To lime or not to lime

[Scrappy4]

Like many here i have struggled with getting my lime mix just right. A lot of it has been my fault, such as using the wrong lime for an example. But even with powdered dolomite lime used at suggested rates I have seen my soil's ph go high, and stay high. A ph of 7 is not uncommon. When my soil's ph is in the 7 or above range, I notice deficiencies pop up, but when i add more, the problem gets worse, classic lockout. I also find slow growth and reduced bud size, along with the yellowing leaves.

I started my clones in straight pro mix, no lime. I did have some yellowing, that was fixed in one watering with some dolomite lime in the water.

On this current grow i mixed the lime at 1/3 of the suggested rates. (one cup per 3.8 cf of pro mix instead of 3 cups) When I transplanted into this mix, the mixes ph was 5.5. While i'm still vegging, my plants seem happier and more able to use N. The growth has improved, there has been absolutely zero yellowing.

They have been fed a weak mix of Neptune's harvest fish/seaweed, and an EWC tea. The soils ph has risen to 6.2 after a week. I should note my water (ph 7.2) seems to have lots of calcium carbonate in it.

On the negative side of having not much dolo, my ph will fluxuate a half point or so, from one feeding to the next, so I am not getting much buffering, and i am having to be extra careful on the ph of waterings.

But so far having less lime has been good for me. Maybe it's my water, but this is something that I read in these forums fairly often, and worth exploring.........scrappy

 

[Clackamas Coot]

Scrappy4

A good place to start, perhaps, is to look into the breakdown period required for dolomite lime. It's measured in several months - like 6 - 8 for most cites.

See if that makes sense in an indoor container garden cycle of 4 or 5 months.

CC

 

[mad librettist]

I add lime to feed the worms. they are calcium hogs.

 

[Clackamas Coot]

I add lime to feed the worms. they are calcium hogs.

At several levels, earthworms need calcium and one major area is for reproduction.

Earthworm castings from a proper bin will be covered (literally) with a slime that is 98% pure Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) which gives you about 39% elemental Calcium (Ca).

Amazing little critters.........

CC

 

[Scrappy4]

Good point CC. Another reason to age our soil.

I should also say i live on what was once an ancient sea bed. (MI) I have a limestone quarry 40 miles north and a gypsum mine 20 miles to my south. The soil ph in my outside veggie garden is ph 7- 7.3 as is the rest of my yard, and the wooded land that surrounds me, and in my compost heap. So i have cal everywhere I look......scrappy

 

[Clackamas Coot]

Scrappy4

Calcium makes up 4% of the earth's crust. As you accurately pointed out Ca is everywhere.

Gypsum is used by Sunshine in some of their higher-end products (Sunshine Organic Growers Mix, et al) for pH adjusting.

Calcium for raising the pH and sulphur for lowering as it releases Hydrogen when it's broken down by the soil's microbes. Steve Solomon's famous Complete Organic Fertilizer (COF - which is not per se) mix uses a combination of gypsum, dolomite lime and either limestone (Calcium Carbonate) or Calcite Limestone (a purer form of Calcium Carbonate).

Something like that...........

CC

 

[jaykush]

lime? who needs lime when you have humus, organic matter and microbes

 

[Clackamas Coot]

lime? who needs lime when you have humus, organic matter and microbes

Yep - all day long.

CC

 

[Scrappy4]

So the EWC we add in the soil and in teas already has calcium carbonate in them. Good to know, i suspected it was from all the egg shells my worms get.. I have ph'd my castings, and from my (shaky) memory it was in the 7 range too. I also add a fair amount of ewc in the mix, and as top dressings.......scrappy

 

[Clackamas Coot]

Scrappy4

If you have any confidence in Gil Carandang's work in the area of fermented extracts then his process of extracting Calcium Phosphate from eggs shells might be of interest to you.

"Calcium Phosphate

A lot of agriculture advisers have used calcium phosphate for better plant growth, health, pest and disease controls. Natural farmers use this bionutrient very specific. Under the theory of Nutrioperiodism developed by a Japanese horticulturist, Yasushi Inoue in the 1930’s, plants and animals need a very specific nutrient relative to the stage of their development. In the plant, there is the essential vegetative growth , changeover and the reproductive periods. In animals, like humans, there is the infantile, juvenile and adulthood. It is not only critical to provide the right nutrient at the right stage of the development, but also critical to use or apply specific nutrient of calcium phosphate in the juvenile or changeover period. For the plant, for example, we know that nitrogen is critical on the vegetative stage as potassium is critical in the flowering and fruiting stages. It is however, the changeover period that is most critical that will determine the quality of the final reproductive stage. At this stage, an additional nutrient is badly needed by the plant. And this is calcium phosphate. Calcium phosphate is good for plants’ “morning sickness”. It is the stage that additional baby needs to be fed or the process where flower/fruit is about to come. Ash made from soybean stems are excellent for this purpose.

Here is a simple, natural method of generating calcium phosphate. Get eggshells and roast them enough to generate some good ashes. Afterwhich, dip these roasted eggshells on about equal visual volume of vinegar. Allow it to sit for a couple of weeks until eggshells are practically broken down by the vinegar acids. You may use this diluted 20 parts water and can be sprayed or watered to the plants during the changeover period.

When this is applied to that changeover period, it will improve plant health and productivity. The use of calcium phosphate is important to natural farmers. This however, does not mean that we shall forget the nutrient timing application of other critical nutrients for plant growth both macro and micro nutrients, given at the right stages and combinations.

We consider this very important bionutrient needed by the plants used by natural farmers."

This could also be mixed (shells included) with some kind of grain like oatmeal until it's a paste and then bury it at one end of your worm bin much like one would (should) do with bokashi fermented kitchen scraps.

The microbes in the worm bin will neutralize the acidity from the vinegar at which time the normal process will continue. The acidity level in vinegar pales in comparison to the levels in bokashi compost.

HTH

CC

 

[Scrogerman]

Hey guys interesting stuff,
So what ratio of Humas would we have to add to our mix's to make buffers like dolo/L unnessary.
I know mix's high in Humas have much wider PH buffering cap than limed soils etc.

 

[Clackamas Coot]

Scrogerman

I use 25% of some combination of thermal compost and earthworm castings.

I would like to add that there are any number of calcium sources that are often included in potting soil mixes - at least the good ones.

Soft rock phosphate - this soil amendment contains 23 - 25% Calcium. One brand name for example is 'Calphos' - not that I'm recommending that brand but only pointed it out as an example.

Kelp - kelp meals and viable seaweed extracts contain high levels of Calcium. Kelp meal contains 4 - 7% (dry weight).

Glacial rock dust - contains high levels of Calcium and another 71 minerals.

Fish bone meal - obviously.

Then there are the other plant-based sources - nettle, comfrey, etc. - these simply placed into water and allowed to naturally ferment for a few weeks will provide you with high levels of any number of macro and micro nutrients including Calcium.

See Jaykush for further details and information.

HTH

CC

 

[Scrogerman]

N1 CC, it was you n Jay that put me onto the Nettle & Comfrey Teas last year(Cheers!), ill be using these in my outdoor this season, Still looking for that perfect mix, & still learning organics, its not as black n white as hydro but im getting there thanks to you guys!

I was looking at hauling a load of mix a couple of miles, untill one of my buddys mentioned he just ammends the soil on/at site with EWC, FBB, Kelp & a little BGuano iirc, but it wasnt much & seemed alot less work than haulin ass, he said results were spectacular! his pics looked great too!
If i can add enough EWC/Guano to the ground mix, would that be sufficient or would i need to add more humas, to help eliminate the need for dolo lime, any advise there?
Im planning on giving EWC/compost teas etc. I was goin to add the dolo lime anyway but i aint so sure now.

Cheers! Great info on the Ca.

 

[Scrappy4]

Scrappy4

If you have any confidence in Gil Carandang's work in the area of fermented extracts then his process of extracting Calcium Phosphate from eggs shells might be of interest to you.This could also be mixed (shells included) with some kind of grain like oatmeal until it's a paste and then bury it at one end of your worm bin much like one would (should) do with bokashi fermented kitchen scraps.

The microbes in the worm bin will neutralize the acidity from the vinegar at which time the normal process will continue. The acidity level in vinegar pales in comparison to the levels in bokashi compost.

HTH

CC

Yes it is interesting, i may just try this for adding to the plants at the flip.

But, how is making the cal/phos stuff and adding it to the worms, different than just adding the egg shells to the bakashi bucket, and letting the shells ferment? The bakshi, is fed to the worms, and then the worm poop goes in the soil mix and in teas and such. Isn't that pretty much the same thing? Scrappy

 

[jaykush]

So what ratio of Humas would we have to add to our mix's to make buffers like dolo/L unnessary.
I know mix's high in Humas have much wider PH buffering cap than limed soils etc.

you dont add humus to the soil, you have to build humus levels. you can though, add organic matter which given time decomposes into humus.

 

[Clackamas Coot]

Yes it is interesting, i may just try this for adding to the plants at the flip.

But, how is making the cal/phos stuff and adding it to the worms, different than just adding the egg shells to the bakashi bucket, and letting the shells ferment? The bakshi, is fed to the worms, and then the worm poop goes in the soil mix and in teas and such. Isn't that pretty much the same thing? Scrappy

Scrappy

My bad - I wasn't aware that you were already doing the 'bokashi' thing - and you're absolutely right. If you're adding egg shells to your bokashi bucket then there's absolutely no reason to do the vinegar-egg shell deal.

Sorry about that!

CC

 

[Scrappy4]

Scrappy

My bad - I wasn't aware that you were already doing the 'bokashi' thing - and you're absolutely right. If you're adding egg shells to your bokashi bucket then there's absolutely no reason to do the vinegar-egg shell deal.

Sorry about that!

CC

No problem coot, I'm new to the party and am trying to get this figured out.

Your answer triggers another question though. Is it better to add something like this homemade cal/phos stuff in a soil mix or to spot feed at right time? Scrappy

 

[yesum]

So my dolomite lime that is not powdered but maybe 3 mm diameter, is not going to be useful in indoor grow? I mix soil just before planting btw.

I heard ewc buffer ph a bit, I just got a bag of that and will try it out next grow.

 

[Tactical Farmer]

I went through hell my first year of growing, started out organic with homemade compost. Peatmoss, farm cow poo, yard scraps, etc & earth juice.

Read the threads (4 years back) about PH meters & organics being a joke, so since my mix is premo natural & humus to the max, 2TBS/gal lime to buffer & im set right ?

NOT... Those first 3 grows were crap & stressful, was about ready to find another hobby then somehow thankfully I got some PH testing gear & low & behold my runoff is like mid 7's & absolutely will NOT go down with acidic feeding methods.

Better cut the lime in 1/2 next grow (1TBS/Gal) - WTF - Still cant get runoff in the 6's even when feeding EJ strait up at PH 4 the entire grow.

Even a dinky 1/2 TBS/Gal lime makes my mix around 7.0ish & the grow was still poor.

F-it NO LIME & if that doesn't help then screw it, back to the rat race.

It was like night & day difference, runoff just right, plants happy, grow went from NO to PRO with that simple change.

Cal & Mag demands are handled with molasses, bit of gypsum & some Metanaturals liquid calcium from time to time.

I despise lime but my situation "MAY' be unique.

 

[redneck shogun]

I went through hell my first year of growing, started out organic with homemade compost. Peatmoss, farm cow poo, yard scraps, etc & earth juice.

There is certainly nothing hellish about using the materials you mentioned in my experience. I think the difference though may be in the one thing you did not mention, the water. If your water is hard and you have not built up humus in your mix then I would expect lockout, limed or not.