Actinomyces

[mensplace]

Several months ago I had sprayed a blend of Actinomyces and Myco-grow in the compost pile, across the tops of thehay bales bordering my raised beds, and across the surface of the garden soil. Yesterday, when breaking down the square bales to let more light into what had been my cold frames that are no longer needed and integrate the bales into the garden soil, I noticed that these were about triple the weight of normal bales. As I separated each segment from the bales I saw that they were full of very long fingers of fungi about an inch thick that had grown throughout the bales as well as plenty of white growth that had permeated each bale. There was also that very rich smell of topsoil. These I scattered across the top of the garden to be tilled in. Obviously they are full of microorganisms. However, in researching actinomyces, I also saw something called "farmers lung". Evidently, this come from the white powder that actinomyces produces. I still have two huge round bales to use for the compost pile, in the soil to add humus, and as a mulch across the surface. Should I be wearing a mask when working to tear apart and spread the hay? Will all of the fungi and actinomyces serve a positive, active role once integrated into the garden?

[dustdevil]

It looks like you should be wearing gloves and a mask. I don't what strain of Actinomyces you have, but here is some info about bacterial infection that might apply:

http://www.healthscout.com/ency/68/258/main.html

[dustdevil]

I would wash your clothes and gloves after handling that stuff.

[mensplace]

Originally Posted by dustdevil

I would wash your clothes and gloves after handling that stuff.

I'm beginning to think that might be a good policy in general in working on the process of integrating the compost into the garden as it has so much cow and horse manure in the mix. That prior info on actinomycosis was a real eye opener. I also keep a bottle of hand sanitizer for use after I wash my hands just to be sure. Last week, after eating a big medium rare steak at Longhorn I soon develeped a severe case of gastro enteritis with extreme nausea, fever, and general weekness that lasted four days..won't get into the other details. Wherever it came from, I think it wise to be sure to do a good clean-up due to the number of kinds of micro-organisms in the early stages of getting the garden working.

That is one major hassles with the huge round bales of hay; tearing them apart produces HUGE clouds of white dust and you can clearly see from how there is that white growth inside the bales that grows in sheets, that something is actively growing. However, it was in those wet square bales that I found the fingers of fungi growing about a half inch thick and several inches long as well as plenty of the more generally growing white matter.

Maybe that is something that we all need to consider in spraying so many of the miracle solutions of micro-organisms...and there are plenty of them. What may thrive and be good for the soil may not be so great in our lungs and bodies in general, so maybe when working with them we should all be taking the same steps of cleaning up as when working with chemicals. I, for one, am NOT a microbiologist, but I AM developing more of an attitude that the soil and plants , with the addition of compost and manure, may well have PLENTY of natural micro-organisms already available, so that is is far cheaper and maybe heathier to not be meddling with witch's brews that we don't fully understand.