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2016 Outdoor Garden of Eden

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FoothillFarming

FoothillFarming

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Sent more soil out to Spectrum Labs yesterday. We shall see how those compare to Logan. I had a hell of a time getting samples. Every single smart pot is root bound beyond belief. I couldn't get deeper than 4-6" if I tried.
 
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slownickel

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Tell the guys at the lab we are working together, so that they post it so I can see it and so they do the longer shake times, as well ask for total Nitrogens, Na and Al, along with the [email protected] and M3.
 
FoothillFarming

FoothillFarming

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Thank you. I will call tomorrow. I asked for a 30 minute shake, and checked the Na testing. Not sure if that includes the Al, or the [email protected] and M3. I did mention I was working with you on the back of the submission sheet.

I noticed they suggested drying out the sample before sending if doing a N test. Is that what you do? My sample was dry, but not 100% by any means.
 
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slownickel

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Logan vs Spectrum

Logan vs Spectrum

Cater,

Love to, thanks for asking.

The key to understanding a soil, is the distribution of its' base cations. K, Mg, Ca, Na and H. There are other cations, which at times should be counted, like Fe, Mn and Al, but only when you are in a situation where their influence is huge, which is not often.

The golf course guys figured out what I am about to discuss. Here is their story examining soil analysis procedures...
http://goo.gl/tu1id6

What you will see there is a discussion of different soil analysis methods. In places where calcium carbonate, seashells from the seashore, crab, shrimp, dolomite, or any other carbonate is used, there is an inherent problem getting a soil analysis done using Melich 3 (which is triple acidification), Ammonium acetate at pH7, or a number of other procedures, to measure calcium. The carbonate forms of calcium give you false numbers, on the order of 50 to nearly 100% more than is actually available to the plant. The golf course guys figured this out, not any ag department nor even the K and P Institute (owned by the fert industry players). This research is recent and was paid for by the PGA. Guess to many folks weren't happy when the grass kept turning yellow, haha... amazing motivation.

What they learned was that this Ca number is not realistic when you calculate your base distributions. Here is an excellent example in this thread, where Lightweight posted his Spectrum analysis. Look at the two different calcium numbers reported. Nearly half of the calcium used to make the base distributions is not real. What does that mean to the base calculation for calcium? Looks like you have a lot more than you do, and when you don't? Burnt leaf tips from high K, Mg, etc... when the numbers don't look that way. And on this page, listen over and over about Ca deficiency. And in the fruit and veg industry? SAME THING. Always a Ca deficiency.

This is why those looney tunes at Nectar for the Gods do so well. Pushing high Ca and high P, with an NPK at 2-5-2 plus Ca.

Everyone sees recovery from salt burns, etc when they apply the two antagonist elements to K and Mg, which are Ca and P.

So to answer your question, I can't use Logans numbers. Plus, we have seen side by side samples of the same soil sent to both labs twice, Logan labs is not consistent. Same soil! Not good. Their boron numbers are always off, plus it seems that the woman that enters the data at Logan is dyslexic. When various friends asked Logan are you sure about this number, the number comes back inverted.

This is a mom and pop lab. Bad science, bad controls. Spectrum is one of the best labs in the US. They run in a day, what Logan runs in a month (not that this is necessarily good). They will also do the analysis that I ask for, plus run shake times that I want and on top of all that, they are cheaper and faster turn around.

And one last point, the owner or GM at Spectrum was a professor of soils at the Univ of Ohio and created some Cu and Mn indexes, which for me, are priceless. No one has ever published this and they keep it to themselves. Mn is not available in lots of organic material nor in rising pH's above 6.7, Cu is very similar, super sensitive to higher pH's. So what does that mean? Try to play with acidifying a large area or just putting on more? Much easier to put on more.

Kempf figured a lot of this out and is applying, selling and recommending Kempf woo woo Mn with Molasses mixed in. Most likely fermented with some micro biology to make it a bit more special, but at end of the day, he is only balancing the Fe/Mn ratio.

My dear friend Faust at BioAg as well. He used to argue with me to the death, Fe/Mn=3. What is his wonder product, F or GX 17 or something? It has a Fe/Mn=1 LMAO. Everyone things that they walk on water there. How funny. He is just tightening the Fe/Mn ratio. Kempf wins though by not applying Fe.

This is all about balancing elements without guessing... based on real science and real trials. You all need to open your eyes and learn and to conduct your own trials, but using numbers you can trust.

Plant corn with your grows. Send those leaf samples to the lab. Learn why the corn on your best plant is different than the corn on your worst plant.

The key is the soil, which gives the environment for the roots. Roots are everything. Look down, not up.

I have no financial interest in Spectrum.

Here is the page where that Spectrum result was posted.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=289990&page=200#post7586651
 
20sackzack

20sackzack

Member
I was enjoying that song this morning while I was watering. Sorry you can't be with your family but you gotta do what you gotta do to support them. Keep up the hard work!
 
FoothillFarming

FoothillFarming

Active member
@Caterpillar710

I lost all my cuts but one last year to russet mites. So it was all seed this year, with a few cuts taken from full season seeds.

First round was lots of Tangie, Blueberry Hashplant and Alaskan THunder funk

Second round was Tangie and 88 cherries

Third round was Sky lotus

forth round I am taking down is a mix of Killer Queen cuts taken from full season, Ancient Og, Blue Berry Hash plant, and by far the most impressive of the year......Sour Bannana Sherbert. Been loving DNA strains. Was never a fan before, ran small amounts....but this year, dam. Tangie and SBS were home runs.

My next round I have all cuts from full season and a long held cut Hassan, c99's, and AOG's.

Edit: Forgot about the Wookie cross I am running. Large semi dense nugs of flavor. Very good yields overall.
 
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