Got a soil test done

[St. Phatty]

For specialized soil tests, e.g. for Gold, the labs are pretty picky.

One lab I talked with requires particles to be .003 or smaller. That is a fine mesh. In order to use them, I have to buy a specialized stainless mesh and hold my breath so as not to breathe the mountains of dust that are created screening the test sample.

Small particles are good for a lot of chemical testing.

 

[Mattbho]

When a guy like slownickle chimes in you should sit down , shut up, ask questions ,take notes and appreciate him contributing his time. This guy has forgotten more about agriculture than most will ever know. Not from copy paste Google knowledge from real world farming/growing.

Or just buy some woo woo

Excellent thread about cec and soil building balancing ect only 500 pages

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=331317

 

[f-e]

You want to blindly believe, that's your decision to make. Don't tell others to make like a sheep though.

We just don't look at the balance. It says nothing about quantity. We left that behind decades ago. It's quantity now. Look at the report we are working with. Can you hear any conversation here about ratio's? Quantities. That is what we need. Not talk of woo woo ratio's and no figures at all.

I'm sure he can correct me, without quite so much bigotry. If he can actually make a case, which I hope he can, now I have painted an accurate picture of what I think

 

[slownickel]

You want to blindly believe, that's your decision to make. Don't tell others to make like a sheep though.

We just don't look at the balance. It says nothing about quantity. We left that behind decades ago. It's quantity now. Look at the report we are working with. Can you hear any conversation here about ratio's? Quantities. That is what we need. Not talk of woo woo ratio's and no figures at all.

I'm sure he can correct me, without quite so much bigotry. If he can actually make a case, which I hope he can, now I have painted an accurate picture of what I think

The concept of balance is still on every soil analysis out there. Just look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-aOvYH-HNQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Here are a couple of pHD's explaining it. From the analysis you can make calculations.

 

[GOT_BUD?]

I appreciate the hell out of everybody who stepped in here to offer guidance.

I too was skeptical of slownickel's claims. So I went and took a look at his post history and quickly changed my tune. It took very little time for me to realize he was someone who knew what he was talking about and was someone who I should listen to. And so have several other members whom I hold in high regard.

f-e - you are also someone with a vast amount of knowledge when it comes to soil biology. I appreciate your feedback (and pushback) on the subject. Your post history is filled with a ton of good knowledge.

In slownickel's defense, he did not point to a different lab in his first post. He just made the claim that Logan isn't as good as people have been led to believe. It wasn't until I asked him for an alternate that he made a suggestion of someone else.

I feel really lucky to have you two arguing in my thread.

 

[h.h.]

https://soils.wisc.edu/extension/pubs/A2986.pdf

 

[slownickel]

https://soils.wisc.edu/extension/pubs/A2986.pdf

What a terrible article, thanks for posting that.

Given they had super low Ca to begin with, of course their conclusions are right. Another terrible scientific article based on absolute stupidity.

And the study was done on alfalfa. Getting response from Ca without balancing all the rest of the elements is nearly worthless, especially if you are in washed out soils. Balancing just two elements is not a balance. That is called BAD SCIENCE.

None of their base saturations ever got close to where they need to be. Sort of like Albrecht running his numbers back in the 30's. He was testing on corn. He preached 68-70% Ca for years, then he realized it was 85% Ca.

When you have a cheap crop, most folks don't get past N, P and K. Given that P was not mentioned either in this terrible article, other limiting factors were surely at work.

I love reading stupidity like this. Been taking idiots like this author to the wood shed for years.

 

[slownickel]

[/URL]

Here is an interesting tidbit of reality about many scientific articles.

 

[Rico Swazi]

slownickle, my bad, I thought for years your master was in agroecology
still respect your opinion coming from another angle. Thank you.



talk about hype, carbon neutral cultivation will bring in double what you are getting for organic.
Rich people think of it as buying carbon credits to offset their lifestyles.
helps them sleep better so I hear.



Back to the soil tests, is there any consideration done for water quality and atmospheric input over time?

we get a bit of nitrate from lightening and rain in the spring, how does one account for that and other acid rain particulate in the recommendations ?

 

[slownickel]

slownickle, my bad, I thought for years your master was in agroecology
still respect your opinion coming from another angle. Thank you.



talk about hype, carbon neutral cultivation will bring in double what you are getting for organic.
Rich people think of it as buying carbon credits to offset their lifestyles.
helps them sleep better so I hear.



Back to the soil tests, is there any consideration done for water quality and atmospheric input over time?

we get a bit of nitrate from lightening and rain in the spring, how does one account for that and other acid rain particulate in the recommendations ?

My BSc is in Agriculture (Agronomy) and my Masters work was in Ag Economics, International Trade. My thesis wasn't accepted because I did it on an IBM pc in Lotus instead of the mainframe.... FUCK EM. They can keep it!

I imagine one could try to account for things like nitrate in rain, but I don't know anyone that does. Given the top soil for the first 7 inches ways over a million lbs, a light application of nitrate probably doesn't do much other than green things up a little.

I went into Organic only because I could get a nice premium. I would much prefer to farm with salts as it gives a much better result if you know what you are doing.

In this industry, the premium for Candy versus garbage is incredible. Unlike any other commodity out there...

 

[slownickel]

If a real balance is not achieved, many of the higher functions of the plant, like rood exudates don't happen.

The result is a half assed root system and conditions where there is little response to many inputs, most especially Ca.

 

[h.h.]

What a terrible article, thanks for posting that.

Given they had super low Ca to begin with, of course their conclusions are right. Another terrible scientific article based on absolute stupidity.

And the study was done on alfalfa. Getting response from Ca without balancing all the rest of the elements is nearly worthless, especially if you are in washed out soils. Balancing just two elements is not a balance. That is called BAD SCIENCE.

None of their base saturations ever got close to where they need to be. Sort of like Albrecht running his numbers back in the 30's. He was testing on corn. He preached 68-70% Ca for years, then he realized it was 85% Ca.

When you have a cheap crop, most folks don't get past N, P and K. Given that P was not mentioned either in this terrible article, other limiting factors were surely at work.

I love reading stupidity like this. Been taking idiots like this author to the wood shed for years.

I guess my dad was a BAD SCIENTIST.Worked his life in the field.
Helped more real farmers.
Calcium is promoted by lime salesmen. Some folks follow them.

 

[slownickel]

I guess my dad was a BAD SCIENTIST.Worked his life in the field.
Helped more real farmers.
Calcium is promoted by lime salesmen. Some folks follow them.

Does that mean your Dad didn't run base saturations or adjust accordingly? That would be sad.

Never met a lime salesman other than the ones I sell my limes too.

 

[h.h.]

Does that mean your Dad didn't run base saturations or adjust accordingly? That would be sad.

Never met a lime salesman other than the ones I sell my limes too.

Bottom line is your ratio is old unproven science. It has been debunked. It makes you sound smart on a forum though.

 

[slownickel]

Bottom line is your ratio is old unproven science. It has been debunked. It makes you sound smart on a forum though.

Since you keep posting that Solomon's book which I am in several places why don't you ask him what he thinks about ratios and whether or not he is using Tiedjens numbers instead of Albrechts' now a days.

That article you posted is like several others. All they did is show there was no real difference between a being way out of balance or only half way balanced. If you don't get it right, you don't get it right. Half assed is half assed.

Given base saturations are on EVERY SOIL ANALYSIS, not sure why you think this concept has been debunked at all.

Any chance your Dad wrote or contributed to that article? Then I would understand the butt hurt you're feeling.

In case you missed it, here are two "recent PhD's talkigg about base distributions and why they are so important. Why don't you go complain to them. Maybe they would like to hear you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-aOvYH-HNQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[Microbeman]

That's a great start to library, that speaks volumes without even picking one up.

Don't get me wrong, there are people here making a living, flying around teaching others based on golden ratio's. It has global acceptance. It's just here that the labs scoff at it. The thread is in advanced. Growers round table perhaps. Lot's of youtube links to a series of professional growers that swear by it in the states.

It is the latest artificial cash cow. It is based on tribalism rather than sound science.

 

[Microbeman]

My farm is organic. Which to be honest, is a terrible way to grow. Using synthetic chemicals that do not screw up micro biology work much better than organics.

A good example. When you use nitrates, you can maximize uptake of Calcium. When one uses nitrates, the plant can pick up 4 Ca for every 2 K.

When one uses ammonia or ANY ORGANIC NITROGEN SOURCE (yes any) the plant can only pick up 2 Ca for ever 2 K.

Unfortunately, that is the signal to the plant to mature and flower. Which means in organics, we really have no chance of hitting gang buster yields.

The hype behind organics is really about not eating nasty chemicals. Nutritionally I would argue, most Organic grown crops aren't that healthy to eat.

Why you say? Simple. The premise from the beginning is wrong.

If you take all the organic material from your farm, your neighbors farm, and from all around you. Feed it to a cow, compost the manure, then make worm castings out of it.

What will the chemical profile look like of the ending worm compost compared to the soil?

Unfortunately, the same or worse! If you have high Fe and no Mn in your area, you can expect them same in the worm castings, in fact, probably several times worse!

If you have no P in the soil, guess what will be in those worm castings? Very little P.

It is impossible to have a successful system this way.

There is no free ride folks. Your job as a farmer is to create balance, not lopsided nutrition for a plant.

I know this is not a popular stance amongst many of my farming friends, but reality is reality. Science is science.

So why do I grow Organically? I get a 30% premium, that's it.

Now in this industry, the premium is so much higher and has NOTHING to do with Organics.

There are $200 pounds out there and there are $4K pounds, why? QUALITY. Unlike any other industry or commodity in the world, folks will pay good money for good smoke. PERIOD.

(My Masters work was in Ag Economics so please excuse the economic twist).

So are you talking farming cannabis or food or both? I'm an old farmer myself and produced very good yields of cannabis by growing naturally, using a shotgun approach.

This means ignoring the ratio hype and understanding the plant is not a straw sucking a recipe of provided nutrients. In other words the most advanced scientific method to date. This views the plant as interactive in soil solution composition.

Certainly a soil test can be valuable but the ones I found of benefit were done by labs which can test for everything; metals, contaminants, leaf and soil nutrients, etc. using HPLC. These tests usually run about $250 and are done by accredited labs.

Got Bud; If you have high organic matter it is virtually impossible to have low Boron. For my take on Boron please look here;
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=339371

I even quote Slownickel at the beginning of the article.

 

[Microbeman]

slownickle, my bad, I thought for years your master was in agroecology
still respect your opinion coming from another angle. Thank you.



talk about hype, carbon neutral cultivation will bring in double what you are getting for organic.
Rich people think of it as buying carbon credits to offset their lifestyles.
helps them sleep better so I hear.



Back to the soil tests, is there any consideration done for water quality and atmospheric input over time?

we get a bit of nitrate from lightening and rain in the spring, how does one account for that and other acid rain particulate in the recommendations ?

We get a lot of nitrate generated by lightning here in the Jalisco mountains.

 

[St. Phatty]

Sounds like a lot of knowledgeable Cannabis growers could sell Grow Chemicals to American farmers.

If they want chemicals, and not organic, well heck if they're willing to pay for it.

I've been wondering if there's a way to extract NPK Ca Mg and Sulfur from human #2, without the smell.

Then just tell the farmers it comes from Rock Phosphate and other natural sources.

 

[h.h.]

Sounds like a lot of knowledgeable Cannabis growers could sell Grow Chemicals to American farmers.

If they want chemicals, and not organic, well heck if they're willing to pay for it.

I've been wondering if there's a way to extract NPK Ca Mg and Sulfur from human #2, without the smell.

Then just tell the farmers it comes from Rock Phosphate and other natural sources.

Yucca extract?//www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-89132017000100701