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Balancing Soil Minerals
- Thread starter m_astera
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Robrites-
If you got a Logan standard M3 soil test that included N, ignore the N. The Mehlich 3 solution is not a good extractant for N, and the Logan reports for N are always ridiculously low.
I would suggest a Kjeldahl test for total N. I don't know if Logan offers that but various A&L labs do.
Interestingly, the various labs calling themselves A&L are not a single corporate entity. At some point in the past (1960s or '70s I think) A&L labs split up into separate companies, each privately owned. So, as I understand it, A&L Eastern is a completely separate business from A&L Western, or A&L Great Lakes.
Re the question about late-season organic N supplies (if needed), liquid fish emulsion is good, as is blood meal worked into the top inch or so of soil. The fastest acting is probably nitrate of soda (Chile nitrate)
R
Robrites
I always believe that books pay for themselves. Your book has now paid for itself twice. Thank you, Sir.
C
Cep
Elemental sulfur is used for this and its cheap.
Cannabrix, I would first submit a test to logan or spectrum labs. You may have something other than a cation imbalance going on and the test will tell you. If you do, you can do the math to find out exactly how much sulfur to add.
Just remember that the labs recommendation is based on soil weighing 2000lbs/yard. If your soil is something like black gold, fox farm, or compost based its going to weigh much less and require less sulfur.
Hey Michael, how accurate if the kjeldahl test and why does it work better than Mehlich? Is it a great leap in increased accuracy is what I'm really wondering?
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NF4/20-
You probably know as much about the nutritional importance of silica as I do, maybe more. I haven't done much with it as a separate element/nutrient.
Si has largely been ignored in agricultural research. One reason for that is that Si is ubiquitous in rock minerals, soil, and organic matter so it's almost impossible to eliminate from the growing experiment. In hydroponics if one is using rock wool or pumice or expanded shale or any sort of mineral substrate they are adding plenty of silica. Silicon is the second most common element in Earth's crust (27.7%), second only to Oxygen (46.6%). Aluminum is third, comprising 8.1% of the crust. Clays are silico-aluminates. As clays age, they lose Si to the soil solution, lose their layer structure and negative charge. As more and more Si leaches away the soil becomes more acidic and higher in soluble Al. Examples of this would be the kaolin clays of the SE US, and tropical jungle clays near the equator.
I have not used the slag you mentioned. A few months ago a farmer in Pennsylvania sent the assay for a slag he was thinking of using. I advised him not to use it because it contained high levels of minerals he already had plenty of. So it would depend as much on the assay of the other minerals as on the amount of available Si.
The most readily available silica amendments that I know of are diatomaceous earth (DE or DTE) and Horsetail (equisetum) tea. Horsetail is loaded with Si, which is why it was used for polishing wood and metals in the past and is still used for scouring pots when camping. The best kind is the single-stemmed, unbranched, bamboo-looking reed with dark fringes between the pop-apart sections.
To make horsetail tea, fresh horsetail is best. Pick a bunch, take it home, then with a kitchen shears cut the stems between the joints. Do this over a bowl or pot so the liquid in the hollow stems is not lost. Cover with water and bring to a boil, then simmer on low for say 20 minutes. Let cool, strain the liquid off the stems, and use it as a foliar Si spray.
The other commonly available silica source is diatomaceous earth; fossilized marine diatoms that form a silica shell. Over millions of years all that remains is the pure silica shell, which breaks easily and, on a tiny scale, is like a mountain of broken glass with razor-sharp edges. DTE can cut and pierce the exoskeleton of insects, causing them to "bleed out" and die, so it's often used as an insect control method, with varying success. Mixed into the soil DTEarth is considered an excellent source of soluble Si. As charge and heat go to a point, I would expect the sharp edges of the diatoms' shell would readily be attacked and dissolved by soil acids, resulting in free Si in the soil solution. The same probably applies to the crushed slag.
Horsetail tea is also a good tonic for people and probably animals as well. It has a pleasant mild flavor of asparagus. When I'm in an area where equisetum grows I drink a pot or two as a midwinter tonic. It brightens my outlook and energy for a month or more.
FinestKindToo
Member
Wow, man, a bit defensive off the bat, no? This is from page one... page one! I was interested in what you had to say, until you belittled this guy. Count me out.
I guess you know - no soil biota = minimal mineral availability. I'd rather be stuck with organic matter full of life, than a pile of rock dust from sears and roebuck but of course consideration of both is best.
If I have a large bacterial feeding nematode population (and/or flagellates and naked amoebae), I can project to a degree a good supply of bioavailable nutrients.
I don't pretend to write Rxs and IMO, those who do successfully are mostly lucky.
For everyone's knowledge bank.
Par boiled rice hulls are being used more in agriculture as time goes by.
It is actually potassium silica.
It has a 19% silica ratio .
If not the highest in the plant world it
is up there.
Again I have been using both diatomaceous earth and par boiled rice hulls for years.
Both mostly for drainage but silica is a bonus .
I think it makes my stems thicker.
The DE breaks down very easy but the rice hulls seem to keep there shape together for years.
Ratz
Par boiled rice hulls are being used more in agriculture as time goes by.
It is actually potassium silica.
It has a 19% silica ratio .
If not the highest in the plant world it
is up there.
Again I have been using both diatomaceous earth and par boiled rice hulls for years.
Both mostly for drainage but silica is a bonus .
I think it makes my stems thicker.
The DE breaks down very easy but the rice hulls seem to keep there shape together for years.
Ratz
We will do our best to carry on without your brilliant contributions
bamboogardner
Active member
Okay Michael. Have an interesting question to ponder. Definitely dislike these hot summer sleepless nights where the mind runs amok while trying to get some shut-eye. So here we go.
Brand new beds 6x6x18". Total of 400 gallons of soil. You mix it all up; peat, compost/EWC blend and we will leave the aeration out of the equasion since it brings nothing to adjusting the nutrient level in the mix. So you send a sample out to Logan or whomever and it comes back. You do the math or pay to have a Rx done on the soil. The Rx indicates that the soil is needing x amount of say Calcium, and y amount of say Magnesium and z amount of whatever to balance it to Albrecht's standards. And lets say that the Rx has been adjusted for a lighter weight soil such as peat.
Now here is where the equation gets tricky. The amounts indicated in the Rx are only for the first 6" of soil and not the entire 18"? So if that is the case and you desire to add the amendments to the entire 18" of new soil mix top to bottom, would you need to add three times (3x) the amount of amendments indicated in the Rx if you wanted the mix to be the same all the way through?
I hope I explained that correctly for you to understand, and I thank you for your time and infinite knowledge you are sharing with us.
Brand new beds 6x6x18". Total of 400 gallons of soil. You mix it all up; peat, compost/EWC blend and we will leave the aeration out of the equasion since it brings nothing to adjusting the nutrient level in the mix. So you send a sample out to Logan or whomever and it comes back. You do the math or pay to have a Rx done on the soil. The Rx indicates that the soil is needing x amount of say Calcium, and y amount of say Magnesium and z amount of whatever to balance it to Albrecht's standards. And lets say that the Rx has been adjusted for a lighter weight soil such as peat.
Now here is where the equation gets tricky. The amounts indicated in the Rx are only for the first 6" of soil and not the entire 18"? So if that is the case and you desire to add the amendments to the entire 18" of new soil mix top to bottom, would you need to add three times (3x) the amount of amendments indicated in the Rx if you wanted the mix to be the same all the way through?
I hope I explained that correctly for you to understand, and I thank you for your time and infinite knowledge you are sharing with us.
On that subject...say it turns out I need 6000 lbs/acre Ca from caco3 (new peat mix). I know not all of that will be available the first grow. Do I go 6000 or do I hedge and go more?
Personally I shoot for 75% bcs on ca as a hedge. But that is just my guess...not fact
Personally I shoot for 75% bcs on ca as a hedge. But that is just my guess...not fact
Good questions, especially the second "why aren't we publishing mineral content of the produce, etc... to confirm that the minerals ( including trace minerals) are actually getting to the plants and not just lying in the soil in an unavailable form?"
The last worthwhile study of soil mineral content vs mineral content of crops grown, that I know of, was "Variation in Mineral Composition of Vegetables" by Bear, Toth, and Prince. The year was 1948. [this study can be found online, and is reproduced, along with comments, starting on p140 of The Ideal Soil 2014] I do not know of a single other published study comparing a broad range of soil minerals with mineral content of crops grown. is that a little strange, or what? With all of the awareness, interest, and concern about nutrition over the past 77 years since 1948, with all of the articles and studies bemoaning the loss of mineral nutrients in food and mineral depletion in the soil, not one single agronomist or nutritionist or researcher has bothered to test the soil, then test the crops grown in that soil for minerals and mineral-associated nutrients? What's with that?
A few years back I made an attempt; I put together a volunteer group who agreed to have their soils tested and send the reports to me. I would write a soil Rx, they would amend the soil to my recommendations, grow a crop, and then have the crop analyzed for minerals. Out of fifty or sixty free soil Rx's I wrote, perhaps eight people followed through. Rather disappointing, but the little data gathered was quite interesting. For example, Detroit Dark Red beets grown in mineral-amended soil measured, in comparison to USDA averages, an increase of
Protein: +193%
Calcium: +931%
Phosphorus: +77%
Magnesium: +122%
Zinc: +151%
Copper: +140%
Those interested can read more at nutrientdenseproject.com
As to the availability of minerals from rock dusts and other mined mineral sources, that is determined by a) the fineness of the grinding and sifting process; b) the pH of the soil; c)the biological activity in the soil; and d) the climatic conditions, i.e. temperature and moisture. Of course the solubility of the mineral amendment is a factor too; granite dust is hardly soluble at all while natural KMag, Epsom salts, or potassium chloride are very soluble.
The Mehlich 3 soil test that I favor is a mix of strong acids along with EDTA, and I count on it to extract any element that is potentially available to the plants or microbes. It is not going to extract elements chemically combined inside a gravel particle, but anything from fine silt on down, along with elements in organic matter and adsorbed to clays should show up with an M3 test. If an element shows up on an M3 test that should be reflected in the plant tissue test as well.
MilkyJoe-
The feather meal we stock is approved/allowed for USDA NOP organic use, so I would assume it is antibiotic and hormone free. We do not sell 50 lb bags because we have never gotten a decent price from UPS. Whatever can fit in a large USPS priority mail flat rate box (20 lbs?) is what we can ship.
RZ-
I am not well informed or experienced with using zeolite, so take this with a grain or so of salt.
Generally zeolite is used in agriculture to increase CEC. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the tow most common forms of zeolite are Sodium Na and Potassium K zeolites. This would be the first thing I would look at, as I would not use Sodium zeolite any more than I would use Sodium bentonite clay, simply because it would add too much Na.
If I was considering using Potassium zeolite I'd want to know if the soil needed more K. If K was already high or excessive, I would look for another CEC amendment, for instance Calcium bentonite.
Probably you are already aware of this, but poking around with web search for CEC zeolite I found this list of which cations are preferentially held on zeolites vs clays (and assumedly, humus or humates):
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Due to the three dimensional stable honey comb structure, EcoSand Natural Zeolite Soil Amendment holds important fertilizing ions in the soil differently than clay and organic colloids in the soil.
EcoSand Natural Zeolite
Soil Amendment
K+ > NH4+ >> Na+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+
Soil Colloids and Clays
Ca2+ > Mg2+ > K+ = NH4+ > Na+
This means that EcoSand prefers to hold the potassium (K+) and ammonium (NH4+) ions in the root zone more than calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+). The soil colloids without EcoSand will allow the important plant nutrients, like potassium and ammonium, to be flushed from the root zone and retain the calcium and magnesium ions. Holding the soluble potassium and ammonium ions in the root zone is one of the main reasons that EcoSand improves plant growth.
source: http://zeoinc.com/ecosand/cec/
~~~~~~~
This inversion of the "normal" cation adsorbtion is probably why zeolites are recommended for storing ammonium NH4+ in the soil. However, I doubt that any natural mined zeolites contain significant NH4+, and I'd guess the in the process of charging them with NH4+ (for instance with fish emulsion?), an equal amount of K+ would be displaced into the soil solution, potentially causing overfertilization with K.
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The fear of aluminum seems to be widespread, another manifestation of what I call the "wrong planet syndrome" An example would be people who say "I hate bugs!" I tell them "Too bad, you are on the wrong planet".
Al is the 3rd most common element in the earth's crust after Oxygen and Silicon. That means that on average, the 2 million pound plow layer of an acre of soil contains 160 thousand pounds of aluminum. If it were poisonous, life on Earth wouldn't be happening.
The aluminum ion Al+++ is highly reactive. Exposed to the atmosphere it immediately combines with oxygen forming aluminum oxide Al2O3. Aluminum oxide is very hard and very, very inert. Rubies are colored aluminum oxide.
Only soils below pH 5 will contain any free reactive Al ions. Ancient leached-out tropical clays frequently have a pH <5 and free Al+++. Roots will not grow into that willingly, because Al is toxic to plants. Nor will plants absorb Al willingly because it is poisonous to their metabolism.
So, any soil or media that contained significant soluble aluminum would be below pH5, poisonous to roots, and wouldn't grow cannabis or vegetables or most plants anyway. As soon as an acid soil is limed above pH 5, all of the soluble aluminum will be neutralized and made completely unavailable to plants. Finally, the only way one would get soluble Al from zeolite would be to soak it in an acid solution below pH5. It simply will not be soluble at any pH above that.
***
Radioactive phosphate rock: All soils (and probably all rocks) are naturally radioactive, but phosphate deposits tend to be a lot more radioactive. Some Florida phosphates contain significant amounts of radioactive Radium and Uranium, and I don't think Florida soft rock/colloidal clay is any exception. But that is a huge subject and one better left for its own thread, methinks. I have a lot to say about radioactive pollution that won't fit on this thread.
In the meantime, it's good to know that Tennessee Brown phosphate is very low in radioisotopes and also very low in Fluorine, Cadmium, and other unpleasant elements.
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