soil remineralization: process and discussion

[schwagg]

thank you CC. i've almost got a great minerial mix put together.

 

[ngen]

Base saturation has nothing to do with high or low CEC soils. It's about the % ratios not amount. High CEC soils simply hold more nutrients and low CEC soils less but both could have the exact same base saturation rate

Yeah thanks for clarifying, but what i was thinking in what i said was that if a soil has less of a total percent of Cation binding (say one with 10% peat compared to one with 40%) that it wouldn't have the same ability to buffer ph because it interacts with less loam and other aggregates. So a perlite mix would rely on the clay in the bag, and it would have less surface area (cec retaining particles to aggregates) to interact with.
but that definitely clears it up, so a ''Sand (light-colored) 3-5meq'', would have the same ability as ''Clay and clay loams 20-50meq'' to buffer and fill up just as quick. word.

Not from what I understand but a bit confused here...are you really talking about Na as part of the base saturation rate and not the CEC? Na does not add anything to a soil's CEC. A soil's CEC is more about the humus and clay content...generally. The Na content as percent of the base saturation rate 'formula' is part of the 3% 'other' category which constitutes a lot of elements. Lots of Na ='s less Ca and Mg as those are the cations that will typically get sacrificed when you have a lot of sodium. You need very little sodium regardless of what Ocean Grown says...lol. Only places you might see Na deficiencies is on the East coast with all that rain. Even then you don't do a corrective application and something like a small amount of whole sea salt will do.


I'd stick with unsulphured molasses. K-Mag is a great S source also and prolly what I was relying on for S.

just got off a 14 hour shift, and the last 2 pages are pretty much the best reward i could imagine to come home too..

and yeah sorry i thought na wouldn't effect the Cec ability (such as making it go up or down-but now i gotta read these pages closely cc makes it look like it can adversely effect it), it's just summer so i get sloppy about using proper terms. But i read this:

Sodium is included among the bases to indicate if sodium levels are getting too high. This happens in situations where industrial by-products are applied to the soil or where soils along the coastal region are irrigated with water high in sodiu m. The acceptable base saturation limit for sodium is 15%. This is also called the Exchangeable Sodium Percent or ESP. Sodium levels higher than 15% on the exchange site could result in soil dispersion, poor water infiltration, and possible sodium toxi city to plants. (Source: Department of Entomology, Soils and Plant Sciences, Clemson University Extension Service, South Carolina, U.S.A.)

and was like wow thats a freaking lot of salt, probably negatively affects microbes before it got even close to those levels though. i just have never studied synthetic fertilizers so they have that kind of magical authority (yes, a dostoevsky underground man reference lol) that stimulates me to think about them... today was thinking up an experiment i wanna run when i get some time and some more slides for my microscope; definition of frustration: having a scope, tea, leaves, all kinds of things i wanna see but no slides!

but much thanks yankee.

and elmanito i read somewhere when someone was suggesting using agave nectar as well as molasses because too much molasses actually can be bad... someguy at some medi canna speach in Portland, cant recall really, made me wanna start to use yucca has well-but i was scared to bring up the bad part of molasses hah.


i'm sure this'll be edited shortly because:
'After all of this my darling ain't it plain to see
That old whisky drinking, bluegrass listening, Carhartt wearing, all night roaming rambler he'll always be. if theres ramblin in the rambler let him go.'- yonderMSB

i restrict my rambling to ic though, trains ain't mah thing.

 

[insane420]

Capt

The Sul-Po-Mag company (the retail arm of the K-Mag company) has a Q & A page that can answer your questions far better than I can - here.

HTH

CC

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I ran into some Mg deficiencies using LC#1 recipe and was curious about how much of this could be added to the mix as an additional supplement?

insane420

 

[elmanito]

Basalt rock dust from this brand is good stuff

Silica 43.9 %, Magnesium 13.7 %, Calcium 9.8 %, Aluminum 10.5 %, Iron 11.5%, Phosphorus 0.9 %, Potassium 0.6 %, Manganese 0.2 %, Copper 73.0 mg/Kg, Chromium 226.0 mg/Kg, Zinc 101.0 mg/Kg, Cobalt 26.4 mg/Kg

Namaste

 

[Justa6655321]

What I typically use

Azomite
Alaska Humus
A touch of Happy Frog
Blood and Bone meal
Black Strap Molasses

 

[NUG-JUG]

Thanks Clack.....About an hour after I asked that question I discovered the exact same page....pretty much answers anybody's sul-po-mag questions. Good information,good product.

I didn't know much about it other than a few on here mentioning it works well. That link is helpful. Here's something towards the end..

"What crops are best suited for using Sul-Po-Mag?"

".................In addition, specialty crops or high-cash-valued crops are particularly suited because of the importance of quality in the harvested portion of the crop. The sulfate, low-chloride form of these nutrients is important in imparting quality as well as quantity to the harvested portion of the crop when they are needed."

I want quality and quantity in my high-cash-valued crops..lol

 

[Yankee Grower]

Ngen - I wonder if we're talking about the same thing regarding Base or Nutrient Saturation Rate? I understand it as this:

Calcium 67%
Magnesium 15%
Potassium 3%
Hydrogen 12%
Other 3%

'Other' is everything else...everything. Those numbers I threw up are supposedly the ideal ratios and there is room for variance. Sodium will easily displace Ca and Mg and you can see these are the 2 most important cations. Can't remember clearly but when like Ca falls below a certain point you've got troubles. There's another good link about all this and will see if I can dig it up.

Here's a pretty darn good link about B/NSR and at the bottom may answer better your question about CEC and pH?

www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/CEC_BpH_and_percent_sat.htm

You gotta watch your sodium inputs, Tom Hill has said...pretty sure...that when organic matter breaks down Na is liberated to the point in his grows he monitors Na levels because you lose access to valuable cations. He makes sure it's getting bound up and relies on manzanita compost for this...think that's it. Excess Na directly negatively affects plant growth. Also as I said earlier it permanently damages clays. Bentonite is already kind of crap from what I understand but Na will ruin your 'good' clays. 15% Na is a lot...whoa.

 

[ngen]

yeah we're talking about the same thing-i just don't have definite ideas on alot of these things, i think their is alot more thinking for me to do about them so its hard to describe even to myself

i've heard those as the desired percent saturations as well, but the question is really how often are they really filled up? i've known for a long while that the other 3% are suppose to be all other unmentioned ions.

but i have thought, and nearly every time i see sample tests on websites explaining CEC that nothing is ever at its ideal levels, ca is usually in the low 50s mag is lower, NA is elevated.... so i assumed ever in most 'good' soils not all exchange sites are occupied, and their is space for variance. I'm even doubtful that a cation can achieve maximum absorption in only a short indoor grow cycle... but i have no evidence to support that, it just seems like it would take a bit longer, another good reason to recycle soils if so. but then again this negates:

''Since a soil test report is typically not measuring and reporting all of the cations that are in the soil, it is common for the sum of the measured cations to add up to less than 100%. ''

and i don't use any salts, fuck i was anti gmo before i was a teenager let alone synthetic fertilizers. but that is pretty sweet info about the manzanita compost, now i'm going to be spending too much time looking into that OM releasing na thing. I just wanna run some experiments because people always talk about this ambiguous level where salts start to kill microbes and i'm curious as to about where that level is... and yeah that 15% is crazy if that guy didn't have a team of colleagues with phd's i'd not believe it, hell i hardly believe it now.

i've actually read your whole link before and just gave it another one over, i think you should look this over maybe that'll explain what i'm thinking better: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~blpprt/bobweb/BOBWEB23.HTM . at the bottom with the chart especially.

but as i said i'm just rambling, stumbling in the dark waiting till i stub my toe on something useful.

 

[treefrog]

I didn't know much about it other than a few on here mentioning it works well. That link is helpful. Here's something towards the end..

"What crops are best suited for using Sul-Po-Mag?"

".................In addition, specialty crops or high-cash-valued crops are particularly suited because of the importance of quality in the harvested portion of the crop. The sulfate, low-chloride form of these nutrients is important in imparting quality as well as quantity to the harvested portion of the crop when they are needed."

I want quality and quantity in my high-cash-valued crops..lol

That kid of stuff always makes me wonder if it's actually a reference to Cannabis..lol.

 

[elmanito]

and elmanito i read somewhere when someone was suggesting using agave nectar as well as molasses because too much molasses actually can be bad... someguy at some medi canna speach in Portland, cant recall really, made me wanna start to use yucca has well-but i was scared to bring up the bad part of molasses hah.

To much of molasses will drop the pH of the soil and that's not beneficial for the plant and micro-organisms.Agave syrup contains a high % of fructose, but i can't tell you anything since i never used it.The stuff is a bit expensive compared with molasses.

Bentonite is already kind of crap from what I understand but Na will ruin your 'good' clays. 15% Na is a lot...whoa.

Bentonite is beneficial for sand soils, but certainly not for clays.Basalt rock dust is the stuff for clay soils.Indeed to much Na makes clay swampy and like Yankee said the damage is for years.

Namaste

 

[idiit]

from what i've been digging up sea-crop looks better and better. sea-crop contains only 3.5% sea salt as opposed to traditional sea solids that often contain 98% sea salt. sea-crop's product info page states that their product contains over 80 natural trace elements and active organic substances. these are held in the same balance as found in the ocean (the best possible) with the sole exception of salt. sea-crop also contains lots of ormus which is suspected as being the source of paramagnetic energy found in volcanic rock. because sea-crop is still wet primitive ancient bacteria called archaea are still present and perform a great pre-digestive job before common bacteria finish making the minerals and trace elements fully available to the plants. sea solids have been studied for a long time and have a well documented history in accredited studies of improving taste, yield, hardiness and more. the biggest drawback was salinity which sea-crop seems to have mastered. i'm just reporting back what i've gleaned so far. thanks for an excellent thread.

 

[Yankee Grower]

Ngen - I hear what you're saying and will get to that link this weekend. As for CEC and testing I'll talk to a farm consultant I deal with some times when I get a chance. Things have slowed down for him.

Idiit - Actually Sea-Crop only has about 2-2.5% Na while some of the trace minerals are concentrated up to 30X. Results plateau at about 10 gallons per acre and you don't start to see any negative results or problems till about 50 gallons per acre so lots of room to screw up. The stuff is SO concentrated without the Na. Yeah there's some hardy marine bacteria and at least one strain is a strong N fixer.

 

[Yankee Grower]

I just wanna run some experiments because people always talk about this ambiguous level where salts start to kill microbes and i'm curious as to about where that level is... and yeah that 15% is crazy if that guy didn't have a team of colleagues with phd's i'd not believe it, hell i hardly believe it now.

i've actually read your whole link before and just gave it another one over, i think you should look this over maybe that'll explain what i'm thinking better: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~blpprt/bobweb/BOBWEB23.HTM . at the bottom with the chart especially.

You'd also have to figure out which microbes would die. From what I understand, and learned from talking to a few people, is that Biozome is an excellent micro product hardy enough to withstand some pretty harsh enviros...as that's the place they were sourced from like hot springs, salt pans, etc. Actually it's an archae product and not bacterial. Since archae pre-date bacteria they developed in a pretty nasty enviro. As I said Sea-Crop has some strains that survive the extraction process and continue to live in a bottle with about 20% sea solids. These are like superman micros...lol.

I looked at that link and understand better what you're saying. There was another link which I could not find that went more into what happens when the major elements Ca and Mg drop below a certain threshold. I think when Ca drops below like 50 in the BSR formula the soil really stiffens up.

That thing about sodium buildup from organic matter breaking down is buried in the Growing Large Plants thread in Tom's section here. Think he described his mix like a compost pile 'going off'...lol. Said he uses an Na meter and pretty sure that was a sap tester. Yeah when he mentioned manzanita compost I looked around at all that stuff growing around me and went hmmmmm.

 

[ngen]

Yeah differenting between microbes would be a pain, wouldn't even consider doing this if it wasn't for the microbe organics page. I was actually working a couple day ago (i work landscape) and thinking that we could take BIM's out of fertilized soil multiply them and apply the hardy ones to ruined (read poison) soil to try and bring it back a bit.

i'm gonna have to look into sea-crop one of the few products i've never heard anything bad about.

i'm not ready to go through that thread for a second time, gonna have to wait a bit. wonder what about the manzanita tree makes it so good for that, gonna have to try and talk to tom when hes done with his season, sure he's busier than hell now.

 

[Yankee Grower]

Just look at Biozome if you want super duty microlife. I've chatted with Guy at Biozome, I believe that's his name, in the past and all seems good. I've only talked to one person using it in a commercial application and he was a staunch advocate. Those buggers are supposed to be able to live and thrive in some harsh enviros and seems they are excellent at 'processing' minerals so they become available to plants. A breeder/grower friend uses some now and then in his eternal indoor composting program to go after any salt buildup he may get and really likes the stuff.

Manzanita is hardy stuff and more dense than oak. The burls burn hot as coal it seems. I'd think the compost holds up pretty well over time and slow to break down and may be part of it.

 

[Yankee Grower]

Ngen - I guess still on track with this thread a bit but look into the bacterial products from Tainio Technologies. They have a strain that actually converts elemental sodium to elemental potassium. Bruce Tainio, now deceased and his son carries on, did and experiment for the military where they had a closed vessel with a predetermined amount of sodium and at the end of the test the sodium disappeared and the potassium spiked. The military guys were like where did the sodium go cause they could not believe it could be converted. It's called biological transmutation and only time I've ever heard of it.

I know of one guy that uses the product, can't remember which, to eliminate sodium buildup on farms he comes across. Think he said he was using it in the Maryland area.

 

[schwagg]

i was at a hardware store today and they had super sweet and soil sweet.

anyone know what i'm talking about?

does the supersweet = limestone

and soilsweet = dolo lime.

 

[schwagg]

bump!

 

[Clackamas Coot]

i was at a hardware store today and they had super sweet and soil sweet.

anyone know what i'm talking about?

does the supersweet = limestone

and soilsweet = dolo lime.

schwagg

Super Sweet: Limestone = Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3)

Soils Sweet: Dolomite Lime = Calcium Magnesium Carbonate (CaMg(CO3)2)

Other forms of Calcium Carbonate are Calcite Lime, Oyster Shell Powder in addition to limestone.

I use Calcium Carbonate and not as a 'liming agent' but for its mineral content. Limestone is an ancient marine deposit as is oyster shell powder. In the real world of organic agriculture, dolomite lime is NOT used as a 'lime agent' but rather to address magnesium deficiencies. And even in that regard there are far, far better options for magnesium than the form found in dolomite (magnesium carbonate). However in the cannabis growing syntax, dolomite lime is the absolute bestest stuff around. It can cure the mythical 'cal-mag lockout', impotence, inverted nipples in post-op transsexuals, oral discharges, terminal flatulence, etc.

Pretty magical stuff from what I've read on cannabis boards for several years. I'll have to give it a try one of these days.

HTH

CC

 

[schwagg]

HTH? thank you CC. you always help!!! i found that calcitic limestone but seems to far of a drive so i went with the supersweet for the mineral mix.


there's nothing bad in the supersweet is there?