Advancing Eco Agriculture, Product Science

[milkyjoe]

So I don't have time to explain exactly how I am calculating these things. I apologize but I just cant explain right now...three or four more weeks and I will have a little time. Everyone that wants to use soil balancing...or as I call it Living Balanced Soils, or LBS for short...should learn how to do the calculations for themselves.

I also cannot comment on N without data. I would recommend everyone spend the extra money to get C:N and also ammonium nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen and AEA plus test. The AEA plus give Si, Mo, Co and Se. I really think the first 3 are important

Anyways give me a minute to calculate.

 

[milkyjoe]

So for Ca...gothic A needs 6.5 lbs of calcitic lime (hi cal lime, please do not use oyster shell), tunnel needs 3.2 lbs of gypsum, cover b needs 0.5 lbs Calcitic lime.

Cover a needs 63 grams of K2SO4.

All 4 need 11 grams of Borax or (my fav) 8 grams of Boric Acid.

All 4 could use about 60 grams of Manganese Sulfate and 4 grams of Copper Sulfate.

Make sure to spray Ca...I recommend Albion or JH Biotec and micros as your high P will tie those up in the soil

Please consider my buddy at customhydronutrients for your mineral needs. He is more than fair and really fast.


edit...sorry, the recommends are for 1 yard of soil.

 

[MrBungle]

Hi cal lime these days instead of oyster shells? I will have to check that out... I have to get an order in over there anyways... CustomHydroNutrients is second to none!

 

[milkyjoe]

Oyster Shell takes a long time to become available or even show up on a Mehlich 3 test. That leads people to use more and more Ca. Next thing you know their soil is over 80% Ca...and that blocks Mg and K uptake...it is truly the salt you cannot get out of the soup.

I fucking hate oyster shell. Plus look at the cost difference.

 

[cdisco86]

Milky, thank you!! Getting all those other tests you recommended done now and should be back tomorrow.

I will look into everything you wrote too and try and get it from the place you recommended, do they carry the Albion as well or should I get it through their website? I looked on the Albion website and was unsure exactly which Ca product to purchase. Also, since the tunnel A is already planted could I just top dress all of these instead of mixing it into the soil?

 

[milkyjoe]

Custom hydro carries jh biotech...basically same thing as albion metalosate Ca. I use the organic powder at 6 grams per gallon foliar

 

[cdisco86]

Okay, so here are my other tests done by Logan labs on the same soul samples. For a little background info cover a and no cover b are the soil mounds that havent been amended, cover a used a fava bean cover crop and no cover b had no cover crop at the time, and still a couple months before planting. Tunnel A was soil from cover a which was ammended really heavily and planted into our high tunnel about 3 weeks ago. Had a little transplant shock due to the high N and P, but looking good now. The Gothic A is the same soil from cover a, but amended much much lighter with only chicken manure, neem seed and earthworm castings. We haven't planted in this yet however. But we will be soon and the soil is already mixed into our 65gal. Pots.

Again, thanks for your time and all your knowledge, any advice from here helps greatly!!

 

[milkyjoe]

Here is my take on ewc and why I view them as an amendment vs a part of my soil.


My favorite ewc is worm power. Tested by the University of PA a yard of worm power delivers 7.27 lbs of P2O5 and pretty much 19 lbs of N, Ca and K.


So lets say I have a yard of soil with zero P. I know that I want my P2O5 lbs per acre to be between 300-500. Over that I start tying up Ca and micro cations...Zn, Mn, Fe and maybe Cu.


So lets say I want to take my hypothetical soil to 400 lbs per acre. A yard is 1/807 of an acre furrow slice. So 400/807 means I need to add about 0.5lbs of P2O5 to a yard of dirt.


The Coot mix...1/3 compost/ewc/whatever...using worm power would deliver 7.27/3 = 2.4 lbs or P2O5, basically 5x what I want.


So 2 cf of a yard of worm power delivers all the P2O5 I need even starting with no P in the original dirt.


I also know that things like ProMix (basically peat and perlite) start out with 100-120 lbs per yard of P2O5.


So basically I see too much ewc as a far bigger problem than not enough around here.

 

[cdisco86]

Hey milky, thanks for your response, was wondering if you could touch on the test results I posted above. Not too sure if the saturation amounts are good or not, seeing tat everything is lacking a little on the calcium but more than enough mag. And K. And also kind of lost on everything on there, other than he parts that really show a deficit on there. Should I still just go with what you recommended before with the Albion Ca and added boron and what not? Sorry for all the questions! I havent had much experience with these soil tests at all.

 

[GreenHands13]

Hey hope everyone's summer is going well I got a logan labs test on some old soil and was wonder what you guys think and or suggest as far as other products and AEA products and dilutions. Thanks.

 

[milkyjoe]

So how did you get Silicon all the way up to 103? I have been wondering what would happen if you get it that high. I would not go higher.

You need some N...what are your go to N sources.

You have high Ca which will prevent you from building up K and Mg quickly. Do not add anymore Ca.

You need to add Mg and K...Epsom salt and K2SO4 would be my suggestions. 1.3 lbs of Epsom salt per yard and 0.08 lbs per yard K2SO4.

You also need 0.1 lbs of mnso4. This will not get you where you are going but will move you in the right direction. Plan on adding this for a few grows but it is harmful to microbes if applied heavier, so slow and steady is the plan.

Plan on adding 0.75 ounces per gallon of aea's salute Mn...or an amino chelate, Albion or JH Biotech. Also plan on adding 0.1 ounces of salute Mo to the weekly fertigation..

 

[milkyjoe]

Okay, so here are my other tests done by Logan labs on the same soul samples. For a little background info cover a and no cover b are the soil mounds that havent been amended, cover a used a fava bean cover crop and no cover b had no cover crop at the time, and still a couple months before planting. Tunnel A was soil from cover a which was ammended really heavily and planted into our high tunnel about 3 weeks ago. Had a little transplant shock due to the high N and P, but looking good now. The Gothic A is the same soil from cover a, but amended much much lighter with only chicken manure, neem seed and earthworm castings. We haven't planted in this yet however. But we will be soon and the soil is already mixed into our 65gal. Pots.

Again, thanks for your time and all your knowledge, any advice from here helps greatly!!

So all of these soils are a little hot...C:N ratio less than 10. You will probably have lower carbon at the end of the grow than now. The excess N will burn off some Carbon. So no added N.


So for major cations...cover A needs K2SO4 0.6 lbs.


The other 3 all need Ca and I would use Wollastonite (Vansil W10) at 34% Ca cause you have lowish Si also. Gothic A 6.5 lbs Vansil, tunnel a 3.2 lbs and a 0.25 lbs on no cover


All of them can use 11 grams of Borax per yard. Also 0.1 lbs of MnSO4 per yard that will move you closer to where you need to be

 

[GreenHands13]

Thanks for that info MJ I appreciate any info you provide. I got silicon levels so high by adding about 25% decomposing granite to the mix. I have ferti nitro and PPD for N sources. with the total N at 4300 ppm how much more N should I add?

 

[milkyjoe]

The N thing is something I do not know the absolute answer to yet. I am personally shooting for a 10:1 C:N ratio. 4300 is a good amount so just add some Ferti Nitro a little at a time. FN is great stuff so it will not burn even if you overdo it....at worst you will get tighter than a 10:1 ratio and burn out a little carbon...so just play it by feel but don't sweat too much one way or the other.

Nice on the granite. That is an excellent choice for the long run. I would love to see some pics of your stems if you are cool with that. When you see thick ass stems on the tips you just know you are gonna stack bud.

 

[GreenHands13]

Sure Ill try and take some and get them posted tomorrow thanks again for the info MJ it is much appreciated.

 

[Dab Strudel]

Milky, PLEASE tell me every time you wrote 'gt' you meant qt. I copied a bunch of your comments to not have to ask you 101 questions and now that I am going back over them, one partial of a comment read '..for small scale tainio rec...they rec 20-30 gal of water foliar per acre. So I simpl6 started usine 1/30 of the acre amount per gallon... or to make it simpler 1 gt is 1 ounce'

Are you saying-

A) measurments that say to apply 1 qt is divided to be 1 ounce

or

B) gt is yet another marijuana anomaly for ounce?

Im sure its A but you've used both many times and g is 4 keys east and one key south of q.

 

[milkyjoe]

Its A...sometimes I am a dumbass

 

[Dab Strudel]

I figured so for the last week, but for some reason today I read that comment in a different light.

 

[milkyjoe]

For the record I have no clue what a gt is...but that never stops me from giving my opinion

 

[MrBungle]

Sometimes we all find a reason avoid "q"