soil remineralization: process and discussion

[jaykush]

Going back to the whole mineral discussion...I think it's good to look at more distinct classes of bacteria/fungi and their value/function in the soil food web in regards to mineralization/usage/chelation/availability and do believe, at this point, archae are the best at it.

how about supply the minerals and just let nature do the hard work? selecting who and what does what and how. refer to the quote in my sig.

 

[*Journeyman*]

how about supply the minerals and just let nature do the hard work? selecting who and what does what and how. refer to the quote in my sig.

Some of the people I'm talking to are contributors to Acres and the story gets a bit more complex when you have them on the phone. Letting nature do it's work assumes that the 'nature' you are starting with is 100% 'whole'. Then you're dealing with what you are adding as a food/substrate...even in compost. You are also possibly talking about bioregional differences/deficiencies and that's part of the reasons you have certain plants growing in certain areas of the country. I bet the compost people make comes from food/scraps that is shipped in from waaaaaaay out of town.

Supplying what minerals and where are they coming from? By introducing materials from a distinctly different geographic region you are 'cheating' nature.

Maybe someone should try and grow canna organically all based on what they can find in like a 5 mile radius, which would include streams passing through, etc. Native soil can produce great for a very short period and unless you use 'artificial' means to build and maintain the soil you're screwed. If you look at the mound builders in the Ohio area the skeletons at the bottom showed no deficiencies yet at the top teeth and bone problems as they exhausted the soil.

I read one study where ants were exposed to cotton balls soaked with either simple sugar or dilute seawater. After about like 50 or 100 miles inland the ants preferred the diluted seawater soaked cotton balls.

You say you are basically sold on sea solids yet beyond a certain distance from shore the influence of the ocean is muted so how can adding a sea solid product be 'natural' in virtually every application?

Using sea solids on soil is not natural because that's not how nature works. For one something like dimethylsulfonioprionate breaks down to dimethylsulfide which seeds clouds and you get lots of coastal rain. It DMS can also oxidize into DMSO...lots of DMSO in the ocean. The direct influence of the ocean on land is very minimal. I used to sit there on the West coast and watch the ocean 'mist' drift inland...but it sure in hell won't reach the Rockies.

So where do you draw between what is natural and not?

Anyway...it's been fun and thanx for the sounding board

 

[jaykush]

oh god forget i even said anything.

 

[CannaExists]

Hmmm, interesting stuff Journeymang.

Supplying what minerals and where are they coming from? By introducing materials from a distinctly different geographic region you are 'cheating' nature.

Wouldn't that be what you're doing with the Biozome kinda?

"The microorganisms are primitive "Archaeobacteria" collected from salt pans, hot springs, and volcanic regions all over the world."

It seemed kinda odd to me using such "foreign" bacteria like that, but it'd no less be worth a try.

 

[dazednconfused]

With the addition of clay/silica/carbon based rock dusts to a soil mix with dolomite lime, will there be any ph complications or just fine and dandy electromagnetic fields and such?

Curious to know if I will have to lower the dolomite lime content...

 

[jjfoo]

It seems odd to me to think bacteria that live in the sea will do much in my pot. I'm not saying they wont, nature is very often not intuitive. I think the best way to look at this is by doing some experiments, like 20 plants that all use the same mix and add the additive to 10. The only problem is if you add more than just the bacteria you won't know if the bacteria caused anything. Can someone get a sample of these bacteria?

 

[*Journeyman*]

oh god forget i even said anything.

Spare me...you said you believed in sea solids and that they work well. Please support your position or change it. This thread is about remineralization and I think conventional sea solids are the wrong way to go.

 

[*Journeyman*]

i smell marketing! was anyone else around for "dead doctors don't lie"? think back to 1995 or so. the pseudo-science just keeps coming.

You need to check your smeller because I'm gonna make...zero, zed, zilch, nada, nothing off of anything I have mentioned in this thread.

 

[jaykush]

yes i did say i believe in them, mainly from things that happened after the tsunami years ago, farmers thought there fields were destroyed from the sea water. when in fact they were replenished and yields went up.

no where did i say its best for soil re mineralization. it just works.

leave it at that

 

[*Journeyman*]

I think the best way to look at this is by doing some experiments, like 20 plants that all use the same mix and add the additive to 10.

Some things are well beyond experiments. Instead of 20 plants why don't you try a few acres, how about a few thousand acres and with different crops? How about not only in the US but internationally on this scale and also a few years in succession?

 

[*Journeyman*]

yes i did say i believe in them, mainly from things that happened after the tsunami years ago, farmers thought there fields were destroyed from the sea water. when in fact they were replenished and yields went up.

What are you talking about?

Crop Production and Soil Salinity in the Tsunami Affected Areas of the Eastern Coast of Aceh Province, Indonesia.

Teuku Iskandar1, Achmad Rachman2, M. Nur1, Malem McLeod3, Kasdi Subagyono2, Natalie Moore4, and Peter Slavich4. (1) Aceh Assessment Institute for Agricultural Technology, Jalan Panglima Nyak Makam No. 27, Banda Aceh, 23125, Indonesia, (2) Indonesian Soil Research Institute, Jalan Ir. H. Juanda 98, Bogor, 16123, Indonesia, (3) NSW Dept of Primary Industries, Tamworth, 4 Marsden Park Road, Calala, Tamworth, NSW 2340, Australia, (4) NSW Dept of Primary Industries, Private Mail Bag 2, Grafton, NSW 2460, Australia

The giant tsunami waves following the earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra on December 26, 2004, have caused soil salinization of agricultural lands and damaged to irrigation and drainage channels along the coastal areas of Aceh province, Indonesia. Approximately 90,000 ha of paddy fields, 25,000 ha of mix gardens, and 90,000 ha of estate crops in Aceh were inundated by seas water after the tsunami. The objectives of this project are to enhance the recovery of cropping in tsunami affected areas along the eastern coast of Aceh where farming communities have resumed agriculture activities. The project is monitoring changes in soil salinity on the tsunami-affected areas using an electromagnetic induction techniques (EM38), and assessing constraints to crop performance. Regular assessment (three monthly) of soil salinity and crop performance are currently being conducted on 20 sites on the eastern coast of Aceh. Crops which have been assessed include rice, corn, peanut, soybean, onion and chillies. At each site, ECa was measured on a fixed transect line (±100 m long), at 4 m intervals, and information on cropping history and crop condition at the time of assessment are recorded. A composite surface soil sample was collected from each site for nutrients analysis. The level of soil salinity in tsunami affected areas appears o be related to the duration of inundation by the sea water and the permeability of the soils. Soils that were inundated for up to 6 days after the tsunami appears to be more saline compared to those inundated for only 1-3 days. Salt appears to have penetrated deeper into the sandier soils commonly used to grow peanut during dry seasons. Peanut crops established after the tsunami were more severely affected (patchy or contained leaf yellowing) possibly due to the accumulation of salt on the surface of beds from shallow groundwater evaporation. In the heavier rice soil, salt accumulates closer to the soil surface, probably because they were flooded at the time of the tsunami and often have a dense impermeable plough layer. Where farmers had access to irrigation water, the vegetative growth of rice crops established after the tsunami appeared unaffected, but grain formation has been severely affected causing up to 50% yield loss. Extension staff in Aceh have been trained in a rapid soil salinity assessment technique based on EM38 measurement. Trials are currently in progress to evaluate the role of salt tolerant varieties and improved soil nutrition during the recovery period.

Strategies to reduce the impact of salt on crops (rice, cotton and chili) production: A case study of the tsunami-affected area of India
Norbert F. Tchouaffe Tchiadje , a,



References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.



aDepartment of the Environment, Acader (NG) s/c, C/O CCU POB 876, Yaounde, Cameroon



Received 17 January 2006;
accepted 31 March 2006.
Available online 9 February 2007.

Abstract

This research project took place after a postgraduate course attended by the author at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), nearby the tsunami-affected area of the Ramathapuram district of Chennai State, India. Actually it is well known that the ever-growing desire of farmers the world over and particular in India is to increase their productivity and to alleviate their poverty; based on the negative impact generated by synthetic products (inorganic fertilizers and pesticides) on the environment and human health, the concept of organic farming has become very popular of late, with many advocating a return to traditional methods of agriculture. Furthermore, with the tsunami that took place in India neighbourhoods there was an intrusion of saline water on coastal land with an adverse impact. A direct consequence was soil erosion, an increase of the soil’s salinity and groundwater contamination. Therefore, appropriate strategies are considered to promote awareness and understanding on the tsunami’s impact on the environment through integrated soil-nutrients management in agro-ecosystems. This process encompasses salt control through efficient soil and water management with emphasis on soil nutrients .Actually, the general objective is to find suitable options to reduce the impact of salt on crop production, and the specific objectives are: (1) to assess the relationship between salt and crop production, and (2) to assess the sustainable approaches to tackle salt contamination with a view to make recommendations and to improve the agricultural environment for future generations. Lastly, the findings led to the identification of the direct symptoms of agricultural production shortages and to tackle the causes with regard to future generations.

First time I looked at info like this and just as I would have expected.

If salt water and sea solids were so good for agriculture you'd find it/them in wide use and you don't because...it does not work.

 

[Morose Jessebel]

rule #1 of marketing questionable products: always use the prefix "bio" as a superfluous addition to otherwise mundane sounding roots. that way, people will assume it's a technical term, and not only believe it, but teach it to others for free.

deficient? biodeficient
superfluous? biosuperfluous

 

[Stoned Crow]

I'm not even sure what's being marketed in that last picture. Is that furry dog shit or a dead rabbit?

 

[mrwags]

Sea solids suck if they are nothing more than concentrated seawater...cause of all that NaCl for starters. Trying to make your own sea solids is a waste of time. Just go buy Celtic Sea Salt if you wanna go that route but would not recommend it. The only sea 'solid' worth it's salt...lol...is Sea-Crop. Nothing can touch it for effectiveness and cost-to-benefit ratio in the whole sea solid 'world'...nothing . The next best thing you will find is GroPal and that is a distant second...far distant.

As for mineralization it's important, based on my research, to make sure you have a strong population of archaebacteria. These buggers are the primordial bacteria, such as thermophiles, and found in Biozome. These critters are probably the most adept at breaking down mineral compounds into their elements. Archaebacteria are like 1/10,000 the size of something like bacillus. Archaebacteria are things like those that live near fumaroles at the bottom of the ocean and feed off of minerals.

Not if you used the micronized version...that stuff is very available.

Anyway...Sea-Crop, Biozome and a healthy humus rich soil, which to me means you already have a strong bacteria/fungi rich population...and lots of available carbon...heh heh, and think you'll see a difference. More to it than just that but a good start.

Right about here is where this thread got kicked off track.

A man, I'll even go as far as to say a well educated man comes in here with his 19 posts and tells one of our founding members his advice sucks.?

Copy Cutting and Pasting long drawn out formulas does not make you a grower of marijuana. Now I'm sure good ole Journeyman grows some fine ass vegetables and will someday save the world of hunger with a new found discovery.

Now Journeyman I'm asking you nicely to take your new posting ass away from here and leave these peaceful people alone. This thread was an open discussion of sound minds sharing ideas of what they have done to grow good WEED.

The starter of this thread has more than proven to the community that he might know a thing or 2 himself regrading our hobby and he does not need you assistance anymore now go away before we make you disappear (by popular demand so far).


Sorry to mess up a good thread guys but he's to smart for us and think it's best he get back to writing his next book.

Now can we get back to discussing growing weed please?

Have A Nice Day
Mr.Wags

 

[vonforne]

Thank you Mr Wags! Good to see you again.

I reflected the same opinion of this mans posting and attacks on JK.



I have been using bagged rock powders.....her in the country I live in there are many places to pick up different rock powders. I actually use them from all over the world.

Nice thread JK.

V

 

[VerdantGreen]

i cant believe ive missed this thread! - the name didnt click with me
lots of great info in here which i will be going through again.

i dont have access to the great outdoors in the same way as you talk about - to gather stuff from stream beds etc but i have sourced both rock phosphate and rock potash in the UK - nice 3kg bags - which i use in my organic soil mix. and of course some topsoil which is your ultimate composted rock

thanks jay and all the contibuters

V.

 

[h.h.]

I don't see anything growing on the beach. While sea solids may supply some minerals, the concentrations are wrong and need adjusting. Temperate climate along with the humidity from coastal fog are why things grow well nearby. Not mineralization. Cloudy stream water from fresh water is a better choice and it can be acquired locally.
You can grow good weed using a variety of products, there is no reason to get stuck on one.

 

[VerdantGreen]

its not so much about the info, its about common courtesy. if you are new somewhere then you dont go in without being a little deferential to respected and established members.

there are many ways to disagree or put an opposing viewpoint. some will get you further than others.

diplomacy

V.

 

[VerdantGreen]

i guess it depends on what you want to achieve. who was it that said you catch more flies with honey?

anyway jay doesn't deserve to have his thread messed up by axe grinding

lets get back to business...

V.

 

[vonforne]

Jaykush is more than just an established member. He is what we all strive for in true organics.........self sustainability in growing. I have been at so many sites with him and he spreads the word of his organics and helps all who wish it. And has NEVER said a cross word in years.

I took offense in the presentation not the content of information or where it came from.

V