Alternatives to Perlite for soil aeration?

[h.h.]

I say drainage a lot when I really mean areation.


As water drains, it pulls in fresh air.
In an outdoors garden, wicking takes the place of drainage.
With zeolite, pumice, lava rock, they will hold moisture and they will hold pockets of air.
Good drainage and you can flush out that old air. Any left over salts from prior waterings. The right material and you can still maintain moisture and nutrients.
Pittmoss. A tad, okay a lot overpriced, works well for aeration and water retention.

 

[risasdemaria]

I say drainage a lot when I really mean areation.


As water drains, it pulls in fresh air.

"Air and Water Pore Space



Particle sizes and the spaces they create are fundamental because particle size and distribution dictates the air-holding and water-holding capacity of a medium."


not sure I can link the source as it might be taken as spam


"Pores are the spaces between the solid components of the medium. Most soilless growing media contains 60% to 80% total pore space. Pore size determines the rate of drainage and gas exchange. The size and distribution of pores is one of the most critical factors in developing a growing medium with optimum physical characteristics. The amount of air and water pore space is determined by particle size. Larger or coarser particles have a greater percentage of air pore space, while smaller or finer particles have a greater percentage of water pore space. Adequate distribution of large and small pores is essential."

 

[CrushnYuba]

Hey Crushnyuba, Sounds like as good a hypothesis as any on the drainage and what may suffer. The tiny pots as you call them are not so tiny to me) and are as big as they can be and still be moved around the garden and under cover when needs be.
I also plant in the ground so no need for 10x bigger container , never used perlite myself mainly because it looks so unnatural to me (outdoors especially).
I attribute better tilth to the increased worm activity in the woodchip container. More food is my guess at this moment
gonna do a side by side in these two containers with some headband clones and see what there is to see

I just mean the same size plant in a larger container Would be less established through the medium. It wouldn't be able to suck all the water out and being in fresh 02 as easily. I believe in the power of little pots. I can't tell you how many Times i have seen the plant that didn't get transplanted outgrow the one that did.
When you are a little rootbound drainage holds you back. Organic and soiless. When your plants are less established, getting your soil texture perfect is more important. Overwattering is more of a concern also.

 

[Rico Swazi]

I just mean the same size plant in a larger container Would be less established through the medium. It wouldn't be able to suck all the water out and being in fresh 02 as easily. I believe in the power of little pots. I can't tell you how many Times i have seen the plant that didn't get transplanted outgrow the one that did.
When you are a little rootbound drainage holds you back. Organic and soiless. When your plants are less established, getting your soil texture perfect is more important. Overwattering is more of a concern also.

well shit, I totally missed the point and agree with you on the root mass filling up the container (short of being root bound) is optimal.
This is typical of the size of the plant in the 25 gallon containers. The plants to the left and background are in hugelkultur raised beds.




It is my opinion the best alternative to perlite would be that which is local, sustainable and well suited for a gardeners particular micro climate Low humidity environments may find fast draining soils problematic for example.

last but not least-
Water by gravity does supply O2 to the roots but lets not forget the role of exudates bacteria and fungi in the process.

 

[risasdemaria]

Master Aerator

 

[h.h.]

You can have maybe not fast, but faster draining soil that still retains moisture and nutrients.


Prepot with a little oatmeal in the mix. The starches will help with soil aggregation. They create a pathway of fungal food throughout your soil. Seems to work for me anyhow. Along with other things.

Texture. Pushing through the oxygen without saturation while having the ability to hold and extract moisture and nutrients.
In all goes hand in hand.

 

[Cvh]

well shit, I totally missed the point and agree with you on the root mass filling up the container (short of being root bound) is optimal.
This is typical of the size of the plant in the 25 gallon containers. The plants to the left and background are in hugelkultur raised beds.

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=79870&pictureid=1937175&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]


It is my opinion the best alternative to perlite would be that which is local, sustainable and well suited for a gardeners particular micro climate Low humidity environments may find fast draining soils problematic for example.

last but not least-
Water by gravity does supply O2 to the roots but lets not forget the role of exudates bacteria and fungi in the process.

I had never heard about hugelkultur before, thanks for sharing.
It sounds very interesting.

I found this article when googling about hugelkultur.
https://richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

And also an interesting video: 'hugelkultur - the ultimate raised garden beds, gardening without irrigation':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sso4UWObxXg

Hugelkultur is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten wood. This makes for raised garden beds loaded with organic material, nutrients, air pockets for the roots of what you plant, etc. As the years pass, the deep soil of your raised garden bed becomes incredibly rich and loaded with soil life. As the wood shrinks, it makes more tiny air pockets - so your hugelkultur becomes sort of self tilling.
....

For the plants on your picture (the left and background ones), did you also just pile up some rotten wood and added a layer of soil on top?

If you build your hugelkultur raised garden beds tall enough, you won't have to irrigate. At all (after the second year). No hoses. No drip system.

Do you agree on this part in the article? Has it indeed have good water retention? And also no issues with drainage/aeration?

Another thing to keep in mind is that wood is high in carbon and will consume nitrogen to do the compost thing. This could lock up the nitrogen and take it away from your growies. But well rotted wood doesn't do this so much. If the wood is far enough along, it may have already taken in sooooo much nitrogen, that it is now putting it out!

I do guess that using well rotten wood speaks for itself.

Do you see any problems (ie. deficiencies,...etc) with this growing style?

I wouldn't mind seeing a growlog with this growing technique and also how it was all set up.

 

[Microbeman]

I was also interested in the rot factor for the hugelkultur beds. There was a video posted in the discussion about biochar where a 'new' farmer is clearing land and building hugelkultur beds as he goes, using freshly cut green wood. OMG I thought in my mind as I saw he was piling soil on top of this wood. I hope he is going to leave this to degrade for a long time.

If I were building such material for a bed, I would surround the green wood with some compost and wet straw which should encourage white rot fungi that should speed up the degradation of the carbon and lignins. I wood cover it with soil much later.

We have successfully incorporated old tree stumps into raised beds.

I'd be interested to hear Rico's experience/methods.

As for the use of smaller pots, transplantation, aeration/drainage, I've experienced better results planting rooted cuttings or seedlings directly into beds or large containers of living soil. As noted, we have built our soils with about 15% hard based drainage material, like rock material. Initially there are also some drainage materials which degrade (more) over time; rotted wood/bark bits, biochar.
As time goes by if the soil is not molested and is of sufficient volume, living soil builds its own maze of drainage from fungal, worm, bug, root, microbial activity.

This does call for faith in the microbial hierarchy. This faith is a particular challenge for me right now as I try to allow life back into soil which was essentially dead. My topdress materials right now are limited to whole avocado leaves and horse manure so the N transfer is slowed until the soil chain gang catches up.

 

[St. Phatty]

Some of the best soil I have access to is from a winter stream bed that has madrone trees felled in it.

I call it a stream bed ... it's sort of like a crevice that runs about 300 yards, and is really steep, 45 to 60 degrees.

It is directly downhill from a historic gold pocket so there is some incentive to dig it out.

But the gold that I found first, was the Soil. Wonderful soil smell. Castings from carpenter ants, termites, etc. Considering that they're slowly chewing up about 10 large trees ... there's a lot of castings.

 

[h.h.]

Avacado trees only grow in plant paradise.
Pioneer planting.
The three sisters. The other three. Maybe only two. Holding back on the corn.
I usually start out with pumpkins.
They spread and shade the ground. They do limit your future crop as far as growing more squash for a couple seasons.

 

[Badfishy1]

ATM I am growing vegetables on a stump that fell over during the hurricane. I also have my compost pile sitting under there with exposure to the sun and seems to compost faster there than my previous 2 spots. Thanks for link to hugenkulture or whatever the spelling

 

[h.h.]

 

[h.h.]

 

[h.h.]

California location.
Sandy "dead" soil.

Pumpkins.

 

[40degsouth]

Excellent, yes, yes, yes, fantastic!!!
Microbe man, we are indeed relying on the micro heard to break down the lignin etc. But the big question is, how much nitrogen does this system rob from the soil and what are the benefits??
I don't believe wood, in log from, takes that much from our soils, reason being that the surface area is quite small, as opposed to, say wood chip, or worse, saw dust.
The benefits, however, are miriad. Deep aeration and gas exchange, fungal hyfie networks, microbial town houses, lodgings for beneficials and the most important factor,from my research and studies, the ability for the plant to feed upon and work in symbiosis with, all of the above but more importantly, have the ability to feed off a number of different imputs as it requires.
I've interlaced small logs, to build up sloping areas, this year and planted raised garden beds on top with great results. Some very impressive plants, as opposed to, others that were put on the ground. Still big, but plant health is slightly behind with all the same feeding.
Something that hasn't been touched on is the wood used!! Hard wood as opposed to soft wood.
Perhaps someone with more experience in the research can enlighten me.
Cheers,
40

 

[risasdemaria]

ATM I am growing vegetables on a stump that fell over during the hurricane. I also have my compost pile sitting under there with exposure to the sun and seems to compost faster there than my previous 2 spots. Thanks for link to hugenkulture or whatever the spelling

do u have a compost termometer :? I'm also growing some other things as "trap culture" among other reasons, and kinda working out also as cover crop, with smart pots on top of the compost pile/bag. As matter of fact earthworms seem to like that contact zone as they use to show around there after a while that I pick up the smart pots and I see them - got one with black beans, great for nitrogen fixation (and as green for next compost round, etc, food, etc)

 

[risasdemaria]

how much nitrogen does this system rob from the soil and what are the benefits??

actually if we talk legumes, it's quite the opposite. There's a great Standford University professor class on this matter in the internet that will explain much better and in detail than me


the long story short is there are these bacteria that actualy build nodules of nitrogen basically out of the one the bacteria takes from the air. In other words they add nitrogen to the soil out of the air, which, I guess we'll agree there's a plenty of



this simbiotic relationship plant-bacteria seem to be so far only present in legumes, though there could be other plants developing these nodules (I have seen them in my own plants as I use lentils in various forms) but that they actually are not formed so much by nitrogen in mineral form


but mostly with all legumes, this simbiosis seem to exist, and so, u know, the $200B a year fertilizr companies are not happy about that, and I can guess why

 

[40degsouth]

Hi Risasdemaria,
Indeed legumes build nitrogen in the soil and any plant plant that has a pod, such as acacias, is a legume.
I'm interested to learn more about the symbiotic relationship between bacterium and nitrogen fixing directly related to nodes.
From my studies the plant fixes nitrogen from the "soil atmosphere" not the atmosphere itself??
Nitrogen has an effect at higher and lower altitude, on development, due to the differential in oxygen levels but l might be off on a tangent here!!
Cheers 40

 

[Badfishy1]

do u have a compost termometer :? I'm also growing some other things as "trap culture" among other reasons, and kinda working out also as cover crop, with smart pots on top of the compost pile/bag. As matter of fact earthworms seem to like that contact zone as they use to show around there after a while that I pick up the smart pots and I see them - got one with black beans, great for nitrogen fixation (and as green for next compost round, etc, food, etc)

Sorry, I don’t have a compost thermometer. Only what I notice visually. So I will be the first to admit my observations are far from a published dissertation scientifically. I’m sure there are other factors as to the reason including exposure time along with moisture content. But I know the tomato plant I have sitting on there has exploded compared to others in different gardens.

 

[art.spliff]

Say an area has a slight elevation change, how would I go about using trees to level the slope? Will stacking logs or burying them near the fence be enough, with a higher berm of wood chips, or is it better to have a living tree line near the fence for roots to hold the soil? To help aid erosion rather than level the slope, and maybe hold more rainwater.