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
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
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