Hey Christopher...Mycorrhizae are fungi that form a symbiotic relationship with many, many plants. There are three main types: Ericoid mycorrhyzae, endo-, and ectomycorrhizae. Ecologically speaking, a mutualistic relationship means that both parties will benefit. In this case the fungi will get sugars from the plant and the plant will get more nutrients (usually phosphorus) from the fungi. These fungi associate themselves with the plants roots and will essentially increase the surface area that the roots are exposed to the soil. In addition, the fungi have a few tricks up their sleeves to make nutrients more available for absorption. You can inoculate your soil with these fungal spores, but they more or less are found naturally in nature. Many plants cannot thrive without them now. In fact acid rain has a detrimental effect on the growth and infection rate of these mycorrhizae and many scientists feel that trees suffer more from lack of mycorrhizal infection than from the acid rain itself.

I've recently read about adding mycorrhizae & ectomycorrhizae to the soil. I hear they help the roots absorb more nutrients and fight diseases. I fertilize my plants using worm castings, will this contain these beneficial microorganisms? Or should I look for a fertilizer that specifically mentions these?

I would like a feature where you can see what others are growing locally too.

Could you add a mode specifically designed to germinate seeds For instance i planted lettuce seed and am unsure if the settings to germinate the seed is the same as the monitor mode set to the plant. Cheers

Hey Christopher...There are many organic ways to control pests. There are also some non-toxic sprays that you can use to control pests. Horticultural oils and pesticides with potassium salts are generally safe to use on plants that are meant for consumption. (BE SURE TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS OF ANY PESTICIDE SINCE MANY OF THEM ALSO HAVE CHEMICALS IN THEM THAT ARE BAD FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.) You can also introduce some predatory insects to your garden. The most famous of these are lady bugs. Lady bugs are voracious predators of aphids, but they can sometimes simply fly away when you introduce them to your garden. As for eradication/genocide vs. control, it is almost always impossible to eradicate the pests from your garden. For the most part, the best you can hope for is to maintain a low population of pests. You can achieve this naturally by growing leafy perennials around your garden. This is a good place for natural pest predators to lay in wait so they can prey upon your pests when the pest population increases. Growing carrots (although not a perennial) is a great way to introduce natural predators to your garden. Carrots and plants in the same family as carrots generally have highly dissected leaves which give great hiding spots for predators. If you want quick results I would recommend using a non-toxic pesticide, but if it's a sustained predator population you're after, you may want to look into predator introductions and growing plants that will naturally host them. I hope this is helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions. Cheers, Dr. Robby

Why shut off security software? With new virus/malware/adware every day, I paid $$$ for security software to protect my computer. I have my EasyBloom set up to monitor my indoor plants, I keep getting 'No data to upload' and the first time I waited 30 hours, next time three days. Same problem, now I receive an email saying There is data to read, plug in your EasyBloom (which is in the process of another attempt to monitor the same indoor plant). Had there been more information about the limits of EasyBloom, I never would have purchased one! I certainly will not buy the additional 6 EasyBlooms to use in my three rooms of plants and my flower gardens this spring. I can't be bringing the eash EasyBloom to my computer just to read the results of the upload (which required three days to receive the email that there is results to read, plug in your EasyBloom) and I am not going to purchase a EasyBloom to keep by my computer just to read data results! Can something be done to make it easier for multi-EasyBloom owners to use your product. I don't know, seems like a wonderful product, but SO DIFFICULT to use due to lack of instructions regarding use of the product. The information online where EasyBloom is available for purchase is lacking in details about the difficultly of use of your product.

Last thing I'll mention, when in MSConfig, you'll see some things you might not immediately recognize or know if it's safe to turn off. Whenever in doubt, just type the name in Google & read up on it. But more likely then not, I'm betting your security software is what's causing the problem.

If your on Windows, click on Start then Run and type in "msconfig" without the quotes, and hit enter. This will bring up a window that allows you to disable anything on startup. Whenever I get a virus, that's the first place I check. Also, here is a link to some screenshots and more info on MSConfig: http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/index.html

I'm not an employee, just a customer. I do know about computers though. I would try turning off your security software, that includes spyware, virus scanner, and firewall. Then uninstall the EasyBloom software. Restart your machine. Turn off the security software again, download the installer from the website, run the software & then plug the easybloom in when it asks you to. Then restart the machine. -- Sometimes just installing things in the wrong order can cause problems or more times then not there is another program that is causing a conflict. -- to troubleshoot which programs might be causing problems, you want to disable anything that automatically starts up on when you turn on your pc. With everything disabled, it should work. Then you turn on programs on by one.

Or at the very least (because NPK might be to difficult) if all the EasyBoom could do was display a High, Medium, and Low fertility read out, the online software could log & display a graph showing the levels over the course of a full season. While it wouldn't be much more advanced then the $15 electronic soil tester, it would be a lot more useful when displayed along side the rest of the data. -- and by the way, thank you Edith for replying so quickly. Its nice seeing you and Robby being active in these forums. :)