Living organic soil from start through recycling CONTINUED...

[3rdEye]

This conversation is much better

Lap-

Do you add anything for your pH, i'd bet that it is pH of 8 because of calcium carbonate. Have you been doing anything to lower you pH? Or do you just let the water sit in a reservoir for a while?



Weird-

I definitely don't overfeed. I'm probably one of the few who underfeeds, and then tries to make up for it.

My real question to you (other than your soil mix) is, are those red wigglers or earthworms from the backyard?

I will answer this question from my own experience. In containers i have that are over 5 or 6 gal US i have/had both red wrigglers and larger earthworms populations. For the larger worms populations is a bit misleading. Probably no more than a handful of the big ones can inhabit a container that size. I would feed them the same way people feed their pets. Every week i would have pulp from making apple cider vinegar or shredded slightly fermented banana peels and bury some of that under some of the mulch.

Low and behold within a few days all the food is gone and i am left with a pile of worm castings as well as excellent aeration from the semi-persistent tunnels they leave. Not to mention the buffering capacity of the calcium carbonate in worm castings as well as an abundance of beneficial micro-organisms. The CaCo3 buffers on it's own, but the bacterial polysaccharides also have buffering capacity alongside binding soil particles together.

Natural doesn't mean it isn't complex. It just means we want to leave those tasks to the organisms best suited. Worms love drilling holes and eating bacteria and leaving me with all those benefits that otherwise people use chemicals, tilling, etc to achieve.

Nature. What won't it already have answers for next?

 

[3rdEye]

Which meter do I need to find out what is ailing these plants?
View Image

A very expensive meter and many many tests will tell you if your weed is good.

So send all of that to me and i'll run those "tests". I'll send you my results using smoke signals.

 

[Microbeman]

(I no longer use molasses)

Any special reason?

 

[Weird]

yeah

I found that when I was using it my plants seemed to stall. I started checking the PH and it was real off, well out of any natural range.I do not adjust PH but I also don't like to use anything in too severe a range.

I stopped the use of molasses and the stalling stopped.

I have tried several types of molasses as well.

 

[milkyjoe]

A very expensive meter and many many tests will tell you if your weed is good.

So send all of that to me and i'll run those "tests". I'll send you my results using smoke signals.

I know I should just shut up...but then I drink, or get high or whatever and...

So when you look at a normal distribution curve do you only see one extreme or the other? Is the fact that 99.9999% of all actual reality lost on you?

Nuance is where reality lies brah. Extreme talking points is where actual insanity lies

 

[PWF]

if you want to be a real asshole about it, try only watering your plants when it rains.
people picking at others in how they grow is retarded.
ingesting it to get any effect other than nutrition, is that "natural?
2 years of general chemistry before organic chemistry.
that is because organic chemistry breaks general chemistrys rules and in many cases we are still discovering why.
chemical companies makes $$$ off general chemistry only delving into the organic side to create drugs to counteract the harm their chemicals create.
take EDTA. it is in your 5hr energy drink because it regulates blood pressure.
it is also in foliar sprays, surfactants, conventional fertilizers and even many "organic" bottled nutrients UNLABELED.
the pumice/perlite debate is more just "bait" or 'batin'.
picking flyshit out of pepper.
organics, or whatever you want to label it, is a frontier being kept from farmers by the status quo.
pwf

 

[PWF]

on another note,
i have been using down to earth brand neem seed meal in my mix globally and as a top dress.
it makes fungi boom for me.
in the top dressings that i leave a little pile, the fungi inhabits the pile making it a solid clump ultimately shriveling it up to nothing.
i have stimied Dr Elaine Ingham lol. she insists it is a fungicide.
i invoke the scientific method lol.
i showed her pictures and suggested she try and replicate my results giving her my soil ingredients etc.
this is the fun part, counting fields not so much.
peas,
pwf

 

[Pendleton]

That is interesting, before you made a comment like that you have created a living soil indoors and ran it for several generations?

Opinions are one thing, successful experience another.

Weird, maybe you shouldn't assume a new handle is a new grower. Attempting to set your personal ethos as the only marker for growing experience is a poor arguement, but in this case an amusing one since I know you well enough to know when you jumped on the LOS bandwagon.

It's ironic that you're turning into some LOS bully in organics; I remember when you barely posted in here because of the treatment you got from certain ROLS members for having a differing opinion.

 

[Pendleton]

Pfw, does the down to earth brand contain anything other than neem meal? Perhaps a binder or other physical agent which may explain the fungi? The oil certainly is funcidical, but perhaps the meal is not.

 

[Weird]

Weird, maybe you shouldn't assume a new handle is a new grower. Attempting to set your personal ethos as the only marker for growing experience is a poor arguement, but in this case an amusing one since I know you well enough to know when you jumped on the LOS bandwagon.

It's ironic that you're turning into some LOS bully in organics; I remember when you barely posted in here because of the treatment you got from certain ROLS members for having a differing opinion.

I am not using an ethos but anecdotal experience, nor am I comparing mine to his.

Joe has come in here several times questioning our results based on the readings from his garden.

If you remember when I came here then you can easily go through my gallery an show me which are rols/organic/transitional/chem grown plants .

You might also notice regardless of method my results are optimal.

This is an example of expertise and experience, try to slight me as you may.

Joe comes here to stir the pot not to add value. If I were a bully I would be making fun of people at their own expense simply because they did not grow like me.

I don't give a fuck how anyone grows, I do care if the one thread that talks about a certain method is polluted with off topic, non productive critiques like yours.

This is a tread about living soil, either your about it or your not.

I don't go into the other parts of this site telling people what I think about how they grow, but you know what, I could because I have, with superior results, with my own genes and others, well before there was a web.

Unless you like Joe are saying I should measure my run off and blame my castings.

I guess you could Google chemical properties of vermiculture and tell me how high vermiculture can get in nitrogen and still be classified as vermiculture.

I don't normally call people out for being straight up stupid because they aren't smart enough to use logic and google to figure out if half the things they are challenged by are even conceptually possible.

Thats why I go into my abstract and lengthy explanations.

See I am not a bully, if I were a bully I would pick on Joe for being dumb enough to think that you can make hot vermicompost and then you for trying to defend his statment that his castings are hot when he read the run off from his whole container.

Ill give you a hint, research chemical properties of vermiculture and tell me the range of nitrogen they are comprised of?

Scientific method would require you measure your soil components individually as well as in unison.

Once again it is dudes arguing concepts they don't understand (its a null argument but I think if your watching this thread that long you should know this as well)

but please show me the horrors of vermicompst as they have panned out in your garden, strengthen your claim I am a bully just knocking people around to stroke my ego.

Hey and if you have been around that long maybe you can have the integrity to share who you were before you new name change.

 

[Lapides]

I'm the bully around here, not Weird.

On topic - My LOS garden is going pretty well. I'm harvesting some really nice plants all week, into next. Plants going right in with very little work. Dig a hole, insert worms, insert plant, throw on the amendments. Done and done. Gets easier and better every time!

 

[Weird]

on another note,
i have been using down to earth brand neem seed meal in my mix globally and as a top dress.
it makes fungi boom for me.
in the top dressings that i leave a little pile, the fungi inhabits the pile making it a solid clump ultimately shriveling it up to nothing.
i have stimied Dr Elaine Ingham lol. she insists it is a fungicide.
i invoke the scientific method lol.
i showed her pictures and suggested she try and replicate my results giving her my soil ingredients etc.
this is the fun part, counting fields not so much.
peas,
pwf

I use from neem resource and it does the same thing, I don't think that means it does not also function as a fungicide. I think it promotes the growth of benign/beneficial myceleium populations as well as possibly attacking others.

Just like how the azadactrine in it only targets insects that feed on the plant, but not predatory insects themselves.

 

[Former Guest]

My understanding of DE if used in a mix, is that it is only harmful to organisms when dry. This is why it is used dry on the surface for gnats. Once it is wetted it is harmless (apparently). I have avoided mixes which have a lot as a precaution...

Interestingly I've avoided neem products for the very same reason. If it kills pathogenic fungi and pests then it must do likewise to friendly bugs and fungi.

Sphagnum peat is superior due to its much higher CEC, its porosity consistency, its humus content and microbial make up. However people using soluble fertilizers report a greater success with coco coir.

I really need to read up on Kempf. Some of the things people have reported him to say sound like peudo-science but that is unfair because it is 3rd hand info.

This has been asked before.

 

[mojave green]

neem & microbes?

neem & microbes?

http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=crb.2008.64.66
http://www.tillotsoninstitute.com/important-herbs/neem-leaf-oil-azadirachta-indica.html
http://www.sustech.edu/staff_publications/20120507114834981.pdf

 

[Weird]

your links regarding using taking it internally as medicine are irrelevant

But in regards to your last one Neem vs Myco has been discussed before

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=173303&page=2

Evaluation of organic soil amendments
I finally found a peer-reviewed study on the effects of neem seek meal (aka cake) on the soil microbes and specifically mycorrhizal fungi - [cite]

Two things worthy of note in this study is not only the effect of neem seed meal specifically but the results from adding peat moss to the soil as an amendment.
Quote:
"Soil amendment with neem cake was reported to favour the multiplication of Trichoderma spp (Krishnamoorthy and Bhaskaran, 1991)"
Also noteworthy are the numbers under the "Seedling Vigour Index" column, 2x using neem cake vs. the control field as well as Germination Rates, Root Length, Shoot Length and Dry Matter Content.

HTH

CC

Neem & Earthworms
by S. Gajalakshmi and S. A. Abbasi
Centre for Pollution Control and Energy Technology
Pondicherry University
Kalapet, Pondicherry 605 014
India


Abstract

Vermicomposting of neem (Azadirachta indica A. Juss) was accomplished in ‘high-rate’ reactors operated at the earthworm (Eudrilus eugeniae) densities of 62.5 and 75 animals per litre of reactor volume. Contrary to the fears that neem - a powerful nematicide - might not be palatable to the annelids, the earthworms fed voraciously on the neem compost, converting upto 7% of the feed into vermicompost per day.

Indeed the worms grew faster and reproduced more rapidly in the neem-fed vermireactors than in the reactors fed with mango leaf litter earlier studied by the authors (Gajalakshmi et al., 2003). Another set of experiments on the growth, flowering, and fruition of brinjal (Solanum melongena) plants with and without fertilization with vermicompost, revealed that the vermicompost had a significantly beneficial impact.

That's what they found..............

CC

Here ya go my friend:

It seems strong evidence shows neem oil/cake and AM fungi are fine together, and neem befits AM fungi:

P.S. the fact the rep. from Mycorrhizal Associates, Inc. had never heard of neem makes me even more suspicious about the supposed authority of M.A....


1. Biotechnology of Va mycorrhiza: Indian scenario
By Dr. Sudhir Chandra, H. K. Kehri
(book)



2. Handbook of Pesticides: Methods of Pesticide Residues Analysis
By Leo M. L. Nollet, Hamir Singh Rathore
(book)



3. Comparative efficacy of VAM fungi in combination with neem cake against Meloidogyne incognita on Crossandra undulaefolia
By Nagesh, M.; Reddy, P. P.; Rao, M. S., 1999: Mycorrhiza News 11(3): 11-13
http://mycorrhizae.org.in/files/Myco11-3.pdf





Other papers showing neem cake and AM fungi is fine, I should be able to get the full test of most of these:



4. Efficacy of Glomus fasciculatum in comparison with neem cake and carbofuran for management of Meloidogyne incognita on black gram and green gram
Borah AparajitaNeog P. P.Sinha A. K.
Annals of Plant Protection Sciences, Year : 2007, Volume : 15, Issue : 2
http://www.indianjournals.com/ijor.a...=2&article=037


5. Management of root lesion nematode, Pratylenchus delattrei in crossandra using oil cakes
By G. Jothi , Rajeswari Sundara Babu , S. Ramakrishnan and G. Rajendran
Bioresource Technology, Volume 93, Issue 3, July 2004, Pages 257-259


6. SUPPRESSION OF MELOIDOGYNE INCOGNITA IN LYCOPERSICON ESCULENTUM WITH AM FUNGI AND PLANT EXTRACTS
S. Sharma, A. Bharadwaj
ISHS Acta Horticulturae 695: I International Symposium on Tomato Diseases
http://www.actahort.org/books/695/695_47.htm


7. Effect of different levels of neem cake and biofertilizer on properties of soil, nutrient status and grain yield of black gram (Vigna mungo L.) type-9.
Hakeem, SA; Thomas, T; Wani, S. 2007.
PLANT ARCHIVES. 7(2):847-849.
http://mycorrhiza.ag.utk.edu/latest/...08_4hakee1.htm


8. Management of Meloidogyne incognita on tomato by integrating endomycorrhiza, Glomus mosseae with oil cakes under nursery and field condition
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2216028


9. Effect to integration of endomycorrhiza (Glomus mossae) and neem cake on the control of root-knot nematode on tomato
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3690249

 

[Weird]

I guess my plants didn't get the memo

 

[Lapides]

I love these kind of people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmRe_fK7pbw

We need more regurgitators around to confuse the masses.

 

[bigshrimp]

What is the recent consensus on adding lime to a ROLS mix? I have pretty alkaline water that raises my media over time if I don't add citric acid to it.

Should I bother with lime?

I have not re-limed since mixing my soil, my well water has about 300 ppm CaCO3 and along with other calcium rich amendments i dont think that i need it.

The hardening of the soil that was mentioned is due to unbalanced calcium to magnesium ratios. High magnesium will lead to tightening (seen with excess dolomite lime), while lots of calcium will give the soil a spongy absorbent texture.

While were talking about alkaline water - I've been using apple cider vinegar instead of citric acid (for carbonate neutralization) for a few months and have not noticed a difference. Much cheaper and easier to source.

 

[trichrider]

http://www.ibiblio.org/london/Gateway_to_Archives.html

just a link. wink.

 

[Seaf0ur]

nice link trich... I got another.

http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/

25 years of HortScience archives.