Benefits of grasses

[sanguinho]

I participate in another board where a person who I think knows a lot about citrus fruits, has written the following

foro.infojardin.com/threads/trucos-para-saber-si-debo-regar-un-citrico.123313/


It is in spanish but with more images. I use an automatic traslator for the text

Hello everyone, I give a little of what I learn every day, with our citrus fruits.

Well, I have discovered that there is a plant (grass) that when it grows in pots next to the roots of the citrus fruits, it benefits them quite a lot for several reasons:
1-Helps cushion the amount of water applied in watering by absorbing some of the water.
2-Their root system is associated with mycorrhizal fungi helping the structure of the soil, in the pot giving it more aeration and favoring the growth of citrus roots.
3-The appearance of the grass plant allows us to quickly find out if the soil in our pot needs water or not.
I leave photo: in this photo the grass plant was already quite dry, and if you look at the citrus you will see how the leaves were also already folding upwards, (If the grass was not there I would have my doubts whether to water or not, because if the leaves of the citrus fold upwards it could be lack of water as in this case, or fungus problems in the roots that even if the substrate was wet would prevent the passage of water from the root system to the aerial part.




Hello, today I transplanted a Poncirus trifoliata which had one of these grass plants that was born and grew together with the poncirus, as you can see if you enlarge the image a little bit, in it you can see the roots of the citrus and the grass and you can see the mycorrhizae attached, or multiplying in the root of the grass.

I think that it can give you results without a doubt, surely the mycorrhizae are also created with these grasses, by the way another of the virtues that I forgot to comment is at the time of transplanting the citrus in question, since when you are going to take out the root ball you take advantage of it to pull both plants and thus avoid that part of the roots break and part of the root ball remains in the old pot.

[sanguinho]

Oh, I want to create it in container citrus section, I don't know if it si possible move it to the correct place.

[millet]

Mycorrhizal fungi is ubiquitous,  present everywhere.  In the soil, the air and water.  Adding grass does not increase mycorrhizal.  One does not need to buy mycorrhizal it is already present.

[sanguinho]

Well, I know that there are spores in every place, but maybe grass roots provide certain conditions for their growth, or maybe not, I'm not a big fan of microrrizas, I prefer edible mushrooms

But as dry indicators or to extract roots easily, I think that it is a good idea if it have no additional problems.

[ash]

It's an interesting idea to gtow a grass in the pot as well as an indicator of the if the soil need water.. I would worry about root competition... But if its a small grass in a big pot then it think it might be a good idea

[millet]

Grass will take nutrients from the tree, and the grass roots leave less space for the tree's root system.  Not  good.

[Sylvain]

It often happens, and yes, most of the plants show signs of dryness before citrus.
It can be usefull, but at this state the pot is usually very light. The weight of the pot is more significant.
The state of the plants growing in the pot can however be used as an alarm because we cannot weight each pot every week.

[fructose]

While I do see valid concerns raised I wouldn't dismiss it off-bat.
Companion planting is nothing new and even if there isn't an actual direct benefit of growth from the two plants together - a watering indicator might be helpful enough to some people to do it. My first thought is to use nitrogen-fixing legumes as companions.

Here's articles (of questionable academic rigor lol) about citrus and possible companion plants: www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/citrus/citrus-tree-companions.htm
homeguides.sfgate.com/plants-can-used-companion-lemon-tree-63757.html

[lebmung]

It could be beneficial if the soil is made of loam in high proportion as is absorbs the water and the soil gets drier. But not the case with PT.
I wouldn't use grass.
Extra mycorrhizal is actually not needed for potted plants as the plant would be fertilized and nursed.

[millet]

I certainly don't need grass growing in my citrus container to know when to water.  As Sylvain wrote, just picking up the pot will tell a lot about the need for water.  I still say growing grass in the same pot as the tree is an awful idea.

[Sylvain]

I am not sure what we see on the picture is mycorrhizae. It looks more like root hairs.
Citrus root has no root hairs, as seen on the picture.

[kumin]

When grasses invade my potted Citrus during Summer, the pots are nearly always water deficient. I find grasses to be very invasive.

[ash]

I tested this with my kumquat. I found that the grass didn't wilt even though the pot was completely dry. In fact I'm losing quite a few leafs on my kumquat now. Probably due to drought.
I will pull out the grass now and go back to normal

[Vlad]

It is known that trees and other plants use mycorrhizae to nourish and communicate with other plants. See: mothertreeproject.org/about-mother-trees-in-the-forest/