Living organic soil from start through recycling

[Gascanastan]

well water. shallow hand dug 40ft.

How many ACT's are we talking about?
Assuming you know that ACT is not a fertilizer,
ACT could possibly consume as much food as they can actually get at in your soil if over applied...then they'll be fertilizer.

Perhaps you have a lack of humic material........and/or a lack of drainage amendments,which would cause anaerobic soil conditions..creating lockout.

A properly assembled soil will be able to handle an application of any logically mixed liquid organic fert with a ph of 4.0 one day....and the very next day be able to take a kelp tea with a ph of 9.0...no problem...plants don't even blink.

I use Protekt on every watering...I haven't ph'd a thing in 3 years in the same soil...I do not have issues.

A lot of the problems people face with building organic water only recyclable soil mixes is that the products offered as far as EWC and compost are shoddy and lacking in humic material...this is the most important aspect of any organic soil.

Check the quality of your compost or EWC.

 

[YosemiteSam]

well water. shallow hand dug 40ft.

YoSam,

are these the Albrecht ratios you were talking about?

60-70%Ca, 10-20% Mg, 2-5% K, 0.5-3%Na, 10-15% H

Yep...I shoot for the 65% Ca and then I shoot for 12% H (based on Bruce Tainio's work)...K more than Na

If your cec gets much higher than 30 my guess is these exact numbers become less and less important.

About $25 per test at my local university extension.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

I've never owned a pH meter for this hobby. I make sure that I use the highest grade materials available, i.e. Sphagnum peat vs peat, pure Calcium Carbonates for amending, organic neem (or karanja) meal, kelp meal but most importantly is the humus component. It is impossible to amend you way to a successful garden if this part of it is lacking. Never gonna happen in spite of the claims made in 'how to grow dope' books and Duh Dude at the hydro store.

You cannot buy vermicompost at the level that I produce. There's enough available Calcium Carbonate just in this material to build a complete set of teeth for an extended family in Tulare, California and then some.

The function of 'liming' amendments as it relates to pH has nothing to do with any kind of chemical reaction - nothing. Without an understanding of the role of humus (humic acid & fulvic acids), clay, etc. there is no way to understand soil pH or even mineralization in general. Ever.

CC

 

[rrog]

You cannot buy vermicompost at the level that I produce. There's enough available Calcium Carbonate just in this material to build a complete set of teeth for an extended family in Tulare, California and then some.
CC

 

[YosemiteSam]

You need a little silica for those teeth also.

That is my understanding...quality humus component is what makes this work and plenty of it. That then allows you to mineralize a whole lot of things in there beside Ca and Mg. You just end up with so many negative sites that all kinds of trace cations can be brought into play that just flat cannot be any other way. You know the things that millions of yrs of evolution found to work best.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

I use soluble silica each and every time I water or spray the plants like Gascanastan mentioned.

Silica is a very mobile element both in the soil as well as within the plant. For one of it's function it has to be that way, i.e. building defenses against pathogens and insects. This element is not held in place by positive charges like Ca, Mg, P, K, et al.

HTH

CC

 

[YosemiteSam]

I find meself wondering if silica could not be processed right through the worms and come out in some silicate (SiO3) form? Not a clue though...just a thought.

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

How to say mean things without being mean...I've come to be apprehensive of friends advocating "permaculture". It's not permaculture's fault, I like much of what I read. It's that the couple dozen people I know into it in real life half-ass it and give it a bad reputation. They're younger new-agey "hippies" more interested in finding something that fits into their all-is-love na-ma-ste lifestyle than a system which actually works.

Like the couple I know who started a "permaculture farm" to brag about on facebook but they just work 9-5s and have a few fowl. I ran into them last week, after trying to tell the husband about myccorhizal fungi for the past year. "oh hey have you ever heard of this stuff before? You put it on the roots, it's fungi" he asked as he held up an ancient bottle he'd gotten at a yard sale. A "permaculture" farm, but no interest in actual science or organics. They just want the feel good earth-love and none of the hard work.

All that annoyance aside, I really enjoy the concept of earthship homes. There's a lot of energy to be saved in building in the ground.

I've generally had the same experience, but these guys are surprisingly (almost intimidatingly) committed young guys who are working on the marriage of permaculture and aquaponics with Earthship systems - cool guys who were down to talk cation exchange and water food web vs soil food web (turns out the water food web isn't nearly as well understood). By the end of the seminar, they approached me about teaching some organics classes for them - I don't think I know jack compared to the masters here assembled, but they seemed to think I have something to offer. We'll see...

Here's our duck coop project we built:

 

[MrSterling]

Very cool, bowls! Thanks for sharing the pictures. I love stuff like that.

 

[BlueJayWay]

Very informative reading these past few days, good shit guys!

Another plug here for Quality Compost / Worm Castings, its become quite nearly a fix-all in my garden, no shit.

Falls come a little late around these parts which means leaves are barely accumulating, gonna rake up a good pile next to the compost bins to winter over and be ready for some spring mixing.

A few years ago I thought it was so cool how when the snow is almost all melted and the forest ground is moist and soft (loamy) and seemingly alive with visible fungal hypha and molds webbed across the top of the ground, quite virtually connected for miles and miles - today this brings a whole new exciting world of what can be used and collected locally vs. lugging in bags of this and that from here and there and to top it off its way better and flippin free!

 

[BlueJayWay]

This is the biggest problem I face...not enough room and time. It takes so much freeking time to find the hybrid trait and breed true to it....you need massive populations.

That's how I feel, although I'm at the infancy stages and only have "the best" females saved from seeds ive grown out, it's intimidating thinking about what it is that I'd like to accomplish and the time available to actually do it, holy hell ill need to live a dozen lifetimes to get there LOL

 

[Gascanastan]

You cannot buy vermicompost at the level that I produce. There's enough available Calcium Carbonate just in this material to build a complete set of teeth for an extended family in Tulare, California and then some.

CC

LMFAO....I'm sure there's some left over for Fresno...and possibly Merced.

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

That's how I feel, although I'm at the infancy stages and only have "the best" females saved from seeds ive grown out, it's intimidating thinking about what it is that I'd like to accomplish and the time available to actually do it, holy hell ill need to live a dozen lifetimes to get there LOL

Best advice I've ever gotten about breeding is pick a specific project with specific breeding stock and specific goals.

( I wanna cross this and this to achieve these traits).

The traits you're after may appear in your f1 generation and may persist through a single back cross. Or you may have to take it out to f2 then bx, or f3, or pursue an interbred line (IBL).

But working with multilayered poly hybrids as we are (from what I understand, the hash trail hippies inadvertently ensured that pure landraces became hybridized by spreading cultivars in regions that relied on open pollination), breeding and popping every combination in search of a holy grail of the gene pool is an unrealistic and way overwhelming task.

On a side note about breeding, I've recently heard chatter about working with S1s to preserve recessive traits in filial generations - the genetics behind self-crosses elude me - anyone care to confirm or debunk?

 

[ClackamasCootz]

IB

The book Botany - An Introduction to Plant Biology is widely assigned in upper division Botany classes. The current edition is #5 but #4 has a web site that has information and a Search function that will probably be helpful.

CC

 

[MrSterling]

Bowl, while people taking nice expensive hybrids to developing areas is a concern, the landraces haven't been wiped out yet. There are a lot of options still available, even commercially.

As for S1: It is my understanding that an S1 can show more recessive qualities because you're limiting the choices for gene combinations. It's not that the S1 is an exact duplicate, but that the same genetic sequence is used twice in creating the new sequence. So you're ending up with a plant that is more inbred than a sibling breeding, and if the
recessives show up from both parents you have your recessive trait. There was some words from Tom Hill about selfings being 3x as intense as a sibling crossing.

 

[Gascanastan]

I use soluble silica each and every time I water or spray the plants like Gascanastan mentioned.

Silica is a very mobile element both in the soil as well as within the plant. For one of it's function it has to be that way, i.e. building defenses against pathogens and insects. This element is not held in place by positive charges like Ca, Mg, P, K, et al.

HTH

CC

....and what this means to a PNW grower is that since silica makes for strong cell walls,the non-native cannabis plant now has some protection against attack from pests and disease from this area....especially powderey mildew and mites. Not a cure...just preventative maintanence. Seems I have also read stuff about increased resin production as well???

 

[BlueJayWay]

A lack of chlorophyll seemed sweet until I started researching variegation in plants, all signs point to trashing this plant, its a dude BTW - waddya think?

 

[MrSterling]

BJW; I wouldn't want to let something like that get away without seeing what it'll pass to progeny. You never know what might pop up unless you try. I really dig variegation in plants from an ornamental point of view.

 

[BlueJayWay]

I don't want to either lol it's cool lookin to say the least, it's about 4 nodes taller and continues the variegation, it is vigorous so mutations haven't left it a stunted underdeveloped plant by any means, but it also has a 13 fingered two layered leaf and a couple nodes throwing out a three leaves instead of your usual pair

 

[DARC MIND]

Bowl, while people taking nice expensive hybrids to developing areas is a concern, the landraces haven't been wiped out yet. There are a lot of options still available, even commercially.

As for S1: It is my understanding that an S1 can show more recessive qualities because you're limiting the choices for gene combinations. It's not that the S1 is an exact duplicate, but that the same genetic sequence is used twice in creating the new sequence. So you're ending up with a plant that is more inbred than a sibling breeding, and if the
recessives show up from both parents you have your recessive trait. There was some words from Tom Hill about selfings being 3x as intense as a sibling crossing.

i believe the damage due to the loss of pure land races , had occurred long before the canna seed buiz took off. im pretty sure, nearly all of the popular strains that had been used to make some of the first commercial seeds, were already polyhybrids with a broad genetic base.. those guys worked more on hybrids then perservation projects so thers maybe a few selective breeding made IBLs out that first big wave..

sadly, 'hotspots' of great sativas are destroyed now, Thailand, Jamaica, Colombia, Mexico, Hawaii, have all suffered such oppression that the original genepools are destroyed,its the countries that only recently open to the west that may still have a lot of their original genepool intact & unpolluted..

the core of any true breeding mission must always be 'keep the best, kill the rest' imho, otherwise nothing will improve.
so many feel the danger of bottlenecking cannabis,comes from the fem industry and the common practice of selfing.

progeny testing & intense selection,is how i like to roll