Teaming with Nutrients by: Jeff Lowenfels - discussion

[Microbeman]

As I've been saying for some time here are two good books;

Modern Soil Microbiology second edition
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9780824727499

This is written by quite a number of leading soil researchers, not people who have a vested interest in painting some sort of magic scenario in order to build a following (or sell something).

The Rhizosphere an Ecological Perspective
http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&...ts=eSDXGciHtp&sig=E-v3Iu2J15sGfMHPx6Q4-hBPO6M

Some of the same scientists contributed to this.

It is souces like this plus published research/reviews where I prefer to get my meat and potatoes.

 

[boobs]

Agreed about the Kempf stuff, listening to it right now. It's the spark I needed.

 

[DARC MIND]

The Kempf stuff is dynamite. I bet I have listened to that 4 times by now.

is ther a link to what you all are talking about or do we need to purchase something

 

[milkyjoe]

For me the proof is trying it myself. The Kempf stuff works.

You make a plant produce fat and guess what...the fat soluble secondary metabolites go off the charts. It works in my garden.

 

[milkyjoe]

sorry cannot edit yet

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=236576&highlight=refractometer+brix&page=13

C-Rays epic bump post has a link to the Kempf stuff.

 

[boobs]

Here's the link yosemitesam posted a while back http://bionutrient.org/library/audio-archive

 

[EclipseFour20]

...It is souces like this plus published research/reviews where I prefer to get my meat and potatoes.

AMEN! Huge advantage with peer reviewed/research/studies/thesis papers/scholarly docs--are the hidden golden nuggets buried in the data and research. Not EVERY conclusion is summarized in the single paragraph called "abstract summary" or in the "conclusion section"--just what the author wanted to summarize. BTW, do not overlook "reference section"...full of leads and hints and will help find the "right answer"--should you stumble upon two conflicting opinions (like that never happens...lol)

Cheers!

 

[VortexPower420]

I personally love to listen to Kempf I don't like how he is always selling his products.

Don't get me wrong I have seen the results and have used his products and they are amazing I feel you can make it all your self.

All it is is micronized omri approved materials.

I trust the Amish a great deal and for being mid 20's he has learned and worked with the best in the field. Tanio, Kisey, Walters, Arden Anderson and more.

I like listening to Dan he talks about the same principles just with out selling anything, which I like.

Kempf talks alot about Carbon Induction. A great thought and what a healthy plant should do, but I feel he is talking about depleted soils. It is not practical to apply enough compost to 1000 acres. So what do you do Regularly apply (via soil drench and foliar applications) available but not soluble nutrients for that stage of growth, so the plant has excess energy and sugars to feed soil microbes so they create proper complex long chain humus compounds. There for improving the soil while growing very healthy plants. He talks about the main goal of building OM levels in the soil through crop production and creating a self sustaining system with minimal inputs other then those need to be replaced.

Another thing he has said he has not come across compost worthy of being called compost in most places. He cited three places if I remember correctly Static Bio-dynamic compost (Josephine Porter Instatute type stuff), Vermont compost and something else I forget.

I like how he bridges the Mineral approach with understanding its affect on biology and the power of biology, but also understand mineral requirements for certain plants at specific times to make plants thrive.

One leg up us home vermicomposters got is very high quality carbon rich input we can use with little caution and make nutrient rich while there chowing down.

Timbuktu

 

[gardenerjeff]

Lowenfels Speaks!

Lowenfels Speaks!

Hi Friends, author of the book and a long time "lurker" of these forums. There is a tremendous accumulation of knowledge here. I have enjoyed the bantering about Teaming With Microbes, though it takes a tough skin sometimes. What author likes to hear that his book SUCKS!

First, I thank all of your who have purchased Teaming With Microbes and Teaming With Nutrients. I hope you have been able to take-away something from each. I wrote each because the topics are important to gardening, gardeners and the environment. The topics were not something I felt most gardeners, including myself, knew about, nonetheless appreciated. I

For those who have complained about Teaming With Nutrients, I am sorry you did not enjoy the book. Again, I wrote it because most people who garden have no clue about fertilizers other than what the Miracle-Gro man tells them. I would not expect that criteria to be applied to members of this group. You are well above the norm when it comes to horticultural experience and knowledge. Yes, this is information you can find elsewhere, but in my experience you have to look at a lot of places. Yes, I did not add anything new to the chemistry or botany....if you were expecting a new element or something, I am sorry. I merely attempted to start at a beginning and teach myself and the reader enough chemistry and botany so they could follow the path of nutrients from the soil to the plant and get a feel for what goes on in those trillions of cells in each plant.

I did want to try and create some awe. 17 trillion cells in an apple tree---maybe only a trillion in good cannabis plant, all connected, membrane proteins that may only operate for a couple of minutes with each nutrient requiring its own kind, molecules somewhere along the line turning into life....

I did want to impress that you have to test your soils, just as you do hydroponics media. This may sound silly here, but no gardener really does this...yet we know information is power. And we know we are using resources wastefully. If you want the best soil grown plant you have to know what the soil lacks, understand pH etc. Again, not something most here need to be told, right? Testing is key.

But most of all I wanted to leave the reader with the tools to look at plants in a different way from now on....full of three dimensional cells, each full of over 10,000 different kinds of enzymes and 1000s of each of those, sending signals to uptake nitrogen, flowing sap, working ribosomes, mitochondria working away like protable generators after a storm...

I want the reader to be able to appreciate what an aphid is doing when it sucks the phloem juices and know why it won't just wash off, that the yellowing of leaves may not be due to loss of nitrogen, that you really can't foliar feed all the nutrients, why plants do best at 75 degrees, the role of nitrogen fixing bacteria, what that damn pH chart really means, how to respond to soil deficiencies and how to make your own soil fertilizers....etc

I want the reader to come away with enough knowledge to appreciate the wonders of what goes on inside a plant, how they are as complex as we are and even how they deserve a tremendous amount of respect.

I want the reader to appreciate more those beautiful and tasteful trichomes which are used in transpiration and to perhaps contemplate them in a different way....which, many here already do.

Finally, I want the reader to understand that what goes on in a plant cell is analogous to what goes on here on earth, and on bigger and bigger scales and to contemplate the possibility that we are just part of a small cell that is inside a larger cell inside a larger one......

My intention was not to create new science but to provide some tools so that people could figure out or at least think about what goes on inside plants and in the soil. Some will be come better gardeners as a result. Others will become more poetic.

Again,THANK YOU ALL for reading the books. I am sorry some think it sucks. Come here my talks, then, someday when I am in your 'hood so I can personally apologize.

Keep on reading the book! Oddly enough it is selling very well with great comments from "average joe's that wouldn't read 10 pages of it!" There are already requests for translation (TWM is in French, Korean, Slovenian and soon, Dutch). Please, critique the hell out of them. I deserve it and need it. There will be a third to complete the Soils Trilogy and I will try and take your thoughts into account

Teaming x 2,

Jeff Lowenfels
Anchorage, Alaska

P.S> sorry for not proofing. No disrespect intended.

 

[Microbeman]

I'm still waiting for my free copy.

 

[boobs]

Awesome!!

When you come through my hood you're getting smoked DOWN!!

 

[John Deere]

I'm still waiting for my free copy.

It's at the library.

 

[EclipseFour20]

Oh shit...the man has ears! Lesson learned for all: Never say something about someone--that you would not say to their face!

Jeff, Good work on the first book...and now you have ideas for the next one.

Cheers!

 

[FatherEarth]

Thanks for explaining Jeff. If you could write a book on soil nutrients, microbes and their interactions with cannabis that would be fantastic. You are right about helping the average gardener and for that audience it is a great read. For me Teaming with Microbes helped open up a whole new world and new practices. I guess I went into Teaming with Nutrients thinking I was going to get the same thing. TWM is such a good book I can see how its a hard book to write a sequel to. No disrespect just sharing an honest opinion. Thanks for stopping in, glad to know you are around.

Respectfully,

FE

 

[CountryGoldGuy]

Great conversation! I look forward to reading the book when boobs is done with it and I get some reading glasses.

Great to see an author chime in and roll with the punches. Much respect! GCG

 

[gardenerjeff]

Hey, no offense taken! All good points.

I am quite sure there is plenty in Teaming With Nutrients that also applies to growing weed because it applies to almost all plants. As I have wandered about my garden this year, lots of stuff I learned writing the book took on different meaning. Take the role of boron and flowering. Making sure it boron is there on time makes sooooo much more sense now as does when to ease off the nitrogen and why to use mychorrizal fungi from the start of a plant, not just because of the phosphorus but the nitrogen uptake as well. I am quite sure there are lots and lots of gems that someone with lots of experience will remember when they are around plants and will be helped by doing so.

Anyhow, enough. I learned a hell of a lot writing the book, but I learn a hell of a lot reading boards like this. That should show the experts here what a sorry gardener I have been despite researching and writing a weekly column every single week for the past 38 years!

Hope to drop by every now and then and will do so!

Teaming x 2,

jeff L



If you like the book, make your friends buy their own. If you didn't, tell your enemies to buy one and read it!
.

 

[BugJar]

Super cool of you to stop by!.Sorry you met with such negative reviews here.

Not much makes it through that gauntlet unscathed.

Best of luck with your future endeavors. Do as well as you can but realize that we are ALL students despite what we may think.

There will never be one resource with all the answers.

 

[xmobotx]

Not much makes it through that gauntlet unscathed.

that is definitely one way of saying it ~lol

 

[OrganicOzarks]

I have to agree with fatherearth. Teaming with microbes changed the way I thought about growing plants. Where as teaming with nutrients did not.

I suppose I expected more than what I got. I literally have books stacked all around me, my computer, and my microscope, and this is the only book I could not make myself finish.

That is saying a lot, as Elaine Inghams books can be about as fun to read as an obituary for your high school gym teacher.

I found my mind wondering about with things I needed to do. I wanted to go take down notes of things I was thinking about, and ideas I had. I did not feel invested in it at all. Whereas teaming with microbes I have read multiple times.

Who knows what changed, maybe it was me, maybe it was the writing style, but something is most definitely different.

Any book on organic gardening is a good book. We do need more of them, and we do need to spread the word of organics.

This forum has information to another level. I speak with organic market growers in my area, and they act like I am speaking a different language sometimes. It amazes me that they grow plants for a living, but they don't really know the science behind the process.

It blows me away that these people live off of a bit of recycled knowledge, and a lot of prayer.

Gotta give much respect for you coming on here, and chiming in. Unfortunately now all of us Organic heads can feel like we have more clout on this forum. We gotta have a good thing going here if we can draw you into posting.

 

[John Deere]

Gotta give much respect for you coming on here, and chiming in. Unfortunately now all of us Organic heads can feel like we have more clout on this forum. We gotta have a good thing going here if we can draw you into posting.

I assume MM had more than a little influence on this, too.