bushdriver
Member
Great thread! Has anyone ever tried presoaking their char in sea salt?
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Terra Preta - Dark Soil - Experiment
- Thread starter SilverSurfer_OG
- Start date
bushdriver
Member
bushdriver
Member
jaykush what do u think about soakin char in sea salt??
i think id try and find another mineral source before using sea salt, and if i did it would be live pink Himalayan salt in VERY small quantities.
rock powder rich compost/EWC is a great source. as the minerals are already "broken down" into available forms.
the best route though is to little by little add the char to your compost and then use that as a soil base.
rock powder rich compost/EWC is a great source. as the minerals are already "broken down" into available forms.
the best route though is to little by little add the char to your compost and then use that as a soil base.
bushdriver
Member
cheers jaykush, i may just stick with fish emulsion and bat guano.. i do have some himalayan salt may just go for the just a pinch route as im pretty sure i would end up burning em as i mixed soil back into the solution.... i got a load of volcanic rock dust for minerals anyway just thought it could be real nifty way of doing it with the solubility of every single element... just made some char out of some american chessnut.. the wood is naturally very dark brown, charcoal is gettin me so excited!!!!!!
well if you plan on letting your soil sit before use ( which everyone should) then you can just mix the char in when you mix the soil up. after a month the soil is good to go. soaking is a bit messy to me now, all char goes into the compost for some extremely rich compost.
bushdriver
Member
just threw a batch in with minimal cooking period just a 3 day soak mixed with half used soil other half new shop bought compost.... in an ideal world they would have been baked but had no time..... my next batch is getting a 6week cook gonna be beautiful....
not that i advocate it but i have totally got away with the no wait approach many times.... i just go real easy on amendments and steer clear from things like lots of blood. recently i grew a plant in straight reused soil, nothing done to it, just let to dry out and the plant looked incredible.... and that was before i heard about char..... i put it down to gauno top dressings in flower reconditioning the soil before its even finished its cycle.... and the 5 year life of dolomite.... now with char and other rock dusts im sure to be pimpin..
but yeah definately im gonna stick char whereva i can now!!
not that i advocate it but i have totally got away with the no wait approach many times.... i just go real easy on amendments and steer clear from things like lots of blood. recently i grew a plant in straight reused soil, nothing done to it, just let to dry out and the plant looked incredible.... and that was before i heard about char..... i put it down to gauno top dressings in flower reconditioning the soil before its even finished its cycle.... and the 5 year life of dolomite.... now with char and other rock dusts im sure to be pimpin..
but yeah definately im gonna stick char whereva i can now!!
no one said not letting the soil cook or rest doesn't work. it will grow plants no doubt, and good ones. but side by side with the same soil mixed and sitting for 5 months compared to one that is freshly mixed is no comparison. aged soil is better, just like most things that age well are. have fun with char 
bushdriver
Member
true no one said it, but it goes against what is normally preached... what i would like to achieve, and im sure is the quality of real tp, is abundancy of growth without having to touch that soil again.... like a Fukuoka no dig patch..... just poke a seed in..... i see it like this... if char retains nutrients indefinately why rebake the soil atall?? hypothetically speakin if you were to reach a perfect point of nutritional balance with char, which was supposedly unleaching, you could just leave it be... what i would love is to have an indoor grow bed where all i had to do was pull out the plant when done and stick a new one in...... surely this is achievable..??
descivii
Member
bush,
No, because once a nutrient is used it is no longer present there. Like most things it is used literally, so soil must be "restocked" with what is now missing after a grow. Since ideally amendments need to "cook" for a while it creates a window of wait unless you set up multiples in which case you have a 'Ready' supply and a 'Cooking' supply.
J.
P.S.
As far as a perpetual bed, I think the same rules apply. I do know a guy who simplified his grow but he is outdoor and basically alternates between 2 beds. 1 is growing things and the other composting and cooking for next year and they alternate every other year. Don't know how that'd work indoors, though.
No, because once a nutrient is used it is no longer present there. Like most things it is used literally, so soil must be "restocked" with what is now missing after a grow. Since ideally amendments need to "cook" for a while it creates a window of wait unless you set up multiples in which case you have a 'Ready' supply and a 'Cooking' supply.
J.
P.S.
As far as a perpetual bed, I think the same rules apply. I do know a guy who simplified his grow but he is outdoor and basically alternates between 2 beds. 1 is growing things and the other composting and cooking for next year and they alternate every other year. Don't know how that'd work indoors, though.
you dont, or at least you dont need to. your on the right track of mind. once the soil is fertile( and i mean real fertile not just a little blood here, bone there, guano this and that) you can just get away with top dressings of compost(high quality and char ewc preferred). cooking is for freshly mixed soil only.
bushdriver
Member
descivii, i thought the idea with char was that it hung onto the nutes not just the organisms? so adding more macro nutes to a char mix on reuse could be overkill.. yet to speak from experience with char's retainin abilities so we'll see. But reading dark earth australias site where they say a fixed percentage of npk for n amount of years, this leads me to think it doesnt get 'used' up literally like when growing without char..? im imagining the char as safe deposit boxes packed with food, with the roots unable to penetrate the char the micro organisms acting as a go betweens to trickle out exactly what is needed while hiding a hefty reserve.. like rock dusts where they can only let out like 5% of what they got each year as they break down at an incredibly slow rate..
i too try to rotate batches of soil but in containers, but havnt hit my critical mass yet so i still have to add half fresh mix each time...
jaykush i have a very long list of amendments but it is no where near this desired fertility.. what u describe is what i have been thinking about..... imagine a very fertile bed of old soil full of char.. like 40%. each time you retransplant, hypothetically instantly after harvest, you mulch the top with an array of things, worm casts first for the N and some rich compost to blanket them in.... on top of that some mulch which would benefit the round coming up after....
i think what im getting at is does the soil need to rest at all between harvests?? not even a second?
i too try to rotate batches of soil but in containers, but havnt hit my critical mass yet so i still have to add half fresh mix each time...
jaykush i have a very long list of amendments but it is no where near this desired fertility.. what u describe is what i have been thinking about..... imagine a very fertile bed of old soil full of char.. like 40%. each time you retransplant, hypothetically instantly after harvest, you mulch the top with an array of things, worm casts first for the N and some rich compost to blanket them in.... on top of that some mulch which would benefit the round coming up after....
i think what im getting at is does the soil need to rest at all between harvests?? not even a second?
bushdriver
Member
jay kush, knowing u are a fukuoka fan reading ur sig, that is how he cultivates his soil.. as you are aware he broadcasts the next crops seeds before the other harvest has been harvested in amongst them... his soil is always on the go with some of the time two different crops at once.. its given that he does have a specific broadcasting and mulching technique but he never lets it rest or turns it... i know he crop rotates, because of the seasons and disease issues, but he goes winter grain summer grain winter grain summer grain.. but surely his technique could be adapted for the indoor?? maybe without crop rotation.... maybe with just loads of cannabis...
bushdriver
Member
not 'hold onto' as in years?
descivii
Member
I don't believe soil needs to rest but rather it is the amendments which need time to breakdown, I would assume that if you could find a way to add "pre-cooked" amendments so the cooking period is met in another location then no reason there can't be constant nutrition available. The question is how do you get it into the soil without tilling or turning in some fashion. I would assume that eventually you need to turn in the fresh nutrients and worms only carry and spread so much at a time.
J
J
once the soil is fertile enough you can do continuous cropping. that being said i do this outdoors. indoors im not sure how things would work, it would have to be bed oriented for sure. mrfista is doing something along these lines with char, heres his thread https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=155997
yes fukuoka has made me move towards natural farming when it comes to food. i practice a forest garden system with his no till methods and a few of my own. this next season i have an area set up for rice and then winter barley rotation. with the white clover as the ground cover.
fukuokas soil did not become as fertile as it overnight. it took time to build that soil. if i remember correctly he mentions quite a few failures in his book. and low yields at first with the rice and barley rotation because the soil wasn't fertile enough.
with growing cannabis indoors no till style the bigger the bed the better imo. sog style, short plants. but im an outdoor guy thankfully so i dont have to mess with that.
as for the original conversation about resting soil, if you mix a ton of shit in the soil and mix it up. imo its better to let it sit for some time before use. BUT, once you get that soil going and balanced out, you dont need to "Rest" again. unless you till it up, add more amendments, more compost, more lime, more peat....instead going to a top dressing system is far better for the long term soil users.
bushdriver
Member
cheers for the informative words ill visit his thread and do some thinkin with a skinny one... peace
