Slownickel lounge, pull up a chair. CEC interpretation

[led05]

Thank you L5.

Ill write that lab and find out the fees and options for testing the vermicompost. Last season the castings were definitely useful for my peppers and greens but im concerned they may be high in Na, Mg and K and maybe not doing me any favors with other produce. In any case knowing the values is reassuring.

I'm not endorsing that lab in anyway btw, zero experience with them. I was trying to find the local one for you as I spoke to the owner and got a run-down of who tested it (memory actually tells me Penn State which you already mentioned) and it tested for the same things as page 2 (realize that PDF was for diff samples) but included more, some of the mineral ratios and other things

 

[led05]

Someday soon...

Someday soon...

Pics would be awesome, but in interim

U know when your plants seem perfect, ideal and ur tips just turn up a little wee bit, burnt... How many think overfert?

The scenario is ideal plant just begging to tell you something...

It means ur late, u missed the boat on K.... It almost always happens to me, yet I never feel bad about it.................

 

[led05]

The deal

The deal

here is the deal...

K is a monster, so is Mg.... but exponentially less

K is critical yet a disaster and everything you buy, everywhere has too much of it... everyone's tap has too much Mg too.... most everyone

more than a year ago I said K 3-4 % max, ever, Ca huge... K at 3-4 % will end at 7-8 or way more nearly no matter what you do.... That is the deal..... everything has K in it, it;s terrible, don't start w it ...

PH closer to 7 than 6, even 6.5! helps too but that is blasphemy in this world

 

[led05]

Trade offs

Trade offs

Mg - K - Ca

Ca pushes quality & quantity...... Sulfur pushes terps.... K pushes quantity but not quality - ask any fruit grower ....

Mg is necessary but normally in excess

 

[EasyGoing]

If Ca pushes quality and quantity, and Sulfur pushes terps, then gypsum gives you quality, stanky herbs! Knew I liked that stuff.......lol

 

[Hermen_eutics]

Pics would be awesome, but in interim

U know when your plants seem perfect, ideal and ur tips just turn up a little wee bit, burnt... How many think overfert?

The scenario is ideal plant just begging to tell you something...

It means ur late, u missed the boat on K.... It almost always happens to me, yet I never feel bad about it.................

Im guilty of thinking that the burnt tips resulted from a recent heavy hand with ferts. But my rationale doesnt always match the facts.
Do you confirm that K is the culprit through tissue or sap analysis? How do you know with certainty?

 

[redlaser]

Im guilty of thinking that the burnt tips resulted from a recent heavy hand with ferts. But my rationale doesnt always match the facts.
Do you confirm that K is the culprit through tissue or sap analysis? How do you know with certainty?

I was wondering this as well. @led05, are you describing burnt tips all over the plant or only the lower half of the plant? My understanding of K deficiency is that it affects the lower half of the plant first, affecting tips and margins of leaves.

 

[Guest]

OK its a bit off track but related some to my last soil test posted back a couple pages.
My Na is high. Way high it seems. I think that leaching can hopefully bring it down. It seems to have.

After the test was sent and the soil was still all in a container not in pots I cleaned the tent top to bottom including the floor and added some drain grates to keep grow bags off the floor to and not soak back up the run off like before.

I have put the grow bags back in as of 5 days ago. These bags hold 8 gallons of soil. I put 2 plus gallons of distilled and RO water thru each of them and then used a syringe type device to pull up a sample of water. At that point I know at least there is no residual salts etc on the liner of the tent. I let them drain for about 10 minutes before I took the sample. I vacuumed up the rest ASAP to get all contamination out of the floor.

For my very unscientific test I used a Oakton PCSTester 35. I bought it new a year ago.

Salinity 2.75
PH 6.1
Conductivity 5.6
TDS 3.91

I have poured one to two gallons per bag for 4 days and earlier to day the readings were

Salinity 1.7
PH 6.8
Conductivity 3.3
TDS 2.3

I vacuumed up the runoff ASAP every time to keep it from drying and leaving the residue but couldn't wipe and sanitize realistically.

With my last Spectrum results showing Ca 16200ppm, P 953 ppm, K 932 ppm and Na 753 ppm before leaching, the current levels of Na has been dropped down to a lot more manageable level if I can trust in any way the readings from the runoff. I have a week or at least before new sprouts need to go into this.

At this point I am not sure if I should flush it a few more days or stand pat. I plan on dumping these pots and mixing them together, taking a sample to send to Spectrum maybe and putting the soil back in the bags and using the soil. Not sure if I have time to wait much longer before the young ones will need to move in to the dirt.

Im still trying to figure out how my Na levels spiked so much from last grow in the soil to prevent it in the future.

 

[led05]

OK its a bit off track but related some to my last soil test posted back a couple pages.
My Na is high. Way high it seems. I think that leaching can hopefully bring it down. It seems to have.

After the test was sent and the soil was still all in a container not in pots I cleaned the tent top to bottom including the floor and added some drain grates to keep grow bags off the floor to and not soak back up the run off like before.

I have put the grow bags back in as of 5 days ago. These bags hold 8 gallons of soil. I put 2 plus gallons of distilled and RO water thru each of them and then used a syringe type device to pull up a sample of water. At that point I know at least there is no residual salts etc on the liner of the tent. I let them drain for about 10 minutes before I took the sample. I vacuumed up the rest ASAP to get all contamination out of the floor.

For my very unscientific test I used a Oakton PCSTester 35. I bought it new a year ago.

Salinity 2.75
PH 6.1
Conductivity 5.6
TDS 3.91

I have poured one to two gallons per bag for 4 days and earlier to day the readings were

Salinity 1.7
PH 6.8
Conductivity 3.3
TDS 2.3

I vacuumed up the runoff ASAP every time to keep it from drying and leaving the residue but couldn't wipe and sanitize realistically.

With my last Spectrum results showing Ca 16200ppm, P 953 ppm, K 932 ppm and Na 753 ppm before leaching, the current levels of Na has been dropped down to a lot more manageable level if I can trust in any way the readings from the runoff. I have a week or at least before new sprouts need to go into this.

At this point I am not sure if I should flush it a few more days or stand pat. I plan on dumping these pots and mixing them together, taking a sample to send to Spectrum maybe and putting the soil back in the bags and using the soil. Not sure if I have time to wait much longer before the young ones will need to move in to the dirt.

Im still trying to figure out how my Na levels spiked so much from last grow in the soil to prevent it in the future.

Moving forward, when you water try and use a container that waters very slowly and pulse water and not to point of run-off, maybe an oz of water at most / plant of run-off. If your watering is automated set it up to do the same type of run-off - let the plant dry out b/w waterings!

Measure how much water & how often you give each plant each time during different growing periods. Maybe even have a Dry pot of same size container sitting around to feel the difference until you are more comfortable with your set-up.

Over-watering creates all types of signs that often are miss interpreted - it creates both over/under fertilized symptoms and just overall fks up everything and causes the very best to chase their tails.

Once again, IMHO, using low level properly balanced minerals to flush is a better bet if you're trying to keep something going, if just doing to test things by all means.

Cleaning everything and fixing the wet feet is a very good start !

RE high Na - It sounds like you use a lot of Kelp products, where does Kelp grow? Not all Kelp is made the same, grows in the same type of Oceans (cold vs warmer water, diff types of species etc) and IMO is part of your mystery salt problems - most importantly many vendors of such products are full of it and their test results are from the best sample they ever took if even their own.... !

 

[led05]

I was wondering this as well. @led05, are you describing burnt tips all over the plant or only the lower half of the plant? My understanding of K deficiency is that it affects the lower half of the plant first, affecting tips and margins of leaves.

Burnt tips pointing up, just a very little is a K deficiency, the very early stages of it. For me, depending on the when, this means I'm near perfectly dialed, I dislike K more than most as I'm very confident it sacrifices quality and terps and that's what I'm primarily after; Quality and Terps. If I was trying to grow the worlds largest Pumpkin, I'd push K hard, if I was planning to eat it, not nearly as much.....

My burnt tips to me could look like your best plant ever, or worst, all in the eyes of the beholder. IMO, it's exactly where I like to be and a very minimal deficiency in K and the plant overall is cycling on all cylinders and very healthy.

 

[Hermen_eutics]

OK its a bit off track but related some to my last soil test posted back a couple pages.
My Na is high. Way high it seems. I think that leaching can hopefully bring it down. It seems to have.

After the test was sent and the soil was still all in a container not in pots I cleaned the tent top to bottom including the floor and added some drain grates to keep grow bags off the floor to and not soak back up the run off like before.

I have put the grow bags back in as of 5 days ago. These bags hold 8 gallons of soil. I put 2 plus gallons of distilled and RO water thru each of them and then used a syringe type device to pull up a sample of water. At that point I know at least there is no residual salts etc on the liner of the tent. I let them drain for about 10 minutes before I took the sample. I vacuumed up the rest ASAP to get all contamination out of the floor.

For my very unscientific test I used a Oakton PCSTester 35. I bought it new a year ago.

Salinity 2.75
PH 6.1
Conductivity 5.6
TDS 3.91

I have poured one to two gallons per bag for 4 days and earlier to day the readings were

Salinity 1.7
PH 6.8
Conductivity 3.3
TDS 2.3

I vacuumed up the runoff ASAP every time to keep it from drying and leaving the residue but couldn't wipe and sanitize realistically.

With my last Spectrum results showing Ca 16200ppm, P 953 ppm, K 932 ppm and Na 753 ppm before leaching, the current levels of Na has been dropped down to a lot more manageable level if I can trust in any way the readings from the runoff. I have a week or at least before new sprouts need to go into this.

At this point I am not sure if I should flush it a few more days or stand pat. I plan on dumping these pots and mixing them together, taking a sample to send to Spectrum maybe and putting the soil back in the bags and using the soil. Not sure if I have time to wait much longer before the young ones will need to move in to the dirt.

Im still trying to figure out how my Na levels spiked so much from last grow in the soil to prevent it in the future.

I used a very similar flushing method, including adding grates to elevate the bags. I dont have any devices to measure values but i did send in a fresh sample and can compare to a test of same media pre flush. I sent it off over the weekend. Ill post my comparison if interested.

 

[theJointedOne]

Hey thanks guys for the replies sorry i just got back in here to see them. I sent some samples to logan labs, we'll see what they say. I have a feeling not much.

Jointed...Colorado State University can test soil, roots and water for fusarium

cool thanks

The no "wet feet" is crucial imo. Especially in large amounts of soil.

We battled fussarium. I blamed the soil, changed it. Still battled it. Blamed myself for over watering, which I surely did. Went away for years, eventually had it pop up again here and there.

Finally realized, a large part was the drainage underneath the mounds/smart pots. It had gone away when the gardens location was moved, then popped up again when it was moved again. The difference was the drainage directly below the trees.

Depending on the terracing or the slopes in the garden. Some trees were planted on low spots or the terrace was simply to flat so the water pooled underneath the tended soil on top of the native clay.

So much soil, the top 12" or even 18" was really nice. It was underneath where the tended soil met the native clay that I couldn't see, the water was pooling, going bad, and promoting the wilt.

Last year we had such a huge rain year. I feel that all the rain, left soggy fields promoting fussarium growth even prior to planting. So once stretch/flower came, the weather cooled, it hit hard on anything that was questionable. Some genetics are just more prone to it as well.

Ugly as hell, but something to say about a smart pot on top of a pallet. Not going that route, if I was to terrace or level a new pad again, I would make sure to calculate drainage. Irrigating just perfectly so water isn't pooled helps surely, but a bad rain storm the wrong time of the year and it won't matter.

Hope some of that might help a bit,
Mr^^

BINGO, great post... - wicking goes deep and it's also very hard for any of us to "imagine" what the water table(s) are doing at 12, 18, 24" below surface, the layering etc unless we dig around and take a look.... all of this will certainly have an effect, critical ones often. Fusarium in my experience is better to beat by good practices than fumigation

Great points, I agree for sure with both of you. So check this out. In 2016 I built this garden for my partner at the time. It's 8 60 ft x 6ft rows, 18 inches deep/ The local ground is red dirt, if your'e familiar with butte county and other spots in norcal you know about the red clay heavy dirt. Full of iron i guess as well.

So I dusted them with with gypsum and was going to fill them with 150 yards of 'premium' soil from earthworm guys off the 99 there, but that night it rained, heavy. I went to the trenches and saw water pooling up, some of the rows it was standing water for over a day after it rained heavy. So i knew goin in that Iw ould have to be extra careful with the watering levels, and i was. The season went off ok but i saw many problems i didnt know what to contribute to. In the spring of 2017 i had the soil moved out of the top two trenches i felt were the most problematic and then i dug and installed french drains in those rows, all proper and at the right angles and depths ect. I put the soil back on, hoping the added drainage would help mitigate the problems in those rows.

It didn't seem to help to be honest. I actually had some weird growth in that row that i was curious was linked to the roots hitting the french drain and the gravel down there ect..

During the season I would dig down and sample the moisture of the clay under the topsoil and i never found any standing water, it was quite moist, but not overly, but maybe im wrong, maybe its important for it to be dryer that it was..

long story short i do think it is a drainage issue, just not sure how to mitigate it.

Water quality is worth looking into, especially if it’s from a well. California’s been in a drought for a while, and ground water is theoretically more concentrated overall.

Before I checked my water my plants would make it about two months in a new organic mix in containers before gradually yellowing from the bottom up. 389 mg/L chloride was in the water test, pretty unusable plant wise.

Sounds like you could be dealing with something similar, plants in the ground might be able to go a bit longer than containers before showing same issues

I'm not working with this partner anymore but i will tell him to consider this, thanks for the info.

This last season in a friends grow in Colorado it was clear that the soil below the pots was clay, nearly impermeable and that roots were wedging their way down there and many were coming out of the bottom of the bags.

First we dug drains from underneath the bags, out to the side of the bags and made a small drainage canal to get the water away from the bags, then we put stone on top and then we applied 20 lbs of gypsum on top. No more issues. Air is everything.

Yea I recommended that he switch to a similar setup , even on a test patch, to see the results.

 

[growingcrazy]

What is the pH on the native clay? How are Fe levels in tissue?

My first thoughts were that the native clay is slightly acidic making the Fe available. Pooling for an hour would cause harm depending on Fe levels.

Once you added drainage and tile you also brought air into the mix. Moisture + air = more Fe from microbial activity that normally wouldn't be present at that depth.

Just my thoughts...

I would be curious to see the results of the native being balanced and then covered back over.

 

[Guest]

Moving forward, when you water try and use a container that waters very slowly and pulse water and not to point of run-off, maybe an oz of water at most / plant of run-off. If your watering is automated set it up to do the same type of run-off - let the plant dry out b/w waterings!

Measure how much water & how often you give each plant each time during different growing periods. Maybe even have a Dry pot of same size container sitting around to feel the difference until you are more comfortable with your set-up.

Over-watering creates all types of signs that often are miss interpreted - it creates both over/under fertilized symptoms and just overall fks up everything and causes the very best to chase their tails.

Once again, IMHO, using low level properly balanced minerals to flush is a better bet if you're trying to keep something going, if just doing to test things by all means.

Cleaning everything and fixing the wet feet is a very good start !

RE high Na - It sounds like you use a lot of Kelp products, where does Kelp grow? Not all Kelp is made the same, grows in the same type of Oceans (cold vs warmer water, diff types of species etc) and IMO is part of your mystery salt problems - most importantly many vendors of such products are full of it and their test results are from the best sample they ever took if even their own.... !

From the time of the first test to retest after grow I only used liquid kelp as a K source and liquid bone meal. I used a blumat water sensor and waited till the reading was 180-200 and the bottom couple inches of the pot were slightly damp. Rest of the way up the sides felt dry. Next grow Im going to let them dry out more between watering.
My seedlings are still on one set of leaves and a couple inches high so I have time. Next Monday I will dump and mix and get sample. Till then Im going to leach a few more times.

 

[bsgospel]

Great points, I agree for sure with both of you. So check this out. In 2016 I built this garden for my partner at the time. It's 8 60 ft x 6ft rows, 18 inches deep/ The local ground is red dirt, if your'e familiar with butte county and other spots in norcal you know about the red clay heavy dirt. Full of iron i guess as well.

So I dusted them with with gypsum and was going to fill them with 150 yards of 'premium' soil from earthworm guys off the 99 there, but that night it rained, heavy. I went to the trenches and saw water pooling up, some of the rows it was standing water for over a day after it rained heavy. So i knew goin in that Iw ould have to be extra careful with the watering levels, and i was. The season went off ok but i saw many problems i didnt know what to contribute to. In the spring of 2017 i had the soil moved out of the top two trenches i felt were the most problematic and then i dug and installed french drains in those rows, all proper and at the right angles and depths ect. I put the soil back on, hoping the added drainage would help mitigate the problems in those rows.

It didn't seem to help to be honest. I actually had some weird growth in that row that i was curious was linked to the roots hitting the french drain and the gravel down there ect..

During the season I would dig down and sample the moisture of the clay under the topsoil and i never found any standing water, it was quite moist, but not overly, but maybe im wrong, maybe its important for it to be dryer that it was..

long story short i do think it is a drainage issue, just not sure how to mitigate it.

Are the rows downhill from anything? I just finished Tiedjens' Olena Farm USA a few weeks ago and he talks about a red clay patch on the land but it's downhill from everything. Calcium readings in that area were way higher than others. To avoid standing water and run-off everywhere else, he put a few tons of dolomitic lime per acre and let it absorb/adsorb over a year. It was subsoiled six inches or so. After a year, every acre treated was holding/exchanging water incredibly well and no drains were needed. And we're talking about some terrible, terrible land.

 

[EasyGoing]

Made a big difference this year for me......

I back tilled under every pot and bed on the property. (except 45 gal light dep pots) Super large amounts of gypsum, compost and perlite. I am on a hill, so water drains away, however when the roots found this zone, they were happy. I pitch all my pots at a 5% grade so water runs off. (approximately)

 

[Avinash.miles]

i was talking gypsum and ca with another buddy and he told me this in regards to "too much gypsum/ca?" :

It will push off Mg and K off on the soil colloid. It could lead to K problems late in flower. That is why it should only be use heavily in veg and the first two or so weeks into flower. After that lower the Ca to K ratio and hit them with K hard for weeks 3 -7 or 8 depending.

Ca for most of frame build. Building strong cell walls and long thick feeder roots. Then the K will fatten them up.

The benefits of maxing out your Ca in the soil and then spoon feeding the minerals that can be made less available is amazing. Strong plants that are disease resistant with heavy yields of awesome flowers

what yall say?

 

[paradoxlost]

i was talking gypsum and ca with another buddy and he told me this in regards to "too much gypsum/ca?" :

what yall say?

He has a point, in certain circumstances would be correct. But cannabis doesn't simply uptake nutrients in ionic form, it up takes secondary metsbolites and complex, enzymatic molecules that are processed via microbiotic activity. Let K and Mg be tied up in bacteria rather than on CEC that is room for Ca.

 

[Avinash.miles]

He has a point, in certain circumstances would be correct. But cannabis doesn't simply uptake nutrients in ionic form, it up takes secondary metsbolites and complex, enzymatic molecules that are processed via microbiotic activity. Let K and Mg be tied up in bacteria rather than on CEC that is room for Ca.

more room for ca, huh ?
i did seem to have low K last run towards the end of bloom.... wasn't spoonfeeding it so that makes sense

 

[EasyGoing]

i was talking gypsum and ca with another buddy and he told me this in regards to "too much gypsum/ca?" :

what yall say?

Ask SlowN what the number one element lacking in all soil reports he has ever done. We are talking thousands.......... Ca. At 80-85% recommend Ca in your base saturation, you have to try to over due it. Even then, it's not too much Ca, it's too little other elements being pushed out. I have never seen in person, or in a book, what Ca excess looks like. So your buddy that says too much gypsum, I say No way Jose.