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Advancing Eco Agriculture, Product Science

milkyjoe

Senior Member
Veteran
You guys notice sun gro adding sio2 in their peat based mixes? CaSiO3...wollastonite. there was a short article in the march 2013 acres about sio2 that mentions wollastonite.

Not a bad idea. Plus if you believe in transmutation you want plenty of silica available
 

FatherEarth

Active member
Veteran
Labeling and registration is in its final stage

It's the same quality of product just a blend that was developed through testing on ganj
Still, truth be told, very limited testing on cannabis took place. I mean they are still working on getting the formulations right to the advancing Eco ag lineup...

On another note has anyone tried this company out?

http://holmesenviro.com/product/products.asp


I picked up some guard the other day to try. They are regular ag prices too. I've yet to try the product but my neighbor told me about them and swears by their products...
 

milkyjoe

Senior Member
Veteran
Truth be told the BO is not about feeding the plant at all. It is about feeding/supplementing the biology in the soil. Then the cycling of biology feeds the plant. It is still up to you to provide minerally balaced soil. The better you do that the better results BO provides. It really does not need to be plant species specific.

Think about a cow eating grass. The grass does not feed the cow directly. It fuels the fermentation process that feeds the cow. Same principle for BO.

On top of that you can provide foliars to increase photosynthesis.

At least that is my take.
 

Backyard Farmer

Active member
Veteran
I'd be wary of any company not always trying to improve.

The results with the worm soil factory soil are the same as with these nutes, they can work magic Or do nothing it's up to how you apply

With that said I just had 5 kg of Chitosan oligosaccharide land...so I'm stoked.
 

FatherEarth

Active member
Veteran
Truth be told the BO is not about feeding the plant at all. It is about feeding/supplementing the biology in the soil. Then the cycling of biology feeds the plant. It is still up to you to provide minerally balaced soil. The better you do that the better results BO provides. It really does not need to be plant species specific.

Think about a cow eating grass. The grass does not feed the cow directly. It fuels the fermentation process that feeds the cow. Same principle for BO.

On top of that you can provide foliars to increase photosynthesis.

At least that is my take.

Yes thats my take as well...

BO?


BA?
I thought they were talking of making a soil to go with the lineup
....


And yea def beware of companies not trying to improve. Also beware of sales people being misleading to make a buck. Not saying Eco Ag isnt a great company, I still use them for foliar. The new stuff I cant vouch.
 

milkyjoe

Senior Member
Veteran
Ooops..yea biological advantage.

I don't know about the soil. Outdoors I am using top soil, peat and 1/2 inch basalt. For starting plants I am making my own...kinda crazy shipping compost from PA.
 

odkin

Member
Finally getting it....

Finally getting it....

Full disclosure here- I am a bit thick at the best of times. Have been lurking here since the thread started, struggling- big time- to get my head around the plant concepts that are being discussed in this thread.

But I am finally beginning to get it. I've been reading book after book this winter, have reread this thread three times, listened again to the audio links posted at the beginning of this thread [thanks FatherEarth!] attended a Kempf workshop, caught two workshops by Kitteridge- and it all is finally beginning to come together. At least to the point where I hope to apply some of these principals this coming spring to my outdoor gardens.

I would strongly advise that any newbe begin with AEA's 20 core concepts pdf posted on their site- http://growbetterfood.com/events/education/core-concepts/. This is an excellent summation of the main concepts that Kempf speaks of.

Looking forwards to the spring pickup of the discussions here, along with the roll out of the Biological Advantage line.
 

FatherEarth

Active member
Veteran
I noticed Kempfs 2013 conference audio says not available at this time..from bio nutrient.org and all of the youtube videos that Kempf was dropping knowledge in are all gone. Glad I saved all his audio lectures, via stream ripper. Guess someone thought that info shouldn't be free anymore? Idk....

Although the links at the start of this thread are still good. They just removed the link off their website. So download the links now before they are gone! Not sure why they aren't allowing new listeners, especially since the audio is still obviously available and in tact...?
 

odkin

Member
Even that link has been taken down- clicking the audio link brings up a 404 page not found message.
 

milkyjoe

Senior Member
Veteran
That is a shame. It had some good info. Most important, perhaps, is that plants have limited cec and anion ec just like soil...so if you have too much of a certain cation in a plant it may well prevent you from getting another cation in there...no matter how much you add. In our case with high compost soils you can bet that is going to be K blocking Ca. So foliar Ca is going to be a must until the K levels eventually drop in your soil...I prefer Sea Shield as my foliar source of Ca...5% of very available Ca no doubt chelated with amino acids from the fish.

The other important issue was in getting nitrate out of the tissue and replacing it with protein. This is key to the health of the plant. Plenty of available Mo is the true key as it is the enzyme co factor for the nitrase reductase enzyme. Mo is in Photomag but I also supplement a little more.

Lots of good articles on Nutri-Tech (grameme sait) and Agri Dynamics (jerry brunetti) though.
 

odkin

Member
Lots of great stuff in those two links Milky- thanks for the lead. What a fascinating area of knowledge.
 

MountZionCollec

Active member
Just finished reading the thread and put in the order for a few of the AEA products, looking to replace my brix mix/cal 25 with one spray and to adjust for any detected deficiencies during the season.

I sent soil samples into logan labs and was curious of anyone's opinion, especially those that have used them, on the results.

Soil #1 is $110 a yard mix organized/sold in bulk through Murphys Hyrdoponics. It contains 20% humus, 20% pumice, 15% coco coir, 15% peat moss, 15% perlite, 10% worm castings, 5% chicken manure. Last 10%: Gypsum, Dolomite lime, calcium nitrate, kelp, blood meal, fish meal, greensand, cal rock phosphate

Soil 1 results
Total Exchange Capacity: 12.04
PH: 6.1
OM: 41.87%
Sulfur ppm: 165
Phosphorus mehlich III: 1078 lbs/acre
Calcium: 65.51%
Magnesium: 9.87%
Potassium: 4.61%
Sodium: 1.32%
Other bases: 5.2%
Exchangeable hydrogen: 13.5%
Boron: .81
Iron: 99
Manganese: 15
Copper: 1.77
Zinc: 7.07
Aluminum: 174

-------------------------
I also had my Tom Hill amended pots from last year tested.

Tom Hill with Roots
Total Exchange Capacity: 15.36
PH: 6.7
OM: 47.85%
Sulfur: 16
Phosphorus: 2847 lbs/acre
Calcium: 79.45%
Magnesium: 9.55%
Potassium: 1.29%
Sodium: .51%
Other bases: 4.7%
Exchangeable Hydrogen: 4.5%
Boron: .54
Iron: 139
Manganese: 21
Copper: 2.9
Zinc: 18.68
Aluminum: 154

Any opinions much appreciated, but either way enjoyed the thread looking forward to trying their products!
 

milkyjoe

Senior Member
Veteran
Welcome to the thread and thank you for showing real results that we can discuss. And there is a lot to talk about here actually.

So this is imo...take that for what you think it is worth.

Mix 1: I would want to know that chicken manure was properly composted. If not it might be really "hot" and there is plenty of it At a minimum I would use backyard's trick of planting into a bag of potting soil and letting the roots work their way into this mix. Personally not a huge fan of coco or that much drainage amends...but it is what it is.

Looking at the pH of 6.1 you have room to add more base cations...specifically you would want a little more Ca and Mg. This would be one of those rare cases I would use dolomite...get you a twofer. You are looking to replace some of your exchangeable Hydrogen with Ca and Mg...ideally you would like to drop that H to 10% or even slightly less...you can go lower because of all the organic matter that will buffer things for you.

Next thing I would look at is that P. Your avg veggie grower is looking for 75 ppm. The good news is all you have to do is provide lots of microbe activity and you won't have to worry about P at all. The bad news is that P is going to tie up Zn, Fe and Mn as insoluble compounds in your soil so your plant will not get enough of any of those.

What I would do...and more opinions may be something you want...is both fertigate some micros once a week and foliar micros. If you use soluble micros the plant has a chance to take them up before they get tied up...that is why you would fertigate weekly vs just try to load the soil. So if you wanna use AEA you are looking at MicroPak and probably the kelp. And I might not go this far but for the fert you could even look at edta chelated micros to make tie ups with P even less likely.

There is also a lot of Al...so do not let your pH fall during the yr. Top dress or fertigate base cations if you have to. If pH falls too low that Al can be taken up by the plant and you do not want that.

Other than that just the basic AEA program (maybe minus the stuff that contains P) just to feed the biology and drive the photosynthesis a little harder.
 

milkyjoe

Senior Member
Veteran
Toms mix. If you used Supr Green it is well composted and has sawdust added to bring the C:N ratio into line so no worries about it being hot. I think it is excelllent shit :biggrin:

OK...your pH is high enough so you are not looking to replace H. So you want amendments with sulfate in them. And you are short on K, SO4 and Mg. You could amend with sul-po-mag (a three fer) or you could add to your fertigation both epsom salt (mag sulfate and you could pick Photomag if you want) and a hydroponic grade K2SO4. Because you are dealing with purely soluble things I would choose the fertigation route...but the other way is easier.

You got the same issue with P. I suspect this is why Tom used the Brix Mix, to get micros in the plant. The difference this time is you have more Zn than you really need.

Honestly that is above my pay grade so I am not comfortable giving advise. You may need a custom micro mix that does not include Zn...or this is what I do not know, is the P going to tie up enough Zn that you need it anyway.

Other than that it looks like you are going to have a good yr. I guarantee you either one of those is better than most are using...you are not burdened by high K...the normal curse of high compost mixes.

And I gotta say...the more of Tom's mix I see the more impressed I am. No clue how he came up with it...but it is genius...maybe not so much bone meal but other than that :huggg:
 
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