C-ray, I'm putting my husband's engineering nose to the spectrometer, but I'm also curious about the papers you're depicting here vs the meter--accuracy. IME pH papers in aquatics are horrible, highly inaccurate. Same here, or are these a better quality?

Originally Posted by c-ray

for plant sap pH analysis

Horiba Cardy Twin pH meter ~ 250 bucks

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and for the members of the ghetto club

Hydrion 5.5-8 papers ~ 10 bucks

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[jayjayfrank]

i have been using genhyrdo ph drops and for the longest time i thought a ph pen would be better but its not really. drops dont have to be calibrated and once you know what color is what ph it becomes second nature.

i would be concerned about the ph test strips that are linked not being accurate if it was over a wider range. 0.2 steps in ph i would be pretty comfortable with using once you get some practice.

exactly, and those 0.2 pH steps are pretty distinct so..

[Oregonism]

Measuring Total Organic Carbon
Presently, no methods exist to measure TOC in the field.
Attempts have been made to develop color charts that
match color to TOC content, but the correlation is better
within soil landscapes and only for limited soils. Near
infrared spectroscopy has been attempted to measure C
directly in the field, but it is expensive. Numerous
laboratory methods are available.

NRCS Soil Quality Indicator: Total Organic carbon


This is an important step for me. I am working on this outside of the cannabis world and now I have to go buy a webcam! No more procrastinating.....any results?

sounds like you will need to make a near infra red flashlight

I just got the webcam in the mail, should be in business soon..

[VortexPower420]

C-ray- most excellent. Just went to a course with Jon Kempf, for a young man he knows more about plant systems and soil systems better then anyone else.
He is on very lucky guy to sturdy under Bruce Tanino, Arden Anderson, and the heavy hitters of the Bio-ag movement.

He did state two things
1. The work of Bruce Tainio is along the lines of Tesla, it will be 50 to a 100 years before his work will be fully realized. Leaps and bounds ahead of most. Jon mentioned they Bruces wife is compiling his works and will have a book out this year.

2. Jon in his consulting has stopped using pH sap test because he found them to not be a accurate way to test for plant health. I wish I could member exactly, so much new and exciting info that slipped through the cracks. I think it was from a mineral build up leading to a 6.4 no matter what, damn I wish I remembered. I will be getting the mp3s of the class soon and I will listen and let you know.
Timbuktu

p.s.- I love you quote Hugh is the man. If organic gardeners would say fuck NPK and worries about B, Si and Ca with a mineral rich base it would be a different world. N should come from the air not a bottle.

Do you add Boron?

Timbuktu

I look forward to that book and hearing more about your workshop. Yes I use borax (10-20 ppm B in the final mix).. lately I just dissolve it in the water I use to initially wet down my compost, so that it can bond with the humalite, peat, clay etc in the heap

Vortex, great that you were able to make one of Kempf's talks! I see all this stuff in my ag mag and want to go, but haven't made one of them (yet!). So, I know you said you got an information overload, but do you recall, did he discuss what he now prefers to use as the metric for plant health, if it's not sap pH?

[VortexPower420]

I believe he goes by brix. I could be wrong and I will know more when get and listen to the recordings again. The big talk was sugar/lipid production and brix is a measure of sugar and dissolved solids. Interesting note on refactometers is the more indistinct the line the better.

12 or higher is the number to shoot for. A straight line 12 means good sugar production but not very complex sap make up (carbohydrates, proteins, lipids). If you have a indistinct kind of wavy line it is better, more complex sugar and sap make up.

I know he is big in to Carbon Induction. He coined this term and it means providing the plant with everything it needs either through the soil or if that is lacking, foilar feeding to systemically improve the plants health to a point where it stores energy. When it stores energy it does so as lipids (fats) which when it fills its fats stores it will exude the excess and feed fungi to complex build soil humus.

But that is reliant on the fact that you have complete and excess carb/protein synthesis for the plants to exude to feed that bacteria so they can make soluble nutrients and feed them to the plants in the exact form and quantity they want.

I don't know if you are familiar with his plant health pyramid but I strive for the top. Complex trepene and aromatic compound production.(Phytoalexins) I want my plants fat.
But all this is not possible if first you don't get proper synthesis of carbohydrates and proteins.

Timbuktu

Hmm... I'll have to look again, but the plant health pyramid isn't ringing a bell for me right now. I read Acres, USA, but haven't purchased many additional books at this point. I've just been focusing on feeding the soil and letting the plants tell me how they feel about it, with pests or disease being one indicator of issues. I can't say I've done a fantastic job of resolving issues using that method, based on last year's lost cole crop (cabbage aphids are unlike any other pest I have ever dealt with, in any arena).

I'm familiar with the term and ideas behind carbon sequestration and utilizing both oceanic and terrestrial means to achieve that goal.

It's good to get some confirmation (bias?) that my ideas of a little foliar feeding isn't cheating. I do try to return as much plant material, especially if I've done a lot of foliars, to the earth in which it was grown.*



* I grow mostly outdoors, haven't done indoors for a couple of years now, so am focused on building up soil on our property.