starve out gnats and root rot.

The two trichos and the saccho I believe are what puts GW or the entire Plant Success company's formula above others.

Everything else between the two that's shared are pretty much critters that help uptake and correct pH and nutrients as well as immune health.

Great White always came with a scoop in the jar... Big Foot does not include a scoop.

Bandit, do those new pouches from Plant Revolution have one of those 1/2 tsp scoops inside?

No scoop for either and GW is using talc now instead of clay. Bigfoot is using the same clay GW used to use and smells like the old version of GW.
My koolaid doesn't even come with a scoop any more. Fuckers expect me to use the lid like some sort of heathen

 

[Stoneyluv]

The waste weighs on my conscience living in a drought state using RO. At minimum, it's wasting one gallon for every gallon used but most waste 3 gallons to get 1 gallon. This being agriculture, there's a few ways around that and not be so wasteful

this is my same stance and the only reason i don't own one.

when you talked about how important the starting condition of the water is so no competing bacteria or evils to kill them is in to start with i can't help to get a fuzzy feeling now that i have one of these UV water filters installed in my barrel..

Amazon.com

i don't have a microscope good enough to see if it actually works but i'd like to pick up a used one some time. makes me feel better knowing its there though.

No scoop for either and GW is using talc now instead of clay. Bigfoot is using the same clay GW used to use and smells like the old version of GW.
My koolaid doesn't even come with a scoop any more. Fuckers expect me to use the lid like some sort of heathen

i figured shrink economy hit that too..

thats interesting you mention the filler, another thing i was wondering is i noticed the 8oz jar of GW and the 4oz jar of BF are about the same physical size. i was wondering, do both of your 4oz's apear to be around the same volume in size?

that could sway the application rate if BF was "bulkier" and took up more room. my 8oz GW is almost done and i don't remember how full the jar was when i first got it..