Soils in Colorado

[slownickel]

Anyone growing outdoors in those white calcium rich soils of Colorado?

Love to hear experiences, especially those that have high bicarbonates in their soil and or water.

 

[MJPassion]

Is this what your talking about?

According to my meter, the tap water fluctuates between 180-240 PPM.
I only run a KDF/carbon hose filter for OD watering needs.
I haven't had it tested for its mineral fractions yet. Prob should do it some time in the near future.

Aa far as my plants go... they're definitely not as healthy as my plants in tubs.

 

[BOMBAYCAT]

Are you talking about the Caliche soils around Gunnison and further parts in the arid S.W.? Anyway Caliche is a layer of minerals washed down into the ground by the little rain there. It is usually 3-10 feet down, but sometimes near the surface and it resembles concrete or cement. If the hardpan is near the surface outside growers just dig a planting hole (punching through Caliche layer) and throw in a couple or 3 bags of good soilless planting mix. You can amend the native soil but it takes a long time for it to get good.

 

[slownickel]

calcium soils vs caliche

calcium soils vs caliche

Caliche is a different animal, yet does have its' quantity of calcium. No, I am talking about white material, white rocks, etc. If you apply some muriatic acid, they give you a chemical reaction with foaming...

Caliche is something else. Does the caliche there have a lot of sodium in it? Mine does.... It bleeds sodium...

 

[MJPassion]

Did you look at those soil tests & recommendation I posted above?

I added all the recommended amendments, in a little more than 1000 sq/ft of garden space, and this spring the soil tested pH7, w my soil probe.

 

[slownickel]

MJ I can't see where you attached and analysis.

 

[MJPassion]

Post #2
Sorry...
That album was set to private...
Now that post might make sense. Lol

 

[slownickel]

Please explain whether this is soil or medium. Is one of these tubs?

Could you take pictures of where the two different samples were taken?

Your two different analysis is all over the place.

I really do not trust Logan labs at all. For various reasons.

Do you have a water analysis?

 

[aridbud]

Have clay soil around Pueblo.....augmented with perlite, mushroom compost, top soil, mixing thoroughly. Added llama dung.

 

[slownickel]

Soil analysis?

Soil analysis?

Arid,

Do you have a soil analysis that you might be willing to share?

 

[Space Case]

Sucks that nobody followed up in this thread. Let me post my western Colorado native soil test results. This is some of the whitest chalkiest soil I have, on a greenhouse pad that was scraped and turned and de-rocked. White rocks everywhere, fizz test is like a mentos in a diet coke.

 

[Space Case]

Here is my fizz test...

And here is an experimental small plant we stuck in the ground

We put some maybe 2 handfuls of gypsum in the hole before we put the plant in, and we refilled it with native soil. Fed it only once or twice, and only with Calcium Nitrate. Plant stayed green until harvest, almost never watered it, never wilted. Final quality wasn't that great, to be honest, but with those low P and S levels, and low B and Zn, I wasn't expecting much, nothing was dialed in anyway, and Mg is pretty high. Also this was an untested seed pheno, so who knows what the genetic expression was supposed to be. Could of been a cardboard pheno anyway. Either way, the plant stayed very healthy and frost resistant, and the buds did get dense and full.

 

[MJPassion]

Sucks that nobody followed up in this thread.

What sucks is that Slow Nickle cant read the tests I posted then put the lab I used on blast due to his opinion.

I'm not having a convo with some opinionated jack wagon.
And I'm certainly not taking advice from somebody that can't read the test data for what it is. All pertinent information is there.

Anyway, Space Case,
Your test looks real similar to mine.
Did you request a paste test?

A paste test is used to determine what is AVAILABLE in the soil versus what is IN the soil fractions.

Also, did you request a recomendation for additions?
All the stuff your low in should probably be added back using the sulphate forms. The method for adding back, however, I do not understand.
If you go back & look at the recomendation I received you'll see I was told to add 20 pounds of elemental suphur.
As I was unaware of HOW to add that in, I procedded to dump the sulphur on my garden bed & tilled it in.
HOLY SULPHUR BAT MAN!
Did the same with the sulphates...
Now my garden is growing worse than before the additions.

YIKES!

I'm just glad I experimented on the vegi garden & not my canna garden. I'd have devastated my crop.

I'll add that imo, the natural bicarbonates that are in our western soils are the main causes of high pH as well as the leading cause of a lack of aromas/flavors when growing in these soils. (Due to lockout)

Manure is a great addition as it adds back most of whats missing as well as increasing organic matter content.

Even though we have high Ca, it is mostly in a bicarbonate form, unavailable to the plants. Gypsum is a good addition for this reason.

 

[slownickel]

MJP,

If you look at your soil analysis, I am sorry, but you are getting the wrong picture. The M3 procedure busts all that carbonate in the soil up and reports back that you have all that calcium. Not true. Especially with your water having that pH.

What alarms me a bit is that amount of aluminum in your water at that pH. You are getting into the toxic area of Al in water.

Most folks don't realize it, nearly none for that matter, but you can have aluminum toxicity at a high pH from the breakdown of bicarbonates that were in the water as they react with the soil.

If you ask Logan to run at [email protected] pH analysis on that soil, you might get a better recommendation.

Given that their sulfur application didn't work for you, this should tell you something....

Regards,

Jack Wagon

 

[Space Case]

20 lbs of elemental sulfur to what? Most of those recommendations are per acre, so you'd divide that relative to your area you are growing in. And then also never apply more than 50% of a recommendation, and not while planted. If you have high aluminum and/or sodium, a sudden pH drop will make those cations mobile and available to the plant immediately, potentially causing toxicities.

I read William McKibben's book, and even he can't really explain the benefit of the saturated paste test in his own book. They use distilled or deionized water as an extractant. So it gives you a picture of what solubizes at 7.0 pH in totally unbuffered water, which is fairly useless information, unless you are using similar water to water your garden. The paste test might be of some value if they used your source water to test it, but even then, it will more give you an idea of what you can wash away when watering, then what is available to the plants. Compared to the m3 test, the paste test should show less available Ca with these alklaline calcarous soils, but still not as well as the [email protected] test. Remember that plants release exudates like sugars, acids, and enzymes, to not only liberate tied up minerals, but also to feed/starve certain microbial life to bring it nutrients. Water changes properties as soon as it touches the soil. I have has soils that had perfect Albrecht numbers on the paste test and grew plants terribly. Paste test is inconclusive at best.

 

[slownickel]

20 lbs of elemental sulfur to what? Most of those recommendations are per acre, so you'd divide that relative to your area you are growing in. And then also never apply more than 50% of a recommendation, and not while planted. If you have high aluminum and/or sodium, a sudden pH drop will make those cations mobile and available to the plant immediately, potentially causing toxicities.

I read William McKibben's book, and even he can't really explain the benefit of the saturated paste test in his own book. They use distilled or deionized water as an extractant. So it gives you a picture of what solubizes at 7.0 pH in totally unbuffered water, which is fairly useless information, unless you are using similar water to water your garden. The paste test might be of some value if they used your source water to test it, but even then, it will more give you an idea of what you can wash away when watering, then what is available to the plants. Compared to the m3 test, the paste test should show less available Ca with these alklaline calcarous soils, but still not as well as the [email protected] test. Remember that plants release exudates like sugars, acids, and enzymes, to not only liberate tied up minerals, but also to feed/starve certain microbial life to bring it nutrients. Water changes properties as soon as it touches the soil. I have has soils that had perfect Albrecht numbers on the paste test and grew plants terribly. Paste test is inconclusive at best.

Looks like the Doctor is in! Happy B-day by the way!

I agree, saturated paste is voo doo unless of course you have bad roots and have to feed by osmosis, which means you missed the boat anyway....

Roots exude aminoacids at a pH of 3.5 to 5.5 so what is soluble in water is meaningless...

 

[Avinash.miles]

can't say my soil is loaded with CA (like space case's), but it's definitely present; if i dig deeper than about 18 inches i start seeing lots of white-ish material
no soil test to share, sorry

 

[slownickel]

can't say my soil is loaded with CA (like space case's), but it's definitely present; if i dig deeper than about 18 inches i start seeing lots of white-ish material
no soil test to share, sorry

Send in a couple of samples, good versus bad. Let's see where you are and try to dial it in....

 

[Avinash.miles]

been wanting to get some tests done, the soil is pretty uniform on my property, im in an area that is generally considered to have really good soil, lots of organic farms and orchards around me....
also, i'm not growing much directly in the native soil (might do a test next year and try a couple in just native soil) - im mostly digging holes and filling them with my soil mix (which could also use a test or 2)

good thread slownickel, i'll stay posted

 

[Space Case]

Looks like the Doctor is in! Happy B-day by the way!

I agree, saturated paste is voo doo unless of course you have bad roots and have to feed by osmosis, which means you missed the boat anyway....

Roots exude aminoacids at a pH of 3.5 to 5.5 so what is soluble in water is meaningless...

Yea, if you have bad roots, fuck the soil pH, start dumping solubles and chelates....or start over...