Albrecht - style balancing

we all know that living soil can be achieved by ensuring diversity, utilizing EWC and compost, w/ a "little of this, little of that" approach

the general recomendation is to let the microbes do the work

and many of us organic advocates have seen that this idea works quite well in practice

but; dr william albrecht accomplished a great deal w/ his research in the 50s which modern agricultural science at times seems to ignore - as do we

meanwhile, many of us are tinkerers bridled to the passion for messing w/ the dials -much like a chem grower or hydro could it be that there is some or any advantage to making some calculations and ensuring that minerals are present in the correct ratio?

for instance, many accept 2:1 as a viable cal/mag ratio. yet dr albrecht made recomendations more like 6-8:1. Something i recently read showed a cal/mag ratio of 4:1 w/ excellent results {cant remember where now} interestingly; this more closely parallels the liming mix popularized in clackamas coot's soil recipe 1 pt oyster shell, 1 part dolomit lime, and 1 part gypsum

maybe some of us tinkerers could aggregate here and consider methods which resemble dr albrecht's recomendation - sort of a combo of living soil and letting the mocrobes delegate the nuts out and calculating NPK -only we want to calculate sulfur boron and other micros as well

yes i keep pulling this stuff out of my butt; nonetheless what i wonder is if we can't do alittle fine-tuning and really blow the chem guys out of the garden

*edit* one valid point which may pique the interest of some of us die-hard living soil guys is albrecht's recommendation that many farms apply too much nitrogen and the best way to get it is out of the air? i know that's going to grab the attention of the living mulch guys; since legumes {living mulch} are the method he advocated

*further edit* in my reading i also found information on applying phosphorous as calcium phosphate - while this may not be our amendment of choice, w/ fish bone meal arising as a P source of choice among living soil advocates it bears some consideration in context w/ this info; might we want to lessen our calcium sources when using FBM? and are we getting a more available form of P from the FBM? credit to clackamas for the FBM suggestion

i believ we will find running these #s that we inadvertantly land within reasonably correct ratios but my goal is to have some info which new growers can access to further understand the value of differing applications

I think one issue here is that the experiments were done in the absence of living soil. Albrecht started with inert clay containing no nutes or life at all.

How would the experiments turn out if humus were used instead of pure, dead clay?

in the case of dead clay with nutrients added, the plant is not in charge and is only able to absorb nutrients that happen to be in balance with pH and everything else.

In the case of soil with lots of humus, the interactions between nutrient salts are moderated. Maybe that explains why I don't need to worry about cal:mag ratio? If everything isn't available all at once, then there is very little chance of "lockout".


When everything is available all at once, you are growing hydro or chem soil.

Heads up Xmo..2 parts oyster shell in that lime mix. I use it also.
With the proper ratio of liming agents and humic material in the soil,I can count on it. I do not have these cal/mag issues that are seemingly so popular and uniquely discriminate to cannabis....unlikely they even exist from that perspective.

'Oh shat..my corn has lockout...oh shat my green beans are having cal/mag problems'...what that is is hydrostore industry brainwashing. Yes plants get lockout..only because they aren't grown in real live soil,or that real soil was assembled incorrectly.

best way to check calcium levels is to look for dandelions. they are asociated with low cal, just like clover goes with low N.

my next recycle is going to include a massive amount of glacial rock dust. 4 cups to each cu ft.

schwagg said:

my next recycle is going to include a massive amount of glacial rock dust. 4 cups to each cu ft.

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Those rock dusts could be even more helpful if you introduce them in your composting process, along with everything else rock dust helps form humic crumbs. And if you using the compost anyway you will get it all back.....scrappy

rock dusts also provide grit for worms...

i only see the cal/mag issues w/ coco

afaik, dr albrecht's work continued to field trials - likely this is where the living soil thing came in to effect and the ratios became less critical

what i am driving at is this seems like a good set of values to apply towards optimization

i been satisfied w/ my gardenin results and methods for many years but i dont get abundant problem free results w/ every veggie in the plot {does anyone - lol}

in the link where i said i couldn't remember the link that co is claiming superior results based on albrecht's ratios

the living soil thing works - and it works good; i notice that some folks get better results than others though

living soil takes work to maintain, that is for sure. not a whole lot of work, mind you, but it mustn't be skipped.

for instance moisture management can make or break a living soil

indeed, let it dry or overwater and the microbes are stunted; kinda not the good plan to follow the books advice to go from "very dry" to "very wet"

i find it easy to see why some have a poor 1st run then swear off organics but by the time i got to organics, the peters 20-20-20 had been my poor 1st runs

bottled nutes today make it easy as ever {maybe except all the choices/formulas} but cost? omg - fuck that

one run for them is years for us

well, back on topic

difficult to find simple #s in albrecht's publications but common is suggesting a ratio more like 4-8:1 for cal:mag

seems like 2:1 for calhos

and pushed a "how low can you go" approach for N as he advocated legumes rather than amending

the phos:K ratio seems a little confusing by weight its 1:2 and 1:1 by percent

how do people like: N?-P4-K4 Cal8/Mag1 by %

????????????????????????

mad librettist said:

If everything isn't available all at once

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relevant to the below and a big portion of considerations when we intend to recycle soil

schwagg said:

my next recycle is going to include a massive amount of glacial rock dust. 4 cups to each cu ft.

Click to expand...

while this does sound like a heavy amendment; the rock dusts are not as available; additions at this level will maximize the time you can recycle this mix

however, it may be too much?

cycling it through the compost pile or worm bin as suggested seems like the best plan

I find his work highly interesting. He is talking about base saturation (% of cec capacity) when he speaks of Ca:Mg ratios...claiming that at those levels allow enough oxygen in the soil to maximize microbiology. Inputs do not necessarily follow precisely the base saturation. I fooked around a little bit with raw salts and dropped Mg down to 25 ppm to make the Ca:Mg ratio a little easier to achieve. No bueno...the very next set of leaves was pale with signs of chlorosis. So ratio alone isn't the only parameter...you need certain amounts of minerals at a minimum also.

In light soils like we tend to use his current followers recommend a 4:1 or 3:1 ratio. More controversial is the recommend that K (elemental) = Mg =P (elemental) and that P:Zn = 10:1...at 50 ppm P that is a lot of Zn. No one is running those levels following these forums.

Farming wise though his followers do seem to produce some impressive results.

I am struggling with how to design a statistically valid trial with this info at the moment

Plus there is no doubt in my mind that achieving levels of humus higher than they recommend is a good idea as it just flat gives you more margin for error when dealing with levels like he recommends. They recommend 45% minerals, 5% humus, 25% air and 25% water as the "ideal soil". Of course, I have read good compost is like 20% humus...so at 25% of the total that comes real close to their 5% recommend. All of that extra cec though sure provides a nice buffer if you don't have the minerals exactly right.

thanks yosemite sam, your input w/ regard to the zinc ratio is definitely appreciated

theres clearly going to be a benefit to comparing ratios as derived in the hydro process; while it must be true that there will be differences w/ regard to soil -which i think will prove to be a large part of the difficulty in arriving at good ratios

i definitely agree that a high level of organic matter is going to be beneficial

the process of developing soil simply by adding compost/OM has its merits and seems directly related to the idea of "living soil" -let the microbes do the delegating

These guys in Australia follow Albrecht's principles. http://www.nutri-tech.com.au/blog/category/biological-agriculture/nutrient-strategies/

If you read through that, and forget about all of the fucking advertising for their stuff, there is some interesting info to be mined.

edit...MidWestern Bio-Ag also follows the principles although their site does not contain near as much info near as I can tell http://www.midwesternbioag.com/calcium-products.php

yes i been readin the nutri tech site - kinda confused some infos from there w/ the original albrecht stuff (which is ok) one of the things i noticed is when they peddle somthing one can usually identify it and come up w/ an alternative

midwestern bioag seems to kinda confirm the importance of Ca - probably the key take away from albrecht's findings

I've been throwing around a lot of Ca lately, as a way to dispose of eggshells.

I use the vinegar trick.

Next run I will try the "extra Ca during the stretch" trick I read about recently.

YosemiteSam said:

Plus there is no doubt in my mind that achieving levels of humus higher than they recommend is a good idea as it just flat gives you more margin for error when dealing with levels like he recommends. They recommend 45% minerals, 5% humus, 25% air and 25% water as the "ideal soil". Of course, I have read good compost is like 20% humus...so at 25% of the total that comes real close to their 5% recommend. All of that extra cec though sure provides a nice buffer if you don't have the minerals exactly right.

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check your math!

when we talk about 20% compost/ewc, we aren't measuring the water and air in the mix. All we measure is the dry ingredients by volume. I'm not even sure how to convert the figures! My math never includes the air and water. Just like most here I tend to go with my gut rather than measuring porosity to determine how much water and air are in the mix.

let's see, the dry ingredients are soil and humus, at a ratio of 45:5. So a rough estimate would be 10% humus, which is a very nice number if we are talking a large property. Of course in your little garden you can afford to go for 20%.

mad librettist said:

I've been throwing around a lot of Ca lately, as a way to dispose of eggshells.

I use the vinegar trick.

Next run I will try the "extra Ca during the stretch" trick I read about recently.

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Mad, by "vinegar trick" do you mean the concoctions that Gil Carandang talks about? How do you do make it, and how will you apply it?

Tom Hill famously recommends obscene amounts of calcium in his soil mix, too, although I don't know that he emphasizes application in stretch.

hang on I'll bump the thread for you...