Advancing Eco Agriculture, Product Science

[caterpillar710]

A bunch of guys got some exploding totes and it was a problem. Since johns cousin left the bottling plant management things really went down hill.

 

[slownickel]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Originally Posted by plantingplants [URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/images/buttons/viewpost.gif]View Image[/URL]
Cat, I'm curious what angle you are coming from? Is it to limit competition as long as you can?

How much competition is there if most growers can't even grow a crop that test clean for mold and pesticides? Not much.

How large of a role do you feel your research and trade secrets will play in keeping your business competitive in the future?

I feel like the skill set I've developed over the last 10+ years of doing this is the reason why I have been and remain competitive regardless of price fluctuations or bad decisions, of which I've made a few...I don't feel like giving every one the answer to the test any more. I've contributed so much of that freely and openly to the most ungrateful audience possible that there's just no motivation to help at all at this point

Just curious. Curious about jidoka's answer, too.
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I think more people appreciate what is shared in all these forums than may be apparent, but also some of the ones sharing aren't exactly the one all and be all of it as they clearly seem to think they are...


I'll leave with a real farmers quote:


"What Business man, except a soil worker, will stop and talk with a stranger? Who but a farmer or fruit grower or gardener will tell of his experience so fully, so freely, and so entirely without hope of gain? Who else will so frankly reveal his business secrets for the benefits of his fellows? Who else so clearly recognizes the fact that the world is large enough for all mankind?"


The illegality of this plant and Draconian laws still in place across so much of this world seem to drive people to fear, rightfully so but also seems a lot of greed and selfishness is flying around as well

Real farmers seem to be harder and harder to find anymore.

 

[reppin2c]

So what are you trying to say?

 

[Space Case]

Real farmers seem to be harder and harder to find anymore.

Real food is getting harder and harder to find. We live in an age of unmaned satellite controlled potato fields.

 

[TheOutlawTree]

How would y'all amend this quickly before planting? I've got some rooted cuts that need to be transplanted tonight or Tm. I have gypsum, and I'm wondering if the best option is just a big water flush? I knew vermifire wouldn't be balanced- but didn't think it would be off by this much!

 

[slownickel]

How would y'all amend this quickly before planting? I've got some rooted cuts that need to be transplanted tonight or Tm. I have gypsum, and I'm wondering if the best option is just a big water flush? I knew vermifire wouldn't be balanced- but didn't think it would be off by this much!

Your soil analysis is not complete the way you had it run. They ran one of their standard procedures only.

You are missing sodium using m3, you are missing all the bases using ammonium acetate at a pH of 8.2, etc...

Call them up and ask them to run the k-3 process instead. They probably still have enough soil to rerun it....

 

[plantingplants]

Doesnt sound like he has the time for that. In a K3, Ca could will be lower and sodium could only be higher (than zero obviously). Gyp seems like the answer to me...

 

[TheOutlawTree]

Here's holo mic and mac tests from the batch I recieved a couple weeks ago. Looks pretty similar to your test jidoka.

Does 2% vs 4% in K really make that much of a difference though? Its not cool that there essentially lying, but isnt Mic and Mac still much better than all other 2 parts that have an existence?

 

[Heil Tweetler]

Here's holo mic and mac tests from the batch I recieved a couple weeks ago. Looks pretty similar to your test jidoka.

Does 2% vs 4% in K really make that much of a difference though? Its not cool that there essentially lying, but isnt Mic and Mac still much better than all other 2 parts that have an existence?

After looking over those products analyses I'm wondering what conditions would be best served by those ratios and values?

Do the minerals and their ratios/proportions in those products match up with needs that are common in outdoor gardens?

The formulations, to my inexperienced eye, look like a scatter-gun style of attending to anticipated deficiencies.

 

[calisun]

Hi all, I have three soil tests from spectrum and one from logan labs and a water test from spectrum I attached. Looks like my cu and maybe b are low. My Mg looks high. I would love to hear peoples thought, advice on what is high and low and what they would apply to my soil before this years season.
This is a soil mix made of approximately
25% humus compost
25% pumice, rice hull, perlite
25% peat moss
5% coco fiber
5% worm castings
15% top soil a silty loam
This is the 4th year in this soil.
Here's a little info about the spot and soil medium.

First year had 5' x 30' x 2' deep trenches. Had a lot of gophers bothering my plants. Must of killed 20 the first year on 1 acre.
So I built 4'x 8" redwood boxes with 4x4 as corner posts that were two feet long so they exteded 1' below the box and wrapped them with hardware cloth and droped them in the trench and filled them most the way up with soil. so each box is a little under 2 yards of soil. but the roots can go out further.
I use some age holy mic and mac last year and I top dressed as needed with organic ferts, such as seabird guano pellets 12-12-1 I think. I addend gypsum a couple times last year. I made act a few times with alfalfa, worm castings some sst corn and barley and a little molasses Oh and used some K2SO4. I'll ad to this if I think of anything else.

 

[jidoka]

I want to say right up front. These opinions are mine period. I make no claim they are absolutely right. Whether or not you want to use it is entirely up to you.

Here is what I see.
1) very low S.
2) stupid high P
3) high Mg
4) low on a few micros but with that P adding more is pretty useless anyways...so spray

I do not recommend gypsum in this case. If you use gypsum the Ca will drive off K first and you are low anyways and chances are you will not lower Mg.

Now there is no doubt this level of Mg will hinder the uptake of Ca. So Ca sprayed...gylycine, acetate, fulvic. You want to double up when bud starts to form cause it will be hard to translocate to the bud anyways.

Over time let Mg drop without replacing it. I don't buy the argument that this level of Mg will affect the structure of a peat based soil with plenty of drainage amendment.

Spray Mn, Zn, B and Cu. It is going to take forever to get P down so plan on this for your lifetime.

I would not add elemental sulfer right now. At the end of this yr get a test and if you need it the fall is the time to add it.

I would suggest you use Ammonium Sulfate to drive up the ammonical nitrogen and sulfer.

If that sounds right to you let me know and I will do some math. If you don't plan on using it please be honest about it and save me the time. No hard feelings and best wishes whatever you choose

 

[calisun]

I want to say right up front. These opinions are mine period. I make no claim they are absolutely right. Whether or not you want to use it is entirely up to you.

Here is what I see.
1) very low S.
2) stupid high P
3) high Mg
4) low on a few micros but with that P adding more is pretty useless anyways...so spray

I do not recommend gypsum in this case. If you use gypsum the Ca will drive off K first and you are low anyways and chances are you will not lower Mg.

Now there is no doubt this level of Mg will hinder the uptake of Ca. So Ca sprayed...gylycine, acetate, fulvic. You want to double up when bud starts to form cause it will be hard to translocate to the bud anyways.

Over time let Mg drop without replacing it. I don't buy the argument that this level of Mg will affect the structure of a peat based soil with plenty of drainage amendment.

Spray Mn, Zn, B and Cu. It is going to take forever to get P down so plan on this for your lifetime.

I would not add elemental sulfer right now. At the end of this yr get a test and if you need it the fall is the time to add it.

I would suggest you use Ammonium Sulfate to drive up the ammonical nitrogen and sulfer.

If that sounds right to you let me know and I will do some math. If you don't plan on using it please be honest about it and save me the time. No hard feelings and best wishes whatever you choose

yes I do agree with most of your opinions. I didn't think my P was way to high but I could be wrong. I'm still learning what the dialed in numbers are. Here is what I amended my soil with last year before planting to address these same problems.
11 grams borox
2lb feather meal 12-0-0
1 cups blood meal 13-0-0
2 cups DE
4 tsp wetable sulfur
and 30 grams AS
all per yard.
Oh and I applied manganese too. I forget how much off the top of my head

I did two applications of the ammonium sulfate and borax

Thanks for the help.
ps I need to learn how to run the numbers to reach the goal of a better soil. Do you have any good links to the equations. I found a couple last year for the AS and boron but haven't seen any for the other micros.

 

[reppin2c]

If it was me I'd listen to the quoted text above but that's just me. I didnt even look at the test but I had any idea from what was said.

Edit and after a quick glance I'd say yup. I'd like to that P under 500 but to each his own

 

[plantingplants]

OK I'm about to order this up, what do you guys think? I will be irrigating micro sulfates in. I can amend again after I get it all potted up. It's the same as the soil I got last year (here's the test) but I removed the rock dust, reduced the compost (to reduce high Mg and K), replaced oyster with vansil (to add Si), and reduced the amounts of crab, kelp, alfalfa, and neem to cool the soil a little since last year the fresh mix was at 2.28 EC and over 200 ppm nitrate (although I didn't irrigate before testing so I bet a lot of the nitrate would have leached out. I clearly fried some of my plants with high S and No3 because I didn't flush it some.). This year I'm planting straight from seedling pots so I don't want to fry the little bastards, and I don't want to compete with P. I plan on using fish hydrolysate to feed N.

_tesseracting used a similar soil by using the same mix and cutting the amendments in half but leaving the compost at 33%. His results (first column)showed high levels of K and Mg even after cutting the amendments, so I'm cutting the compost, as well. I don't really understand why we had similar numbers even though he cut his amendments in half (look at K and P, basically identical). I imagine it comes down to sampling variation. This is a test of the Oly Mt fish compost.



40 yds total

17 yards peat
17 yards lava
4 yards oly mt fish compost (a hair over 10% of mix)

250 lbs gypsum
250 lbs calcium silicate
100 lbs kelp meal (down from 250#)
80 lbs crab meal 4-3-0 (down from 240#)
44 lbs neem cake (down from 130#)
50 lbs alfalfa meal (down from 100#)


By changing it up I might be altering relationship that I can't see... is anything popping out at anyone? jidoka I know you suggest kelp in here... maybe I'll leave it at 250#. Problem is, 250# contributes 100-150ppm Na since kelp meal is around 4% Na.

 

[caterpillar710]

No top soil?

 

[jidoka]

So was that test before you planted anything? Before you watered?

 

[plantingplants]

I am testing some local top soil in one or two pots. I don't feel comfortable committing to 40 yds of a topsoil mix. Plus I have no tests from top soil near Grass Valley and I'm on a time crunch since I didn't even know I needed soil.

jidoka, yea fresh unwatered. Delivered then sampled.

 

[jidoka]

you are at about 3.4 lbs of actual Ca per yard. Tom Hill was 8-9 if my memory still works

 

[plantingplants]

I was just shooting for a more balanced coots. Think it needs more ca?

 

[plantingplants]

Some modifications... if lava is to stay at 33% then it should be 14 yards, and peat moves up to 22 yards.

And importantly, if peat is moving up from 13 yards (in the original mix) to 22 yards, then liming material has to rise dramatically. I can't just do 250 lbs vansil. I would need almost double. I could calculate it by 250/13 = x/22 but that doesn't take into account the high pH compost that was reduced from 13 yds to 4 yds. It's gonna be at least 500 lbs liming material i believe.... don't know how far I can push vansil.