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Danger of Al+++ Solubility Aluminum Silicate Clays (Azomite, Bentonite,...)

CannaRed

Cannabinerd
I avoid it for this reason (azomite in particular)


I recall coot explaining a potential problem with it and fulvics in particular but I don't remember the details

I believe I saw a post somewhere that coot had contacted Dr. Faust about this issue.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
Well the goal is to live healthy, I use recreationally and don't want to use medically. I like to smoke weed that makes me super paranoid after work, then I walk around my property talking to myself trying to get shit done.

If you smoke pot in your car in front of the police station, does the weed seem stronger ?
 

thailer

Well-known member
i went to go and see if i could find coot talking about why exactly fulvic and aluminum shouldn't be used and i found someone who actually wrote BioAG.

So I contacted BioAg, (who have been amazing btw),

Dear harry,
Hope you are fine,
I wanted to ask the following question:
my soil contains ZeoBas a product which is a blend of zeolite and basalt rock.
As i understand it Zeolite contains aluminum which can become plant available via application of fulvic, am correct in this assumption? Should i not add fulvic to this soil?
Thanking you in advance,

with kind regards
tzorge​

here's what they said:

Hi tzorge,

Fulvic acid is the transporter of nature. Normally you find fulvic acid together with humic acid. Our fulvic is not connected to any elements. I do not know if the plant ask for aluminum as fulvic also works as detox it could be the aluminum in the plant will be transported out of the plant.

If I am honest we do not know, it could be the plant has benefit of the fulvic thru transport out of the plants. As in the soil we find humic (humic acid with fulvic acid) so when you use zeolite the transport of the aluminum will be always be done.
I hope I cleared you question, if not please let me know​
So being as ignorant as i am, and pretty unsure of what this meant I went back
Hi Harry,
I think I understood[coughs], the aluminum present in the Zeolite could be absorbed, on the other hand, the product is pure fulvic, it acts as a detox for the plant, so even if initially the aluminum becomes plant available, because of the detox nature of fulvic it will be removed?

Thanks a lot for your reply,
tzorge​

Hi tzorge
Correct it would work like as we both wrote.
Harry​

I am still confused and not that clear on whats what. I guess that i will go as is and see how it goes.
That's the first I've heard that fulvic acids can actually draw aluminum/ions OUT of plants, which I highly doubt.

If aluminum uptake by the plant is a concern for you, the answer is really simple. Don't use fulvic acid...

here's coots response:
Think of fulvic acid as steroids. Over application will cause major problems in the soil because of its chelation capacity. It chelates everything including separating aluminum from the usual silica bond. Not exactly what you want to have happen and this and other reasons are why they recommend applying pure fulvic acids as a foliar spray. And there are other solid reasons to do that in its ability to exchange its Carbon and Oxygen cations for elements on its way into the plants vascular system. Even in the root zone this agent is quickly absorbed by the root hairs.

Here's a citation from Dr. Robert Faust on the subject of fulvic acids:

Fulvic acid is not a single, repeatable molecule. Rather it is like gathering millions of snowflakes, each unique, but all under a specific size. It's because of this small size that it is able to penetrate even into the mitochondria, the workhorse of the cell.

And because of its many receptor sites, if properly extracted, it has the potential to be a very powerful antioxidant.

HTH

LD
 

Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
i went to go and see if i could find coot talking about why exactly fulvic and aluminum shouldn't be used and i found someone who actually wrote BioAG.


So I contacted BioAg, (who have been amazing btw),

Dear harry,
Hope you are fine,
I wanted to ask the following question:
my soil contains ZeoBas a product which is a blend of zeolite and basalt rock.
As i understand it Zeolite contains aluminum which can become plant available via application of fulvic, am correct in this assumption? Should i not add fulvic to this soil?
Thanking you in advance,

with kind regards
tzorge​

here's what they said:

Hi tzorge,

Fulvic acid is the transporter of nature. Normally you find fulvic acid together with humic acid. Our fulvic is not connected to any elements. I do not know if the plant ask for aluminum as fulvic also works as detox it could be the aluminum in the plant will be transported out of the plant.

If I am honest we do not know, it could be the plant has benefit of the fulvic thru transport out of the plants. As in the soil we find humic (humic acid with fulvic acid) so when you use zeolite the transport of the aluminum will be always be done.
I hope I cleared you question, if not please let me know​
So being as ignorant as i am, and pretty unsure of what this meant I went back
Hi Harry,
I think I understood[coughs], the aluminum present in the Zeolite could be absorbed, on the other hand, the product is pure fulvic, it acts as a detox for the plant, so even if initially the aluminum becomes plant available, because of the detox nature of fulvic it will be removed?

Thanks a lot for your reply,
tzorge​

Hi tzorge
Correct it would work like as we both wrote.
Harry​

I am still confused and not that clear on whats what. I guess that i will go as is and see how it goes.
That's the first I've heard that fulvic acids can actually draw aluminum/ions OUT of plants, which I highly doubt.

If aluminum uptake by the plant is a concern for you, the answer is really simple. Don't use fulvic acid...
here's coots response:


Quote:

Think of fulvic acid as steroids. Over application will cause major problems in the soil because of its chelation capacity. It chelates everything including separating aluminum from the usual silica bond. Not exactly what you want to have happen and this and other reasons are why they recommend applying pure fulvic acids as a foliar spray. And there are other solid reasons to do that in its ability to exchange its Carbon and Oxygen cations for elements on its way into the plants vascular system. Even in the root zone this agent is quickly absorbed by the root hairs.

Here's a citation from Dr. Robert Faust on the subject of fulvic acids:

Fulvic acid is not a single, repeatable molecule. Rather it is like gathering millions of snowflakes, each unique, but all under a specific size. It's because of this small size that it is able to penetrate even into the mitochondria, the workhorse of the cell.

And because of its many receptor sites, if properly extracted, it has the potential to be a very powerful antioxidant.

HTH

LD




:

With respect, this all sounds like conjecture mixed with ramble to me.
 

thailer

Well-known member
i think it sounds a bit weird too with the whole antioxidant part but it was a response by the company BioAG and Dr Faust that two people got. i think on the second page, someone posted that coot had talked about it previously but wasn't sure what about. sorry.
 

Microbeman

The Logical Gardener
ICMag Donor
Veteran
i think it sounds a bit weird too with the whole antioxidant part but it was a response by the company BioAG and Dr Faust that two people got. i think on the second page, someone posted that coot had talked about it previously but wasn't sure what about. sorry.

Well, it certainly is not on you. It is interesting to see some of the gobblygoop which has been written.
 

Fitzera

Active member
Hopefully someone does an experiment and has tissue examined. The only thing I'd like to add is that cannabis being a bio accumulator naturally, I wonder if it will absorb the aluminum even out of ph range. The only writings I've come across are about heavy metals though
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Hopefully someone does an experiment and has tissue examined. The only thing I'd like to add is that cannabis being a bio accumulator naturally, I wonder if it will absorb the aluminum even out of ph range. The only writings I've come across are about heavy metals though
I'm rather strict about what cannabis has access to, which is one reason I really prefer hydro and the ability to strictly control what goes in the reservoir.

My guess is we'll be blown away by testing results in the future. I predict the cannabis plant to be one of (if not) THE most absorbative plants on the planet, sucking up and holding on to the widest range of elements and molecules.

Proper foliar techniques work extremely well with cannabis. :tiphat:
 

ambertrichome

Well-known member
Veteran
Is the aluminum content in AZOMITE® a concern?

No. The alumina in AZOMITE® is not biologically available. It is bound to the silica and is an aluminosilicate. "Aluminum the metal" can only be derived from "alumina" through the process of smelting. Sand, clay, most rock deposits, and soil deposits are primarily aluminosilicates. In the words of Sally Fallon, President of the Weston Price foundation, "It does contain aluminum, but it is also rich in silica, which counteracts the aluminum. People have been eating clay and dirt as a tradition for thousands of years and all clay contains aluminum and silica." A full certificate of analysis is available.
https://www.azomite.com/resources/coa.pdf

Does AZOMITE® contain heavy metals?
Yes, but in lesser amounts than exist in a typical soil sample. Chemically, AZOMITE® is a hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate (HSCAS), which carries a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) classification. In addition AZOMITE® is listed for certified organic agriculture use by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI). AZOMITE® is a natural product from the Earth, which has not been chemically altered and cannot harm the environment.
 

Fitzera

Active member
Is the aluminum content in AZOMITE® a concern?

No. The alumina in AZOMITE® is not biologically available. It is bound to the silica and is an aluminosilicate. "Aluminum the metal" can only be derived from "alumina" through the process of smelting. Sand, clay, most rock deposits, and soil deposits are primarily aluminosilicates. In the words of Sally Fallon, President of the Weston Price foundation, "It does contain aluminum, but it is also rich in silica, which counteracts the aluminum. People have been eating clay and dirt as a tradition for thousands of years and all clay contains aluminum and silica." A full certificate of analysis is available.
https://www.azomite.com/resources/coa.pdf

Does AZOMITE® contain heavy metals?
Yes, but in lesser amounts than exist in a typical soil sample. Chemically, AZOMITE® is a hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate (HSCAS), which carries a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) classification. In addition AZOMITE® is listed for certified organic agriculture use by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI). AZOMITE® is a natural product from the Earth, which has not been chemically altered and cannot harm the environment.

But in the presence of fulvic acid it can become bioavailable?

Now that legalization is becoming more popular, and as DC points to, we should see alot more testing in our near future that will show alot more about this plant and what's in the final product.
 

G.O. Joe

Well-known member
Veteran
No it's interesting but the real questions are: Is humic acid capable of breaking down aluminosilicate at normal pH and if so, does the complex give up aluminum to Cannabis? Is there published evidence that pot grown in an environment free of humus contains less aluminum or anything else? Without a factual basis, there is nothing. Does pot grown in dirt worry you? Have you given up tea, chocolate, peanuts, and lettuce already?
 

Fitzera

Active member
No it's interesting but the real questions are: Is humic acid capable of breaking down aluminosilicate at normal pH and if so, does the complex give up aluminum to Cannabis? Is there published evidence that pot grown in an environment free of humus contains less aluminum or anything else? Without a factual basis, there is nothing. Does pot grown in dirt worry you? Have you given up tea, chocolate, peanuts, and lettuce already?

No, based on the info we have here, we are just throwing ideas around and nothing to back truly back it up.
I'm not worried, more interested.
From what we can read, aluminosilicate and fulvic acid at a very low ph range make it bio available. None of us grow in that ph range. But it would be interesting to see, being cannabis a bio accumulator, what actually is still in the plant material at the end of a cycle. Is any alu in the material? How much heavy metal is in the material? What about plants grown in different mediums?

We just dont know...yet
 

St. Phatty

Active member
I knew this already. I avoid the once which contain aluminum based salts.
I had once a deodorant which left a fine white powder. I first thought it was talc but when I read the label it said it was some kind of aluminum salt...


look at what women put on their lips.

Many lipsticks contain Lead.
 

G.O. Joe

Well-known member
Veteran
The lead levels in pot may be higher. The hyper- thing is hype - the leaf levels of metals like lead, nickel, chromium, cadmium, and arsenic in the research I've looked at tend to be not too freaky 10-25 ppm - but that's still more lead than was found in lipstick. Who has found anything saying cannabis has aluminum levels that high? There is some question how any aluminum gets in the plant and perhaps humus has some part in it, but if someone is worried about clay or rockwool leaching Al, and that getting tranferred to buds, they should vaporize. And get rid of aluminum pots and pans, foil, and many baking powders etc. etc.

The funny thing is my glass/stainless vapexhale requires finely ground material, so I bought a Space Case. It gets covered with resin soon enough.

A funnier thing - I read plants grown in a soil with lead, nickel, and arsenic in it not only absorbed these things, the gene expression for CBD was enhanced 18x, resulting in double the CBD content, with a little less THC. Greenhouse grown Fedora 17 was over the THC limit in Miracle-Gro (pH 4.6!-5.9) control, 3x more than the contaminated soil. Maybe CBD farmers will be deliberately adding heavy metals to enhance CBD levels?
 

slownickel

Active member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Plant roots give off amino and organic acids from the root tips when they are healthy and thriving. All of these aluminum silicate materials can not only be broken down by root exudates, but any GOOD microbiologist can tell you that microbiology can break down nearly anything.

Don't apply aluminum to your soil. It is a huge issue.

As for availability at high pH or not of aluminum, read JR Breazall and you will see that in the presence of bicarbonates, hydroxides and acid influences (fertilizers), AlOH (alkaline form) can actually be more toxic that the acid forms.

Univ of Arizona, 1929 I believe.

Saw a huge organic grape grower go bankrupt in one year after he applied zeolite to his fields. Plants looked fine. When he stored his fruit as normal, it all broke down in cold storage. No shelf life. Aluminum in his foliage was more than 10 times normal, over 200 ppms in the leaves.

150 ppms of Al in the leaves of corn will cut your dry matter harvest in half...

Check the ingredients in your deodorant, toothpaste, pickles, bread, vaccines, used to be in Morton salt! When it rained it poured! Aluminum silicate to the rescue. Reynolds makes a lot more money on food grade aluminum that they do aluminum sheets!!!
 

G.O. Joe

Well-known member
Veteran
As for availability at high pH or not of aluminum, read JR Breazall and you will see that in the presence of bicarbonates, hydroxides and acid influences (fertilizers), AlOH (alkaline form) can actually be more toxic that the acid forms.

he applied zeolite to his fields.

over 200 ppms in the leaves.

Doesn't seem to have that ring of truth about it, though. Couldn't find anything on this Breazall except your posts.
 
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