Microbial Innoculants DIY guide

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Hey gro-migos! Wanted to share some info and techniques for extending microbial product useage. We are not making our own mother culture, you need a lab and some equipment for that. You can buy a bottle and make your own supply from that.

Everyone knows soil bacteria are essential for good plant health. There are tons of them out there that work well but most are pretty expensive. Growcentia made one well known version called Mammoth P. Did it work? Probably. Was it extremely overpriced? Probably. They are gone but the products still exist in other forms out there.

This is a quick primer on how to DIY your own supply from a bought bottle. You can also google Luria Broth or Lysogeny Broth , plenty of guides and info out there if you know what terms to look for.

Guide: This is how to “clone” whatever it is you might have on hand and already use

I picked up a bottle of Mammoth P right after their closing announcement from the local hydro shop. It was marked down from $75 to $5. If you have any sort of microbiology background you can keep a bottle of this type of thing going forever. Just need some powdered peptone, distilled water, and beef extract powder. Pretty easy to DIY. But be careful and don’t expose yourself to the microbes. They can and will make you sick. DO NOT TASTE.

If you google the MSDS sheet for Mammoth P, you will see that the ingredients in that product are Nutrient Culture, 1%, Alfalfa Pellets, 2%, and Water, 97%.

You can also use agar and put a few drops into it. But I hate agar.

Aight so this is just lab quality culture broth. Introduce your “microbes” - aka Mammoth P sample and you are now involved in…

Microbial Innoculant Manufacturing

Things you need

  1. Peptone: Bacteriological, 100g

  2. Beef Extract Powder, High Purity Grade 50g

  3. Distilled Water

  4. An Autoclave OR an Insta-Pot OR Mason Jars, a stove, and a pot of water.

  5. Add 5g peptone to 850ml of distilled water and dissolve it

  6. Dissolve 3g of the beef extract powder into the solution

  7. adjust pH to 7.0

  8. Add distilled water until it’s 1000ml

  9. Call a friend to take it to work and autoclave it for you. Or wait till the end…****

  10. Add your bacterial sample into a cooled but still warm broth and seal it. Hence, mason jars are great!

****No autoclave? Insta-Pot! Run it for one minute on steam. Let it heat up, and cool off the slow way. Do not add the microbes while the jar is still in the insta-pot. You do not want to contaminate your food. Just heat the broth, let it cool, and remove the jar before adding the microbes.

Or do it the way you do for canning: you can put your fluid into a mason jar, no lid on it, inside of a pot of boiling water, and let it heat up for a while. Then cool and add your stuff.

Seal, wait, and voila - You have manufactured Mammoth P or whatever else you wanna “clone.”

You need to keep the jar warm, 80-100F, and wait a few days. The bacteria will multiply and fill their new home. I can’t say whether it will be more or less potent. Part of what you were paying for is the guaranteed dose per ml. I suspect this homebrew will be more potent but you will have to test & tune a bit. Waiting longer means more bacteria/ml but it shouldn’t need more than 3-4 days to be effective. 3-10 days works and 2-3 weeks is better. Room temperature, 70F, will work but is much slower.

If you really want to know if your concoction is ready, pH test the liquid. Anything below 3.8 is good to go, 3.5 is perfect, anything below 2.0 and ehhh somethings wrong, toss it and do over.

Don’t want to make your own broth? Just want to innoculate and go? Pre-made right here for ~$60

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If you haven’t bought anything yet and want an easy off the shelf product SCD Probiotics make a great Mother Culture for gardening. It need to be activated and is an easy way to dip your toes into these microbiology lab techniques.

Product here:

They have good instructions on their website. Another nice feature is that the dilution ratio works good for a 20oz size batch.

Activation instructions here:

Don’t wanna click? No worries. Here’s the recipe;

To activate a different amount than the examples in this guide, use a 1:1:18 ratio to calculate the materials needed (1 Part Mother Culture + 1 Part Molasses* + 18 Parts Dechlorinated Water).

1oz Culture

1oz Molasses (blackstrap unsulphured - get the right one sulfur is a preservative and antimicrobial)

18oz distilled water ( just buy a jug at the store )

Heat the water to about 100F

Add your molasses and culture

Close the lid

Remember this is an active fermentation. Gas pressure can and will build up so burp your bottle every so often. Plastic soda bottles can handle pressure better than glass jars.

Let your mixture actively ferment in a warm environment for 3-10 days, checking it every 3 days. The temperature for best results will be in the 90-degree range. Fermenting at lower temperatures will increase the time it takes for the product to be ready beyond 10 days. Here’s a tip to speed up fermentation: take an ordinary heating pad, turn it on “low”, and set your five-gallon container directly on top of it. Gently stirring the liquid without causing bubbles every 3 days will also help speed up the process.

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Fun links for more reading:

https://www.smilinggardener.com/soil-food-web/how-to-make-effective-microorganisms/

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That’s cool! I might have to try that with a Rootwise product.
I brew my EM1 IN A big brewer’s glass jug with the loop seal plug. It’s even easier! 118 degree water with the proper amount of EM1 mixed with the proper amount of molasses, I keep it at 90 degrees until the PH reaches 3.5

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I wonder if this could be modified somehow for Mykos.

It is a fungi but in clay granules to be mixed into soil/coco before planting.

I was running out so they got a fraction of the amount prescribed and I want a liquid version that can be top fed…..

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Would this work for you?

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IMG_20260226_203722106_HDR1920Ă—2560 1.1 MB

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Fungus and bacteria behave really differently. I am not sure how to propagate more fungal spores from a product like that. I suppose you would inoculate something, let it grow out, and then somehow capture the spores from the “fruiting body” or the mushroom parts.

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Oh yeah there’s ways of doing it.
I imagine it would be using rice as a medium, like when you’re collecting indigenous microorganisms to make IMO.

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I use that also.

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Thanks

Yes. I have that brand in granules. It’s the one I had run out of on planting day.

Unfortunately my supplier doesn’t carry the wettable version anymore.

I am considering VOODOO JUICE PLUS tablets, but I already have Miicrobial Mass bacteria so that would be duplicated.

I might just have to go with what’s there this time. I have a new bag of granules for next run.

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Honestly didnt know about microbial mass and hadnt really looked at advanced nutrients stuff too much. I didnt go real deep and it looks like there would be some overlap maybe but using all 3 wouldnt be a bad move it seems. They each have a slightly different function.

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Not surprising that you haven’t heard of it, there are (understandably) strict regulations around miicrobial products that prevent them from shipping out of or into Canada.

Yes, there would be overlap. The only real advantage would be the fungi. I would temporarily stop the miicrobial mass while using the voodo product.

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