Advancing Eco Agriculture, Product Science

[c-ray]

Boron (Hot CaCl2) 1 -3 ppm
Iron (DTPA) 40-200 ppm
Manganese (DTPA) 30 -100 ppm
Copper (DTPA) 2 – 7 ppm
Zinc (DTPA) 5 -10 ppm
Molybdenum (Nitric Acid) 0.5 – 2 ppm
Cobalt (Nitric Acid) 2 – 40 ppm
Selenium (Nitric Acid) 0.6 – 2 ppm
Si 50 .

These are Graeme Sait's suggestions for micros along with the test he uses to extract them. While he does suggest a P:Zn ratio of 10:1 he does not suggest going above 10 ppm if your P is way up there like we tend to run.

that's a good point about the zinc
I think it was Reams who said something along the lines that highly functional plants can get all the zinc they need out of the air.. he didn't recommend zinc additions as a general rule also because there's bits of it in most everything..

 

[Backyard Farmer]

Btw...the reason I use albion micros instead of aea micros is cause the albion does not have B. That allows me to use more Photomag...which does have B.
I really like me some photomag

Cool approach. I can see how using that much sea shield you aren't adding.. I wouldn't either

 

[Dorky]

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.

.

5%Ca is sea shield? where you find that info. I called Aea to confirm but no luck

 

[milkyjoe]

It was in one of their newsletters...the ones they mail. Pacific Gro is showing different numbers...so who knows for sure

Edit...the 2014 spring newletter, new product announcement.. sea shield is a blend of liquified crab, fish and shrimp, has very high levels of quality fats and oils to boost plant energy and immunity, and contains 5% plant available calcium.

edit...either way though the stuff works

 

[Dorky]

yeah I like it I water in a 1ml a gallon a couple times a week in my coco beds. right now I run 60ppm from MKP I am gonna drop down to 40-50ppm and add 1-2ml of there micronized rock phosphate. Its 1 cent per ml so should still keep my nutes under 10cents a gallon.

I love people who rave about heavy fire or canna boost. Then tell em it costs 27cents per gallon.

 

[MountZionCollec]

Soil Minerals.com Sample 3 Smart Pot Rx March 2015
Soil Report and Comments Date: 30 March 2015
By Michael Astera M3 Soil Test by Logan Labs

Element Result Desired Comments
Cation Exchange Capacity CEC meq 15.36
pH of Soil Sample 6.7
Organic Matter % 47.85%
Sulfur S (parts per million ppm) =16.........desired= 120....amend= See KMag and K2SO4
Phosphorus as P ppm found= 626....desired= 240============= OK

Calcium Ca++ ppm Desired =2088.........found= 2440
Ca Base Saturation 60-70 %.....found= 79.45%........desired= 68%
Magnesium Mg++ ppm Desired =221.......found=176...deficit=45...add 60 grams Kmag
Mg Base Saturation 10-20 %......found= 9.55%.....desired= 12% ..
Potassium K+ ppm found=78......desired=240...deficit=162...add 30g sulfate of potash
K Base Saturation 2-5 %.....found= 1.29%....desired= 4%...
Sodium Na+ppm found=18 ...desired=53 Add 13 g sea salt
Na Base Saturation 1-3%...found 0.51%...desired= 1.5%
Other Bases 4.70%
H+ Exch Hydrogen 10-15% ...found=4.50%

Minor Elements ppm
Boron ppm found=0.54...desired= 2.10.... Add 3 g borax 10%B
Iron Fe ppm found=139...desired= 120 Good
Manganese Mn ppm found=21....desired= 60.... Add 20 g MnSO4 32%Mn
Copper Cu ppm found= 2.90....desired= 12.00.... Add 6 g CuSO4 25%Cu
Zinc Zn ppm found=18.68....desired= 24.00.... Add 3 g ZnSO4 35%Zn
Aluminum ppm found=154 Normal



From Michael Astera: Dry weight of soil is 732 grams per US gallon.

1 cubic yard = 202 gallons.

202 x 732 g = 147,864 g = 148 kg / cubic yard.

148 mg = 0.148 g = 1 ppm per cubic yard.



USDA Organic Nutrients Recommended Per Cubic Yard:
.
KMag: 60 grams

Sulfate of potash 0-0-50: 30 g

Sea salt or Redmond salt: 13 g

Borax 10%B: 3 g

Manganese sulfate 32%Mn: 20 g

Copper sulfate 25%Cu: 6 g

Zinc sulfate 35%Zn: 3 g

Feather meal: 200 g

Kelp meal: 250 g

Humate ore: 250 g

Azomite trace minerals: 250 g

Optional:

Paramagnetic basalt 9000 ucgs: 400 g

Glacial rock dust: 400 g

 

[Kunajo]

i take a tarp and lay my casting on it with other stuff in rows long ways and i get a few friends to grab the one side and rocks to hold the other then wee drag it back lay it back down move rocks to other side drag it back again about 4-6 times mix is perfectly even

 

[milkyjoe]

When you use a different weight for the soil are the meq still valid? For example...if your soil is 1/4 the weight of field soil...is the meq of Ca now 100, or does it remain 400? Methinks it would drop with the weight...possibly explaining why cec of these peat mixes are coming back so low.

I invited a dude named Mg to the thread who may have a handle on it. Hopefully he shows

 

[Humphry Davy]

Heyyo, this is Mg

 

[Humphry Davy]

Meq weight is the atomic weight divided by its valence. So Ca has an atomic weight of 40 and has a 2+ charge, therefore its meq weight is 20 mg/meq. A milliquivqlent is similar to a mole, just used to keep the large numbers to a minimum. Wouldn't want to say 10 to the 20th power calcium ions weighs this much....

From a soil perspective.....

CEC refers to the number of negative sites, expressed in meq/100g, or how many cations it will hold per 100 grams of soil.

say your soil has a CEC of 10. It holds 10 meq/100 g of soil. So if all the sites were taken by Ca, that would means that 100 grams of soil could hold 200 mg of Ca. My point is, meq weight of calcium is constant.

Also when they refer to lb/acre, just view the "acre" term as 2 million lbs (the assumed density of field soil, 1 acre 6" deep weighs 2 millions lbs)

So into the wormhole even deeper...

Labs test a specific volume of the soil and assume it's density.

Labs take a set volume of your soil, they assume they're dealing with say 100 grams, when really they have say 25 grams. So if they say your CEC is 15, that means it can hold 15 meq/100 grams of soil. However, it's actually 15 meq/25 grams of soil, which in CEC would mean 60 meq/100 grams of soil.


Bottom line, the ratios they give you in your reports are correct, it's just that they assume your soil per weight hold less of everything than what it does. However in C:N tests they actually do take your density into consideration.

As MIlky knows, Ive created an excell program that takes your soil test results and corrects the difference in density and factors in many things such as ph and suggests amendments and even shows you the percent of target levels each element is at before and after your amendments. You can input your own desired C:N ratio, Ca%, Mg%, and the volume of soil you plan to amend. It also takes into consideration application limits and notifies you when they've been reached. I mainly started it to save me hand work, but then I went a little crazy and wanted more out of it, took a LOT of time but it works very well.

 

[milkyjoe]

Has Bill Mckibean said why Logan does just weigh out samples? To save them from drying probably. It makes a huge difference though. These tcec of 15 we get are gonna be more like 60. If you factor the weight of our soil in ala michel astra are you going to underfill cec sites? If you don't does it come out right anyways...kinda by accident?

I am curious to play with your spread sheet HD.

Great explanation btw...thanks

 

[Humphry Davy]

Has Bill Mckibean said why Logan does just weigh out samples? To save them from drying probably. It makes a huge difference though. These tcec of 15 we get are gonna be more like 60. If you factor the weight of our soil in ala michel astra are you going to underfill cec sites? If you don't does it come out right anyways...kinda by accident?

I am curious to play with your spread sheet HD.

Great explanation btw...thanks

They still dry the samples. At room temp (high heat drying can reduce K in the samples). I'm assuming because that would take more time to do, maybe once the market creates a demand they will supply the service. I asked about them doing it for my samples but they were very hesitant as they feared that it would get skipped over on accident due to all the samples their processing, so I just take matters into my own hands and do it myself.

My soil weighed 0.2 gr / cm^3. Compare that to field soil of 1.4 gr / cm^3. So my CEC on the report was about 14, after multiplying by a factor of 7, and my actual CEC is almost 100. I thought this was too high initially, but a very close estimate for CEC of pure organic matter is 200 meq/100g, considering my soil is about 40%, that adds about 80 meq/100g of soil just in itself, not including the CEC sites of the clay particles.

Problem we run into is application limits, nitrogen I've read to be 100 lb/acre or 50 ppm (of soil weight). To take that into perspective, my soil had a C:N ratio of almost 60:1, but with the application limit of N, I could only correct that to about 59:1.....im wondering if that N application limit only applies to soluble N such as nitrate or ammonium, not slow release N such as feather meal or blood meal......

 

[milkyjoe]

All of that peat jacks the carbon content way up which means you can theoretically have a whole lot of N. The problem becomes keeping that N available but not soluble..ie preventing it from becoming nitrate.

I am leaning more and more toward top soil with just enough peat added to get C up to maybe 20% and call it good.

 

[Humphry Davy]

Speaking with someone more knowledgable in the area than I, he stated that I should not have to follow that N application limit until I got down to about 30:1 (C:N) as all the N would be tied up anyways until you get down to 30:1 (regarding using a non soluble N source like feather meal)

Yeah I'm using 50% top soil in my mixes now

 

[milkyjoe]

What happens at 30:1?

Anyways...once again tom hill looks genius...is genius. I see lots of sup r green in my summer plans

 

[Humphry Davy]

Until it reaches the 30:1 range the nitrogen is all tied up w the carbon in decomposition of OM, so near that point it starts to become available.

If I could get my hands on some respectable literature on what ppms of elements start to negatively affect soil life I could optimize the soil recomendation program to accomadate what we're after....

 

[FatherEarth]

Humphrey, are you giving away this program or selling it? I've got several soil analysis results Id be interested in what your calculator recommends. If it was made to avoid the long math and it works.. that's a gem. Especially when doing 10 -20+ analysis results and making amendment calculations... Links screenshots info etc? Thanks, and welcome to the forum. Glad to have you aboard!

Respectfully,

FE

 

[Humphry Davy]

Doing some family stuff over the weekend, I'll try to post some screen shots of it, I'm still fine tuning things and I want to make sure it's on point before I put it out there. I've got MANY of hours working on it, I was considering offering it for free and having a donation link, if I did sell it I would make the price very cheap, like a few bucks.

I'm considering applying some linear algebra for the amendments but I'm not even sure if excell would allow for such calculations but I will try. What that allows for is more dynamic calculations. Instead of using one or two amendments for a certain element you can use linear algebra to look at amendments for their full content.

 

[BigBozat]

Doing some family stuff over the weekend, I'll try to post some screen shots of it, I'm still fine tuning things and I want to make sure it's on point before I put it out there. I've got MANY of hours working on it, I was considering offering it for free and having a donation link, if I did sell it I would make the price very cheap, like a few bucks.

I'm considering applying some linear algebra for the amendments but I'm not even sure if excell would allow for such calculations but I will try. What that allows for is more dynamic calculations. Instead of using one or two amendments for a certain element you can use linear algebra to look at amendments for their full content.

Excel handles linear programming with its Solver pack/add-on... Simple conditional value solving is done with the GoalSeek function, and bigger models with its Scenario building tool...

 

[MountZionCollec]

THANK YOU Humphry for the explanation and Milky for making it happen! Also that Excel file sounds awsome!