Slownickel lounge, pull up a chair. CEC interpretation

[VortexPower420]

So I have been getting back in my gypsum game as well.

I was wondering why my ladies we not praying all the time.

I gave them a gypsum drench and now they pray all day.

Slow, with all that Ca would it be a good idea to pump the boron a little as well?

I find Hugh Lovels biochemical sequence interesting.

Horse tail is a mainstay mulch for me so my Si is up there just wondering is a B bump with the Ca would help?

 

[slownickel]

Vortey,

Glad they responded.

How about sending in some soil samples and contributing to the data base we are forming?

I will be making the data available to all.

Hugh is an old friend from more than 25 years ago.... The stories I could tell you of him and his radionics device in Florida...

This is a crop that wants high B, and needs high levels of balancing metals.

I use horsetail by the sack on my limes and avocado trees.

Thanks for stepping into the conversation with your observations. This type input is critical for those that are super confused from the mix of poor recommendations and pseudo science made with bad experimental design.

Thanks again!

 

[jidoka]

Planting,

I think this exercise demonstrates the need to push Ca early and keep your K reasonable all through the grow. Keeping Mg at reasonably low levels and pumping K at the right times. Pretty much what I wrote about earlier.

This crop is no different than any other annual.

I have run thousands of hectares of melons this way and gotten bumper yields and super high brix with great shelf life.

In the fruit or the leaf on the brix? I am guessing watermelon, at least todays hybrids need a bunch of k late

 

[slownickel]

I was referring to the Brix in the fruit.

Only in the last couple of years have I played with brix and that is not in the leaves, we measure brix in the roots.

Cantaloupes, honeydews and watermelons were the fruit that the company produced.

We got premiums in both the US and Europe for that fruit.

I met with a UK buyer yesterday, might plant some seedless watermelons on my own next year...

Only hybrids.... the chains demand specific seed. 90% of the time it is syngenta seed....

 

[VortexPower420]

The international food system is fucked.

I experience the other end from you slow. What it takes for the two ends to meet is killing the world.

 

[slownickel]

Aw come on. international trade is good... You get to eat fresh Peruvian grapes, mango, asparagus, sweet onions, mandarins, avocado and limes when there is none throughout the rest of the planet. A short 11 day ride to Houston, LA or Miami and you have fresh produce.

Remember when limes were $1 a piece in Jan/Feb of 2015? That meant $120/40 lb box.....

Likewise, Cali grapes, strawberries and even US GMO corn and soybeans for Peru... there I agree, yuk.

The world is not dying from International Trade, it is dying of malnutrition eating way too much K and not enough Ca. Sound familiar?

Read Albrecht's testimony to the US Congress in the mid 40's when they got rid of the free Calcium for farmer program. Lime used to be free and even applied to farmers fields for free.

That was the downfall of society as we knew it.

 

[VortexPower420]

Eh.. I am kind of a local nut. Keep the money in the local economy. It better for the people.

I agree with the shitty Cali fruits. Blame a part of the problem on the Driscoll brothers. They control most of the berry market in the world. Treat their worker slike shit poison the world and grow shitty berries.

I was part of a organization that got them pulled off the shelves at our local coop. They decided to listen to the berry pickers call for.a boycott untill working condition s are improved. Kinda big on workers rights to.

I totally agree with Congress being a large problem with the food system We have today. Both nutritionally and logistically.

 

[FoothillFarming]

Come on, government the problem......never. (heavy sarcasm)

Free lime program? I agree it's good the government gave that out......but then what happened? Farmers said, "well if it aint free it aint worth it..."?

 

[caterpillar710]

No then Ww2 happened and they had all that extra bomb making stuff so they repackaged it as fertilizer didnsome bad science and the conventional Ag revoluation happened

 

[VortexPower420]

Ww2 was the biggest push, but this goes back to ww1.

Biodynamic farming comes from farmers in the early 20s who were seeing the problems with nitrogen ferts.

First couple of years were bumper harvest as they burned out all their carbon.

The the problems started to set in. By the 40s alot of this stuff was needed to combat the problems they created.

Vicious cycle...

Now finally 100 years later we are slowly swinging it back to how it should be.

Y'all are awesome, growing clean meds while helping the soil.

 

[slownickel]

This is Momma wannabe OGK from "the" seed.

 

[slownickel]

This is the clone of Momma. A week or so behind Mom of the OGK wannabe.

 

[FoothillFarming]

Tell us more about her. What is the type of soil, light she is receiving ext ext.



It's come a long way, and looks quite nice. For some reason the mom is quite a bit fatter, looks like more than a weeks development. Staying green, slight tip burn, stacking very well for a little girl. I like it, good job.

 

[slownickel]

They are now getting a whopping 4 hours per day if that, temps yesterday hit 68 F. We are coming out of our winter...

They wake up every morning with dew, fairly moist, current relative humidity is 63%.

They are both in composite soils of lots and lots of soil samples, LMAO. Mixed in there are big 3/8-1/2 limestone rock, peat moss from Canada, my own worm castings and some sugar cane compost that I should not have used. It was full of sodium. Both have about 300 grams of gypsum and 25 grams of triple super phos mixed in, which was a bit much for seedlings....

I water once a week if that. Small perforated 12" pots. They did what they could and have been quite good soldiers.

They have had gypsum applied at least 4 times, the most recent last week in week 4, pushing the Ca envelope haha. Probably 30 grams or so last week.

Been adding 1, 2 and then 4 grams of pot sulfate starting this week, along with Albion multimineral, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, borax and manganese sulfate. Every other week I switch out the pot sulfate for MKP. Seaweed, brown sugar, fishy aminos (68%) and citric acid are mixed in that soup as well.

Seaweed, sugar, MKP and multi along with zn, mn, cu and the same aminos (68%) are applied foliarly with or without spinosad.

I also make and mix in ferments of fruit to make enzymes, lemon grass tea and aloe juices. The girls are mulched with tiller radish leaves and volcano vape left overs.

Water is 300 ppms, surely high bicarbonates, tap water that is left for 48 hours to let some chlorine evaporate.

 

[jidoka]

Wait a min. Not all of that is organic here...is it there

 

[slownickel]

No, never claimed to be organic at my home. Only at my farm.... And that is some 1200 kms from here...

 

[redlaser]

slow, are you mixing the pottasium sulfate with water? 4 grams sounds like a lot if it was in a gallon or two of water. What are your rates of application for zinc, copper, borax and manganese?

How are your lower leaves on those plants? I ask because of a few brown tips and the upping of the pottasium sound like a defeciency possibly.

I've been having pottasium deficiency and correcting it with pottasium sulfate at 1/2-1 gram per gallon of water in a peat/ perlite mix in 4 gallon containers.

 

[slownickel]

slow, are you mixing the pottasium sulfate with water? 4 grams sounds like a lot if it was in a gallon or two of water. What are your rates of application for zinc, copper, borax and manganese?

How are your lower leaves on those plants? I ask because of a few brown tips and the upping of the pottasium sound like a defeciency possibly.

I've been having pottasium deficiency and correcting it with pottasium sulfate at 1/2-1 gram per gallon of water in a peat/ perlite mix in 4 gallon containers.

That potassium dosage is in 2 gallons of water, and actually, that was split between 2 plants, not per plant...

I am using 1 gram MnSO4, 0.3 grams grams ZnSO4, 0.2 grams of Borax and 0.1 grams of CuSO4 per plant. Take those K or MKP dosages and halve them.... sorry. All that is always mixed with a gram or so of Multimineral and 2 ml of seaweed and probably 5 grams of sugar.

My mix is pretty porous and I water in slowly until I get a good accumulation in the trough under the plant.

 

[oct]

Not bad for a Jersey boy

 

[redlaser]

That potassium dosage is in 2 gallons of water, and actually, that was split between 2 plants, not per plant...

I am using 1 gram MnSO4, 0.3 grams grams ZnSO4, 0.2 grams of Borax and 0.1 grams of CuSO4 per plant. Take those K or MKP dosages and halve them.... sorry. All that is always mixed with a gram or so of Multimineral and 2 ml of seaweed and probably 5 grams of sugar.

My mix is pretty porous and I water in slowly until I get a good accumulation in the trough under the plant.

Thanks for those rates, they look like they are working well for your plants. Do you arrive at those rates through experimentation or is that a somewhat standard rate? I started off low at about half a gram per gallon of potassium sulfate because I haven't really found a recommended rate anywhere. Then when that seemed fine went to gram along with a half gram of zinc sulfate because I have it. Three days later there are pretty consistent dead pistils mostly on the top of the flowers at 35 days of flower. Newer leaves look healthy and unchanged, I'm guessing the zinc or potassium was a little much, other conditions are the same except it's 20 degrees colder at night, upper thirty's.