Lightweight Peat's Mucky Muck soil testing

[Lightweight]

You got that right. Organic soil research is harder to come by.

Knew a girl once who used vansil on her flower garden. It worked, she said, No more itching or burning

I think you are probably talking about a different Vansil than jidoka. He was talking about wollastonite Vansil W-10 (calcium silicate).

 

[biggreg]

Ah, i must have mis-read

There is some research out there on calcium silicate and histosol crops showing big results in yield and pest resistance. Organic soils can be naturally low in Si.

 

[jidoka]

lol...yea calcium silicate.

the hardest cation to get into the plant is calcium...get silicate first and that gets easier. i prefer it over ksil cause k is easy to get in the plant. on theanion side phosphate is the hardest...in micronized form calcium silicate is absolutey awesome

 

[biggreg]

When we look back in time before the interstate hwy system and the trucking of sterilized bagged peat, way back, container soils were generally a mineral-organic soil. Loam, composted manures and sand.

These mixes were heavier and had a higher CEC /100cm3 ( CEC per volume)than the less dense organic only peat mixes. This worked well in containers for a couple thousand years at least. Mostly fell out of favor due to economics. Too heavy to ship, heavy to move around, prone to disease if soil life isn't addressed. Bagged Canadian peat and chemical fertilizers saved labor and improved bottom line.

But what would the plants prefer? That's what us small time hobby container farmers need to know. We don't care as much about the economics of running a greenhouse for profit. We care mostly about plant quality.

Straight mineral soil in containers needs help with water holding and drainage/aeration. But as it crosses into a hybrid of organic and mineral soil, it works fine in containers. The other end of the spectrum is a pure organic soil. The two soils have differing properties and must have differing ideal test results. The hybrid mineral-organic mixes would have ideal test results in between the two, dependent on the % mineral/organics I'd suppose.

 

[jidoka]

or calcined de to improve drainage/water retention. axis de is a game changer

 

[biggreg]

Anyone have experience with testing for Si in mineral or organic soils? I'm just now catching up with silicon and haven't looked into it that much other than notice some labs test for it.
Is there a preferred method? Some target amount to push for? Limits?

The other micro tests out there Se, Mo, Co others I'm sure, anyone run those tests? I'm interested but ignorant.

 

[jidoka]

Boron (Hot CaCl2) 1 -3 ppm,,,1/1000 Ca
Iron (DTPA) 40-200 ppm
Manganese (DTPA) 30 -100 ppm
Copper (DTPA) 2 – 7 ppm
Zinc (DTPA) 5 -10 ppm...454 lbs per acre P2O5
Molybdenum (Nitric Acid) 0.5 – 2 ppm
Cobalt (Nitric Acid) 2 – 40 ppm
Selenium (Nitric Acid) 0.6 – 2 ppm

from my main man, Graeme sait at nutri tech

 

[acespicoli]

Anyone have experience with testing for Si in mineral or organic soils? I'm just now catching up with silicon and haven't looked into it that much other than notice some labs test for it.
Is there a preferred method? Some target amount to push for? Limits?

The other micro tests out there Se, Mo, Co others I'm sure, anyone run those tests? I'm interested but ignorant.

Si is like 70% of the earths crust?

 

[jidoka]

Si, I am looking for 100 ppm.

 

[biggreg]

Most Si is in an unavailable form in mineral soil and in organic peat deposits could be not much at all. From what I've seen it's a must for organic soils and needs to be replaced in intensively farmed mineral soils. For some plants it is a macro nutrient.

 

[biggreg]

Boron (Hot CaCl2) 1 -3 ppm,,,1/1000 Ca
Iron (DTPA) 40-200 ppm
Manganese (DTPA) 30 -100 ppm
Copper (DTPA) 2 – 7 ppm
Zinc (DTPA) 5 -10 ppm...454 lbs per acre P2O5
Molybdenum (Nitric Acid) 0.5 – 2 ppm
Cobalt (Nitric Acid) 2 – 40 ppm
Selenium (Nitric Acid) 0.6 – 2 ppm

from my main man, Graeme sait at nutri tech

Thanks!

 

[acespicoli]

Abundance (atom fraction) of the chemical elements in Earth's upper continental crust as a function of atomic number. The rarest elements in the crust (shown in yellow) are not the heaviest, but are rather the siderophile (iron-loving) elements in the Goldschmidt classification of elements. These have been depleted by being relocated deeper into Earth's core. Their abundance in meteoroid materials is higher. Additionally, tellurium and selenium have been depleted from the crust due to formation of volatile hydrides.

Its actually 90% of the earth crust I just googled it and 100 ppm sounds more realistic.

Is that just dissolved?

 

[biggreg]

Its actually 90% of the earth crust I just googled it and 100 ppm sounds more realistic.

Is that just dissolved?

Si isn't easily dissolved into the soil solution. Only a portion of it has the potential to dissolve. Monosilicic acid (H4SiO4) is the form of silicon used by plants.

http://www.springer.com/cda/content...229294-c2.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1544438-p177646737

 

[biggreg]

I'm not too adept at finding published research papers other than my Google fu ain't too bad.
I've searched for these by Dr. Mehlich but it seems you have to be a legit researcher to download them off those science scholar sites. I don't get it?

For those of you who may have access, here are 3 published works on volumetric reporting of soil tests. Dr. Mehlich had to adapt to the wide range of soils in North Carolina. From sandy low CEC soils to high CEC, lightweight peat land. He preached plants grow in a volume and why not use relevant data.

Mehlich A. 1972. Uniformity of expressing soil test results. A case for calculating results on a volume basis. Commun Soil Sci Plant Anal 3(5):417–24.

Mehlich A. 1973. Uniformity of soil test results as influenced by volume weight. Commun Soil Sci Plant Anal 4(6):475–86.

Mehlich A. 1980. Why not use relevant data? Soil Sci Soc Am J 44:440–1.

 

[biggreg]

Interesting how the North Carolina style test evaluates each soil sample with weight/volume and a humic matter test to classify soils as either mineral, mineral-organic or organic. Each has its own target ph recommendations.

Necessity is a mother of innovation.

 

[biggreg]

Organo-clay hybrid soil is on my mind. These two chemically active portions of soil bind together to form organo-clay complexes. Adding clay to a container mix would give the mix a blend of organic and clay fractions for exchange sites, allowing a more mineral soil like target ph and nutrient a availability profile?

 

[biggreg]

Loam has around 20% clay by weight. Wondering what % of a peaty container mix could be a clay?

Calcium bentonite looks like a winner for a high CEC clay with our favorite element in it - Ca!

 

[biggreg]

Got this AA 7.0 CEC test done to compare with my Mehlich 3 summation CEC. The soil in the M3 side by side was ph 6.5. The AA test is buffered to 7.0 . If we add the cations up in the M3 test that was actually weighed in, it looks to be close to the AA 7.0 test. ( cmole per Kg = meq/100g, the metric version, same thing)




If we use the scooped samples, not so close.

 

[jidoka]

be careful with calcium bentonite. it has a high cec because it has a lot of surface area...very small particle size. a little bit works fine but 20% may make drainage an issue.

red lake earth is ca bentonite and silica. my local tractor supply carries it

 

[biggreg]

Maybe if using the higer CEC Ca bentonite, one could achieve similar % of the cation exchange sites on clay fractions in the mix vs mineral soil loam, using a smaller % of clay?