Balancing Soil Minerals

[Weird]

soil optimization from a chemical or biological point of view can both be equally valid while using different mechanisms in the same system

making them fight it out in the bath room in between periods, is just that

understanding how one effects the other is how the new agriculture is cashing in right now

how many newly patented microbes found in nature put on the market to change agriculture?

how many newly patented minerals found in nature put in the market to change agriculture?

 

[Robrites]

Jesus.
I was learning so much at the beginning of this thread.
Now I am confused by opinions.

 

[milkyjoe]

Robrites...here comes my honest opinion. It don't really mean anything but take it for what you think it is worth.

MM's method works great if...big IF...the quality of ingredients is thete. Do you make compost as good as MM? I sure as fuck don't. And the only 2 things I have seen that I would consider are oly mountain fish compost and worm power. No doubt there are others but I ain't seen em.

Michaels method works with the dirt in your back yard. It relies less on quality ingredients.

So buy your ticket and take your ride

 

[CannaBrix]

Disregarding albrecht ratios,

Is there any other way of balancing ratios?

Such as, the correct ratios of elements which:
A) Provide sufficient amounts of each element
B) Do not negatively interact or lock-out each other

 

[Cep]

CannaBrix,

The ratios are determined after analysis. Adjustments are made based off what percentage of the CEC is occupied by any given element. Without the CEC and exchangeable cations shown on an analysis you're shooting in the dark. Back when I was gardening in the dark I'd try to just figure out where my pH was and lime the soil. This can be stupid if you already have enough calcium and your soil is low in Mg or K.

 

[CannaBrix]

Cep-

I understand what the Albrecht ratios are and how they are determined.
My question is disregarding his work, are there known amounts and ratios of the elements which will give the plant the nutrition it needs, without creating a lock out scenario?

Edit: relative to CEC

 

[Cep]

Right, I don't see how else you would "balance ratios". The target values given on the analysis (5ish:1 Ca:Mg, K:Mg, 2:1 Fe:Mn, etc.) are based upon soils close to the targets producing healthy crops. Next step is sap analysis.

 

[ponolove]

Is sap analysis available in Oregon yet? I hope micheal comes back this thread is very informative

 

[CannaBrix]

So the answer to my question is no.

Albrecht and reams came up with the ratio idea. Astera has extrapolated their information, and gone further with their studies to come up with a ratio of the other elements. This information was from experience, and by noticing healthy plants.

 

[Cep]

And the mineral analysis of the plants to compare with the soil data like he said earlier. If more work is done like that we can get closer to finding out what is ideal for canna.

Pono, I don't think we have that option yet.

 

[m_astera]

I'm Here

I'm Here

Hi All-

Apologies for neglecting this thread. I have been traveling for the past three months; started this thread when I was settled in for a couple of weeks, now I'm stationary again for a little while and will do my best to address the questions I missed, starting about page 6. Thank you all for your interest and great comments and insights.

Michael A

 

[m_astera]

I guess you know - no soil biota = minimal mineral availability. I'd rather be stuck with organic matter full of life, than a pile of rock dust from sears and roebuck but of course consideration of both is best.

If I have a large bacterial feeding nematode population (and/or flagellates and naked amoebae), I can project to a degree a good supply of bioavailable nutrients.

If soil biota were essential for mineral and nutrient availability hydroponics would never work. Don't mean to be flippant, but for the past 65 or 70 years "alternative" agriculture has been fixated on soil organic matter and, more recently, soil biology, to the almost complete exclusion of any knowledge or mention of the real basis of soil fertility, which is mineral.

In the past twenty years this fixation on organic matter and biology has reached a level of absurdity. For example, in March of 2014 at the Permaculture Voices conference in California, keynote speaker Elaine Ingham told an audience of hundreds that all soils everywhere had all of the minerals any crop could need, and not only was it unnecessary to add any minerals or fertilizers, but that it was harmful to do so. Only one person there challenged that statement (one Ingham has made many times over the years) and his question was dismissed by Ingham with an anecdote about a pasture in New Zealand that "grew better" when compost tea was added.

Should that unquestioning acceptance of a complete falsehood be blamed on sheer ignorance, wishful thinking, or what?

Understand I do not denigrate the importance of soil biology or soil organic matter. Far from it; but neither biology nor organic matter are the source of soil fertility, any more than the digestive bacteria and fiber in the intestines are the source of the nutrients that keep one alive.

Mineral nutrients do not need to be chelated in order for a plant to absorb them; unlike the higher animals, plants are perfectly capable of absorbing mineral ions directly from the soil/water solution (again, hydroponics could not work if plants didn't have this ability). Microbes and fungi can and do make some soil mineral nutrients more available, but, barring transmutation of elements, they simply cannot create an element that does not exist in a given soil.

I don't pretend to write Rxs and IMO, those who do successfully are mostly lucky.

This is like saying "I don't pretend to cook, but IMO those who follow a cookbook recipe successfully are mostly lucky". There is surely a place for art and experience in both cooking and soil building, but the Ideal Soil method is based on balancing minerals to specific ratios based on particular soil tests. It is hard science, not guesswork or luck.

 

[m_astera]

Okay Michael. Have an interesting question to ponder. Definitely dislike these hot summer sleepless nights where the mind runs amok while trying to get some shut-eye. So here we go.

Brand new beds 6x6x18". Total of 400 gallons of soil. You mix it all up; peat, compost/EWC blend and we will leave the aeration out of the equasion since it brings nothing to adjusting the nutrient level in the mix. So you send a sample out to Logan or whomever and it comes back. You do the math or pay to have a Rx done on the soil. The Rx indicates that the soil is needing x amount of say Calcium, and y amount of say Magnesium and z amount of whatever to balance it to Albrecht's standards. And lets say that the Rx has been adjusted for a lighter weight soil such as peat.

Now here is where the equation gets tricky. The amounts indicated in the Rx are only for the first 6" of soil and not the entire 18"? So if that is the case and you desire to add the amendments to the entire 18" of new soil mix top to bottom, would you need to add three times (3x) the amount of amendments indicated in the Rx if you wanted the mix to be the same all the way through?

I hope I explained that correctly for you to understand, and I thank you for your time and infinite knowledge you are sharing with us.

" The amounts indicated in the Rx are only for the first 6" of soil and not the entire 18"? So if that is the case and you desire to add the amendments to the entire 18" of new soil mix top to bottom, would you need to add three times (3x) the amount of amendments indicated in the Rx if you wanted the mix to be the same all the way through?"

The short answer is yes, to balance/fertilize 18" you would need to add 3 times the amount needed for 6". However, working with an organic, lightweight container media requires a different approach.

Clay, loam, and sandy soils are largely mineral and much heavier than mixes made up mostly of organic matter. The convention for the last umpteen years has been that the top 6 to 7 inches (the "plow layer") of an acre of soil weighs 2 million pounds, hence one part per million (ppm) equals 2 lbs per acre in the plow layer.

2 000 000 lbs / 43 560 sq ft per acre = 46 lbs/sq ft 6" deep, or 92 lbs/sq ft 12" deep. IOW, the convention is that a cubic foot of dry mineral soil weighs ~90 lbs. Organic soils or growing media are much less dense. A cubic foot of dry peat moss may only weigh 7 lbs or less. Because of this, we can't make the assumptions used for mineral soils, we need to know the weight per volume.

To determine weight per volume, measure one US gallon of the growing media, pour that into a metal pan, and dry it in a 250* oven until it is completely dry. Then weigh the gallon of dry media and record the weight in grams.

A typical weight for cannabis growing media is ~1200 grams per gallon. There are 202 US gallons per cubic yard, so one cubic yard, oven dry, would weigh 1200 x 202 = 242 400 grams per cubic yard.

To reduce that to parts per million by weight, divide by one million:

242 400 grams / 1 000 000 = 0.242 grams

1 ppm = 0.242 grams per cubic yard

Let's say our soil test results tell us that we need to add 500 ppm Calcium. How much Ca is that per cubic yard of this media?

500 ppm x 0.242 = 121 grams of Ca per cubic yard

If our chosen Calcium source is a high Ca ag lime that tests at 38% Ca, we need to divide that 121 grams by 0.38:

121 grams / 0.38 = 318 grams per cubic yard of 38%Ca = 500 ppm Calcium per cubic yard.
~~
[ If you are using the metric system exclusively, 1 cubic meter equals 1000 liters. Weigh say 4 liters of oven dry media, and take that times 250 to get the weight of one cubic meter]

 

[oti$]

nice to have you back...in your own thread. I have nothing to contribute, but I'll be lurking and soaking up the knowledge that's being dropped in this thread.

 

[idiit]

Mineral nutrients do not need to be chelated in order for a plant to absorb them; unlike the higher animals, plants are perfectly capable of absorbing mineral ions directly from the soil/water solution (again, hydroponics could not work if plants didn't have this ability). Microbes and fungi can and do make some soil mineral nutrients more available, but, barring transmutation of elements, they simply cannot create an element that does not exist in a given soil.

cool. thanks for posting. this is an important topic.

 

[milkyjoe]

Michael...labs like Logan do not weigh soil when they check tcec. They use volume which means whem you have a light soil tcec is far under reported. High peat soils should have tcecs over 50 if peat has a tcec of 100+.

When we are doing weight calculations should we not also recalculate tcec for the actual weight of the soil?

When dealing with bcs %s I don't do that math since the tcec will be off by the same factor as the weight of my soil. I take lbs per acre and simply convert to lbs per yard by dividing by 807...yards in an acre furrow slice.

That does not work for ppm though. So micros ypu have to do more complicated math.

Or I could be completely wrong...that possibility always exists with me

 

[Microbeman]

If soil biota were essential for mineral and nutrient availability hydroponics would never work. Don't mean to be flippant, but for the past 65 or 70 years "alternative" agriculture has been fixated on soil organic matter and, more recently, soil biology, to the almost complete exclusion of any knowledge or mention of the real basis of soil fertility, which is mineral.

In the past twenty years this fixation on organic matter and biology has reached a level of absurdity. For example, in March of 2014 at the Permaculture Voices conference in California, keynote speaker Elaine Ingham told an audience of hundreds that all soils everywhere had all of the minerals any crop could need, and not only was it unnecessary to add any minerals or fertilizers, but that it was harmful to do so. Only one person there challenged that statement (one Ingham has made many times over the years) and his question was dismissed by Ingham with an anecdote about a pasture in New Zealand that "grew better" when compost tea was added.

Should that unquestioning acceptance of a complete falsehood be blamed on sheer ignorance, wishful thinking, or what?

Understand I do not denigrate the importance of soil biology or soil organic matter. Far from it; but neither biology nor organic matter are the source of soil fertility, any more than the digestive bacteria and fiber in the intestines are the source of the nutrients that keep one alive.

Mineral nutrients do not need to be chelated in order for a plant to absorb them; unlike the higher animals, plants are perfectly capable of absorbing mineral ions directly from the soil/water solution (again, hydroponics could not work if plants didn't have this ability). Microbes and fungi can and do make some soil mineral nutrients more available, but, barring transmutation of elements, they simply cannot create an element that does not exist in a given soil.



This is like saying "I don't pretend to cook, but IMO those who follow a cookbook recipe successfully are mostly lucky". There is surely a place for art and experience in both cooking and soil building, but the Ideal Soil method is based on balancing minerals to specific ratios based on particular soil tests. It is hard science, not guesswork or luck.

Yes exactly, in hydroponics, ionic form is necessary and these are generally provided by the grower in this form. If one is growing organically/naturally hydroponically then there is a requirement for 'many' essential nutrients to be 'processed' into ionic form.

I have spent thousands running experiments with hydroponic systems in attempts to show that plants could uptake 'organic' nutrients and failed. When we incorporated a biological system (aquaponics) into it we had success. When we used ionic form nutrients (as you state) we had success.

I have never agreed with those statements by Ingham. I think it is important to make minerals available. My mind is open to include a system with biology combined with minerals.

Subjectively;
As for RX formulae, there are so many labs and technicians who make errors, as evidenced by variance in results and advice received from the same samples, that I just do not trust the process. I also have been in a lab where several people are looking at the comparison coloration chart/graph and each seeing a different hue. Perhaps if I found a technician I could trust my tune would change.


The only argument otherwise is your seeming statement that organic matter does not contribute to fertility. Of course there is room for interpretation and mine could be wrong from your perspective but obviously organic matter contributes nutrients.

 

[milkyjoe]

In fact the way I tend to look at compost is as a P and K amendment. If I need those it is good...but if I already have them it just throws balance off and the plant takes up K instead of Ca.

I have come to prefer growing humus by growing healthy plants that dump liquid carbon into the root zone. An actual anabolic process vs compost which inevitably releases carbon into the atmosphere.

 

[m_astera]

I have never agreed with those statements by Ingham. I think it is important to make minerals available. My mind is open to include a system with biology combined with minerals.

Biology + minerals is what I work with. The mineral based fertilizers that I have developed for soilminerals dot com and others have always included beneficial fungi and bacteria. The problem comes from the mindset of the Rodale school, Permaculture, Biodynamics, and others who fear chemistry and are dogmatic that organic matter is the one and only answer to all questions and problems. The cheapskate factor is also relevant

Subjectively;
As for RX formulae, there are so many labs and technicians who make errors, as evidenced by variance in results and advice received from the same samples, that I just do not trust the process. I also have been in a lab where several people are looking at the comparison coloration chart/graph and each seeing a different hue. Perhaps if I found a technician I could trust my tune would change.

Fully agree that one has to have a trusted lab, also a trusted testing method. The Ideal Soil method I use only works really well when the Mehlich 3 extractant is used, and even then CEC can only be estimated accurately if the pH is 7 or below. If the pH is above 7 or the media/soil has free Ca or Mg, an ammonium acetate pH 8.2 test needs to be used to measure the base cations and calculate CEC, with the M3 results used for the other elements.

The labs I use these days do not compare colors; they use ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma - mass spectrometry). The sample is burned at an extremely high temperature and the emitted light spectrum is analyzed by a computer that has been calibrated to a known sample for each element, e.g. if the calibration sample contains 50 ppm Ca, the machine needs to read 50 ppm Ca.

The only argument otherwise is your seeming statement that organic matter does not contribute to fertility. Of course there is room for interpretation and mine could be wrong from your perspective but obviously organic matter contributes nutrients.

I'm not saying that organic matter does not contribute to soil fertility. The humic fractions of the soil have many beneficial properties; the exchange capacity of humus is also important and it provides habitat for soil biota and has a major effect on soil texture, water holding ability, and buffering against temperature and chemical shock from concentrated fertilizers. However, "organic matter" per se is not a dependable source of essential mineral nutrients, and those counting on compost, manure, or decaying organic matter to grow excellent crops are not approaching the task in a logical or dependable manner, unless each component is analyzed and known. For instance:

Even a sandy loam requires at least 2,000 lbs of Calcium per acre for best growth. What if we measured the minerals and found that we needed to add 1,000 lbs of Calcium? How much compost would that take, at 11 grams Ca per 100 lbs? It would take about 4,000,000 lbs: Four million pounds of 75% moisture content compost per acre to add 1,000 lbs of Calcium. It gets worse: While we were adding that 1,000 lbs of Calcium we were also adding almost 4,000 lbs of Potassium, far too much. Well balanced soils need about 1/7th as much Potassium as Calcium, so this soil would call for about 280 lbs of Potassium per acre; we would be adding over 3,700 lbs too much, assuming that we were crazy enough to try adding four million pounds of compost anyway. From http://soilminerals.com/compost_manure_humus.htm

 

[m_astera]

Michael...labs like Logan do not weigh soil when they check tcec. They use volume which means whem you have a light soil tcec is far under reported. High peat soils should have tcecs over 50 if peat has a tcec of 100+.

When we are doing weight calculations should we not also recalculate tcec for the actual weight of the soil?

Milky Joe-

This is an important point and one I haven't given enough thought to before now. I believe you are correct; when Logan (and most labs, I'm sure) measure out a sample for testing they use a volume scoop, which is not weighed. I can only assume they treat all samples the same, as if all soils and growing media weighed the same per unit volume.

I will contact Susan Shaner at Logan Labs, ask her about this, and post whatever response I get to this thread.

When dealing with bcs %s I don't do that math since the tcec will be off by the same factor as the weight of my soil. I take lbs per acre and simply convert to lbs per yard by dividing by 807...yards in an acre furrow slice.

That does not work for ppm though. So micros ypu have to do more complicated math.

Or I could be completely wrong...that possibility always exists with me

[43 560 sq ft per acre, 6" deep, is 21 780 sq ft 12" deep or
21 780 cubic feet

21 780 cubic feet / 27 cubic feet per yard = 806.67 cu ft/yd]

We still run into the problem of soil density. When working with area of land, rather than make the assumption it all weighs the same, I figure we are working with the top 2 million pounds of soil at whatever depth that works out to be.

What we're up against is tradition and inertia in agronomy, soil testing labs, and the fact that neither mainstream nor alternative agronomy has applied this knowledge of soil minerals and soil chemistry the way we are using it today. New stuff, and it's up to us to work things out and get it right.

Michael A