Team Microbe's Nose Dive into No-till (2nd cycle)

[Team Microbe]

LLB -

Yeah I'd be interested in that, please share when and if you find out! It didn't give me any problems when I used it in drenches last run, I was in soil though so pH wasn't an issue obviously

 

[HUGE]

I'm watching the show.

 

[Team Microbe]

Cover Crops are up and at em! I love how they push up the mulch on their way to the surface... you can pretty much see them coming from a few days away

The stalk from the 1st cycle is already decomposing, as the next generation emerges besides it...

MM makes a good point here, and it got me thinking about the layout of my grow - I used to rotate plants from seedling stage to veg, and finally to flower. But now that I'm dedicated towards no-till I think it's time to change things up a bit.

(quarters = 25 gallon pots, pennies = 7 gals and nickels = 10 gals)

Instead of using 10's and 7's for flower as planned, I think I"m going to utilize them in my veg tent for future mother plants to take cuttings from. I'll bump up the flowering pot size to 25 gallons, and will take rooted cuttings from the seedling rack directly to the flowering tent, where veg will be had for 3-4 weeks until 12/12 is initiated. I like this routine a lot more than the old one, it makes sense and I think I'll be able to get another harvest annually compared to the longer veg cycles I'm used to.

I just ordered all the ingredients to fill the 25's with, they should be here within the week. $800 isn't too bad of an investment for an infinite amount of no-till runs! From there I'll let them sit for 3 weeks, then transplant rooted cuttings into them. The cuttings literally just started to root, so they'll have to stick around in the beer cups for a few weeks but I don't think that'll be much of an issue. If they become root bound I'll bump em up to a 1/2 gal pot just until the new no-tills are ready. Not ideal, but I think the 3 week wait will be worth it in the long run with the amount of room those roots will have to stretch out in.

 

[Team Microbe]

On another note...

On another note...

I got the results back from Logan Labs on the seedling/cutting soil mix I'll be using for this year's outdoor starts. I thought I had too much calcium, turned out to be the very opposite! Damn.

Just goes to show how much we really know until a soil test is conducted - I'm not sure why the pH came back so low but I have a feeling it was due to the EM-1 drenches I used to moisten the mix up during down-time. It's to my understanding that EM-1 drops in pH once it's fermented and ready for use... what do you guys/gals think? I'm wondering if it's from a lack of calcium instead, 2 dif factors entirely. I'll get advice from Jeremy over at BAS on where to go from here, and what to do about that pH bc that shit is cray. I have plants in that mix as we speak and they're looking healthy, but I'd much rather tweak the rest of the mix to a more balanced ratio.

If anyone is recycling soil and wants to save some money check these guys out - www.loganlabs.com $25 for this test, and my results were back in my inbox within a week. Idk why I waited so long to start testing recycled mixes, I was just eyeballing it up until this point!

 

[Former Guest]

Cations and anions are not balanced so your ph is off. Phosphorus and sulphur will lower your ph. Nitrogen is also an anion but there is nitrate nitrogen and urea which also needs to be balanced with 14% of total nitrogen content being urea for ideal. So when you get all those elements balanced and as they become available, your ph will shift back up and will also shift depending in veg or bloom when they want to eat different stuff. When they consume more phosphorus the plant exudes a negative charged ion that will cause the ph to shift. I'm literally talking about this right now via pm. I want to know how you can manipulate this in brix grows. That's why they always spray and drench weekly different stuff called reproductive and anionic sprays.

 

[Team Microbe]

Cations and anions are not balanced so your ph is off. Phosphorus and sulphur will lower your ph. Nitrogen is also an anion but there is nitrate nitrogen and urea which also needs to be balanced with 14% of total nitrogen content being urea for ideal. So when you get all those elements balanced and as they become available, your ph will shift back up and will also shift depending in veg or bloom when they want to eat different stuff. When they consume more phosphorus the plant exudes a negative charged ion that will cause the ph to shift. I'm literally talking about this right now via pm. I want to know how you can manipulate this in brix grows. That's why they always spray and drench weekly different stuff called reproductive and anionic sprays.

Maybe the excess phosphorus is causing the low pH then? Idk much about anions but that's interesting now that you mention it. I was told the book "The Intelligent Gardener" tells you how to balance mixes out, I bought it but didn't start reading it yet so maybe that's a good idea given the situation at hand here... reproductive and anionic sprays are over my head but I'm all ears

 

[Former Guest]

He told me to read the ideal soil and directed me to his friends thread. I glanced at it and first page us all about that stuff. I will send you the info.

You foliar the first day with nitrates then drench soil with nutrients that are anionic based then you spray the next week with high P and K then drench next day. I asked him a bunch if questions about how the ph swing influences plant growth and how calcium works in brix grows and that's when he said I need to read the ideal soil.

 

[Former Guest]

So I read the thread and it didn't have anything to do with these sprays that are sold in high brix kits. I spent all last summer trying to figure out these sprays but gave up.

But the thread did answer how you read your soil test and how important they are. It also talks a bit about the balancing of the anions and cations.

The Ideal Soil

This chart reflects our current level of knowledge. It has been put together over a period of years from many sources, including a lot of personal experience. It is meant to represent an ideal balance of minerals and trace elements for growing nutritionally perfect food for people and animals, not necessarily the ideal soil for pine trees or rhododendron flowers. It is fine for lawns, though.

So he explained it that food and pot have different mineral requirements. He didn't really elaborate much but that it has to do with mineral content within the plant and getting a white ash.

Organic Matter (OM)|4% — 10%|Ideally, as humus.
pH|6.0 - 6.5|Not 7.0. Balance the minerals and pH will take care of itself

Bases (cations) as % of exchange capacity

Calcium (Ca)++|60% — 70%|Ca & Mg together should add to 80% of exchange capacity
Magnesium (Mg)++|10% — 20%|Ca & Mg together should add to 80% of exchange capacity
Potassium (K)+|3% — 5%|See Phosphorus (P)
Sodium (Na)+|1% — 4%|See Chlorine (Cl)
Hydrogen (H)+|8% — 10%|Exchangeable Hydrogen, not a cation (cat-eye-on). See pH explanation.

Other major nutrients (anions)

Phosphorus (P)-|Equal to Potassium (K){br}(actual P = actual K)|Needs a highly bio-active soil to keep it available
Sulfur (S)-|1/2 of Phosphorus{br}(up to 200 ppm.)|Needed for synthesis of essential amino acids.
Chlorine (Cl)-|1x to 2x Sodium|NaCl, of course, is table salt.

So notice after each nutrient there is a plus or minus sign with calcium and magnesium having double. When a plant up takes a nutrient, it exudes, releases a positive or negative charged ion which is what makes the ph go up and down. The plant knows what it wants to eat and do I think there is a variance in ph depending on life stage but it shouldn't be much. I think it goes up in veg and lowers in bloom depending on how much phosphorus is consumed.

But all of these macro elements work synergistly with each other. So if your topsoil is getting crusty it is because of too much magnesium which causes soil to bind. The calcium lime sources like calcium carbonate are preferred for that reason same with soft rock phosphate which will slowly release calcium when the plant consumes the phosphorus which is locked together just like calcium and magnesium are locked together. This is why dolomite should not be used because the magnesium takes so long to become available and then gets overloaded in soil. That's why there is a 7:1 ca/mg or you see people with the lime combos like 50/50 cal carbonate and gypsum.

So when you're buying advanced nutrients ph perfect technology for boo coo bucks, the ph is really just a balance of these nutrients which is what ph buffers are. If you look at bottles of synthetic nutes you will see the nitrogen content is split kit up between nitrate and urea so the ratio is 14% of total nitrogen content will be urea and 86% is nitrates. They work together to regulate ph. It diesnt matter if it's synthetically or organically derived, it's all chemistry and that negative or positive ion the spits out the roots is the same thing. That's how I understand it but I have no formal education.

EDIT: apparently organic nitrogen ratios are opposite of the synthetic nitrogen ratio. Per Bobblehead. Read your thread last summer but none of this made sense yet.

I don't believe the plants can differentiate between synthetic and organic derived nutrients, however the balance of N is different between the 2. From what I've read, in organics the balance of NH4 to NO3 is 80/20. This is inverted to 20/80 with most synthetic fertilizer blends. NO3 inhibits root growth, which is what inhibits microbial life in the soil. Less root exudates to eat. Microbes are seriously misunderstood imo, and most people want to kill them all without prejudice. Coexistance is the only viable option imo.

 

[Team Microbe]

So I read the thread and it didn't have anything to do with these sprays that are sold in high brix kits. I spent all last summer trying to figure out these sprays but gave up.

But the thread did answer how you read your soil test and how important they are. It also talks a bit about the balancing of the anions and cations.

The Ideal Soil

This chart reflects our current level of knowledge. It has been put together over a period of years from many sources, including a lot of personal experience. It is meant to represent an ideal balance of minerals and trace elements for growing nutritionally perfect food for people and animals, not necessarily the ideal soil for pine trees or rhododendron flowers. It is fine for lawns, though.

So he explained it that food and pot have different mineral requirements. He didn't really elaborate much but that it has to do with mineral content within the plant and getting a white ash.



So notice after each nutrient there is a plus or minus sign with calcium and magnesium having double. When a plant up takes a nutrient, it exudes, releases a positive or negative charged ion which is what makes the ph go up and down. The plant knows what it wants to eat and do I think there is a variance in ph depending on life stage but it shouldn't be much. I think it goes up in veg and lowers in bloom depending on how much phosphorus is consumed.

But all of these macro elements work synergistly with each other. So if your topsoil is getting crusty it is because of too much magnesium which causes soil to bind. The calcium lime sources like calcium carbonate are preferred for that reason same with soft rock phosphate which will slowly release calcium when the plant consumes the phosphorus which is locked together just like calcium and magnesium are locked together. This is why dolomite should not be used because the magnesium takes so long to become available and then gets overloaded in soil. That's why there is a 7:1 ca/mg or you see people with the lime combos like 50/50 cal carbonate and gypsum.

So when you're buying advanced nutrients ph perfect technology for boo coo bucks, the ph is really just a balance of these nutrients which is what ph buffers are. If you look at bottles of synthetic nutes you will see the nitrogen content is split kit up between nitrate and urea so the ratio is 14% of total nitrogen content will be urea and 86% is nitrates. They work together to regulate ph. It diesnt matter if it's synthetically or organically derived, it's all chemistry and that negative or positive ion the spits out the roots is the same thing. That's how I understand it but I have no formal education.

Very interesting LLB! It's crazy how they only recommend 10% Organic Matter though, plants have the capability of up-taking 30% which is why a lot of living soil recipes are equal parts peat/humus/aeration. While the cation exchange capacity stuff is still over my head, I still took a few things away from this - and now understand why my soil got crusty a few years back outside... dol lime! Thanks for clearing that up for me finally, I never knew wtf was up with that layer of crust.

It looks like my pH is low because of the excess Phosphorus then huh? That and/or the lack of calcium available?

I'm waiting for Jeremy to get back to me but I think he's been mad busy lately because BAS orders aren't arriving on the 2nd day anymore. It's been 4 days since my order, so I think I may be getting everything on Monday along with his diagnosis for the soil test. Wish me luck!!

 

[Former Guest]

And this:

Cation Exchange Capacity in Soils, Simplified
©2007-2014 by Michael Astera
All rights reserved

The Ideal Soil: A Handbook for the New Agriculture

Chapter 2

Cation Exchange Capacity in Soils, Simplified

(Revised April 2014)

Adsorb vs Absorb

adsorb(ad sôrb, -zôrb), v.t. Physical Chem. to gather (a gas, liquid, or dissolved substance) on a surface in a condensed layer: Charcoal will adsorb gases .

Please note the definition above, taken from the large hardbound version of the Random House Second Edition Unabridged Dictionary. It's not absorb, it's adsorb , with a "d". We all know that a sponge absorbs water, a cast iron pot absorbs heat, a flat-black wall absorbs light. None of those gathers anything on the surface in a condensed layer, they soak it right in, they absorb it.

Adsorb is different, because it means to gather on a surface in a condensed layer. This is pretty much the same thing as static cling, like when you take a synthetic fabric out of the clothes dryer and it wants to stick to you. You don't absorb a nylon blouse, you adsorb it. Everyone got that? Good. On to Cation Exchange Capacity.

The Exchange Capacity of your soil is a measure of its ability to hold and release various elements and compounds. We are mostly concerned with the soil's ability to hold and release plant nutrients, obviously. Specifically here today, we are concerned with the soil's ability to hold and release positively charged nutrients. Something that has a positive (+) charge is called a cation, pronounced cat-eye-on. If it has a negative charge (-) it is called an anion, pronounced ann-eye-on. (Both words are accented on the first syllable.) The word "ion" simply means a charged particle; a positive charge is attracted to a negative charge and vice-versa.

Positively charged particles are known as cations. There are two types of cations, acidic or acid-forming cations, and basic, or alkaline-forming cations. The Hydrogen cation H+ and the Aluminum cation Al+++ are acid-forming. Neither are plant nutrients. A soil with high levels of H+ or Al+++ is an acid soil, with a low pH.

The positively charged nutrients that we will be discussing here are Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and Sodium. These are all alkaline cations, also called basic cations or bases. Both types of cations (alkaline or acidic) may be adsorbed onto either a clay particle or soil organic matter (SOM). All of the nutrients in the soil need to be held there somehow, or they will just wash away when you water the garden or get a good rain storm. Clay particles generally have a negative (-) charge, so they attract and hold positively (+) charged nutrients and non-nutrients. Soil organic matter (SOM or just OM) has both positive and negative charges, so it can hold on to both cations and anions.

Both the clay particles and the organic matter have negatively charged sites that attract and hold positively charged particles. Cation Exchange Capacity is the measure of how many negatively-charged sites are available in your soil.

The Cation Exchange Capacity of your soil could be likened to a bucket: some soils are like a big bucket (high CEC), some are like a small bucket (low CEC). Generally speaking, a sandy soil with little organic matter will have a very low CEC while a clay soil with a lot of organic matter (as humus) will have a high CEC. Organic matter (as humus) always has a high CEC; with clay soils, CEC depends on the type of clay.

Base Saturation %

From the 1920s to the late 1940s, a great and largely un-sung hero of agriculture, Dr. William Albrecht, did a lot of experimenting with different ratios of nutrient cations, the Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and Sodium mentioned above. He and his associates, working at the University of Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station, came to the conclusion that the strongest, healthiest, and most nutritious crops were grown in a soil where the soil's CEC was saturated to about 65% Calcium, 15% Magnesium, 4% Potassium, and 1% to 5% Sodium. (No, they don't add to 100%; we'll get to that.) This ratio not only provided luxury levels of these nutrients to the crop and to the soil life, but also strongly affected the soil texture and pH.

The percentage of the CEC that a particular cation occupies is also known as the base saturation percentage, or percent of base saturation, so another way of describing Albrecht's ideal ratio is that you want 65% base saturation of Calcium, 15% base saturation of Magnesium etc. Don't get too hung up on these percentages; they are general guidelines and can vary quite a bit depending on soil texture and other factors.

It's still a little-known fact that the Calcium to Magnesium ratio determines how tight or loose a soil is. The more Calcium a soil has, the looser it is; the more Magnesium, the tighter it is, up to a point. Other things being equal, a high Calcium soil will have more Oxygen, drain more freely, and support more aerobic breakdown of organic matter, while a high Magnesium soil will have less Oxygen, tend to drain slowly, and organic matter will break down poorly if at all. In a soil with Magnesium higher than Calcium, organic matter may ferment and produce alcohol and even formaldehyde, both of which are preservatives. If you till up last years corn stalks and they are still shiny and green, you may have a soil with an inverted Calcium/Magnesium ratio. On the other hand, if you get the Calcium level too high, the soil may lose its beneficial granulation and structure and the excessive Calcium will interfere with the availability of other nutrients. If you get them just right for your particular soil, you can drive over the garden and not have a problem with soil compaction.

Because Calcium tends to loosen soil and Magnesium tightens it, in a heavy clay soil you may want 70% or even 80% Calcium and 10% Magnesium; in a loose sandy soil 60% Ca and 20% Mg might be better because it will tighten up the soil and improve water retention. If together they add to 80%, with about 4% Potassium and 1-3% Sodium, that leaves 12-15% of the exchange capacity free for other elements, and an interesting thing happens. 4% or 5% of that CEC will be filled with other bases such as Copper and Zinc, Iron and Manganese, and the remainder will be occupied by exchangeable Hydrogen , H+. The pH of the soil will automatically stabilize at around 6.4 , which is the "perfect soil pH" not only for organic/biological agriculture, but is also the ideal pH of sap in a healthy plant, and the pH of saliva and urine in a healthy human.

So we are looking at two new things so far:

1) The Cation Exchange Capacity, and

2) The proportion of those cations in relation to each other: the percent of base saturation (% base saturation) and their effect on pH.

We are also looking at two old familiar things, clay and soil organic matter, and these last two need a bit more clarification.

How Clay and Humus Form

Clay particles are really tiny. They are so small that they can't even be seen in most microscopes. They are so small that when mixed in water they may take days, weeks, or months to settle out, or they may never settle out and just remain suspended in the water. A particle that remains suspended in water like this, suspended but not dissolved, is known as a colloid. Organic matter, as it breaks down, also forms smaller and smaller particles, until it breaks down as far as it can go and still be organic matter. At that stage it is called humus , and humus is also a colloid; when mixed into water humus will not readily settle out or float to the top. Colloids, because they are so small, have a very large surface area per unit volume or by weight. Some clays, such as montmorillonite and vermiculite, have a surface area as high as 800 square meters per gram, over 200,000 square feet (almost five acres) per ounce! The surface area of fully developed humus is about the same or even higher. Other clays have a much lower surface area; some clays actually have a very low exchange capacity, while humus always has a high exchange capacity.

Mineral soils are formed by the breakdown of rocks, known as the parent material. Heating and cooling, freezing and thawing, wind and water erosion, acid rain (all rain is acid; carbon dioxide in the air forms carbonic acid in the rain), and biological activity all break down the parent material into finer and finer particles. Eventually the particles get so small that some of them re-form, that is they re-crystallize into tiny flat platelets and become colloidal clay, made up mostly of silica and alumina clay particles aggregated into thin, flat sheets that stack together in layers.

Clay "History"

How old a soil is usually determines how much clay it has. The more rainfall a soil gets, the faster it breaks down into clay. Arid regions are mostly sandy and rocky soil, unless they have areas of "fossil" clay. River bottoms in arid regions will often have more clay because the small clay particles wash away easily from areas without vegetation cover. As noted above, clays tend to stick together in microscopic layers. Newly formed clays will often be made up of layers of silica and alumina sandwiched with potassium or iron. On these young clays, the only available exchange sites are on the edges. As the clays age, the "filling" in the sandwich gets taken out by acid rain or soil life or plant roots, opening up more and more negatively charged exchange sites and increasing the exchange capacity. Eventually these clays become tiny layers of silica and alumina separated by a thin film of water. These are the expanding clays; when they get wet they swell, and when they dry out they shrink and crack deeply. Because these expanding clays have exchange sites available between their layers and not just on the edges, they have a much greater exchange capacity than freshly formed clays.

One of the fastest ways to age a clay and reduce the soil's exchange capacity is to use Potassium Chloride fertilizer, KCl. KCl does this by refilling the space between the clay layers with locked-in Potassium and by damaging the edges of the clay layers so that the exchange sites are no longer available. KCl is the cheap Potassium fertilizer used in most commercial mixes; not only does it destroy the exchange capacity of your soil, but the high Chlorine content kills off soil life. It is difficult to have a mineral balanced, biologically active, healthy soil if one is using much Potassium chloride.

In the southern half of the USA, the age of the clay fraction of the soil generally increases going from West to East. The arid regions, from California to western Texas, are largely young soils, containing a lot of sand and gravel and some young clays without a lot of exchange capacity. The central regions, from West-central Texas and above into Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, contain well-developed clays with high CEC. Moving East, the rainfall increases, the soils are older, and the clays are generally aged and have lost much of their ability to exchange cations. Across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia the clays have been rained on and leached out for millions of years. Their reserves of Calcium and Magnesium are often long gone. The northern tier states, from Washington in the West to Pennsylvania and New York in the East were largely covered with glaciers as recently as 10,000 years ago, which brought them a fresh supply of minerals, and clays of high exchange capacity are common.

Organic Matter and Humus

Regarding soil organic matter (SOM) and humus, obviously any area that gets more rainfall tends to grow more vegetation, so the fraction of the soil that is made up of decaying organic matter will usually increase with more rainfall. Breakdown of organic matter is largely dependent on moisture, temperature, and availability of oxygen. As any of these increase, the organic matter will break down faster. Moisture and oxygen being equal, colder northern areas will tend to build up more organic matter in the soil than hotter southern climates, with one extreme being found in the tropics where organic matter breaks down and disappears very quickly, and the other extreme being the vast, deep peat beds and "muck" soils of some North temperate climates. As always, there are exceptions, such as the everglades of Florida, where lack of oxygen combined with stagnant water have formed the largest peat beds in the world; the area around Sacramento California is another example: there were muck (peat) soils 100 feet deep when that river delta was first farmed by European settlers.

Ordinary organic matter from the compost or manure pile, or the remains of last years' crops, doesn't have much exchange capacity until it has been broken down into humus, and from what we know, the formation of humus seems to require the action of soil microorganisms, earthworms, fungi, and insects. When none of them can do anything with organic matter as food anymore, it has become a very small but very complex carbon structure (a colloid) that can hold and release many times its weight in water and plant nutrients. The higher the humus level of the soil, the greater the exchange capacity. One way to increase humus in your soil is by adding organic matter and having healthy soil life to break it down or to add a soil amendment such as lignite (also known as Leonardite), a type of soft coal that contains large amounts of humus and humic acids. If the mineral balance of the soil is optimal, especially with an adequate supply of Sulfur, any fresh organic matter grown in or added to the soil will tend to form stable humus. Without balanced minerals and adequate Sulfur, much of the organic matter will decompose completely and be off-gassed as ammonia and CO2.

Variable Exchange Capacity

Humus can have an exchange capacity greater than even the highest CEC clays, but it is a variable exchange capacity that correlates with soil pH. In soils with a pH below 6 there will be an excess of H+ ions in the soil/water solution and many of the negative – exchange sites will be occupied by acidic cations such as Al+++ and Fe++. As soil pH increases due to added Ca, Mg, K, and Na, these Al and Fe ions will combine with negatively charged OH- ions in the soil-water solution, forming insoluble Aluminum and Iron oxides and freeing up the negatively charged sites on the humus to play a role in nutrient exchange. A high-organic-matter soil will have a low “effective” exchange capacity at low pH, because many of the negative exchange sites will be filled with tightly bound Al and Fe. Adding base cations, especially Calcium, will raise the pH and the Calcium++ ions will displace the Al and Fe with “exchangeable” Ca.



OK, let's pull this information together. We have discovered that:

1) Alkaline soil nutrients, largely Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and Sodium, are positively charged cations (+) and are held on negatively charged (-) sites on clay and humus.

2) The amount of humus, and the amount and type of clay, determine how much Cation Exchange Capacity a given soil has.

3) We have also discussed the ideal base saturation percentages of these nutrients which according to the work of Professor Albrecht, is approximately:

65% Ca (Calcium)

15% Mg (Magnesium)

4% K (Potassium),

1-3% Na (Sodium)

4) We have talked a little about the effect of those ratios on soil texture and pH and why they are not hard and fast "rules".

The next step is to understand how the plant, and the soil life, gets those nutrients from the exchange sites, the "exchange" part of the story.

Trading + for +

In the same way that acid rain can leach cations from the soil, plants and soil microorganisms more or less "leach" the cation nutrients from their exchange sites. These alkaline nutrients are only held on the surface with a weak, static electrical charge, i.e. they are "adsorbed". They are constantly oscillating and moving a bit, pulled and pushed this way and that by other charged particles (ions) in the soil solution around them. What the plant roots and soil microorganisms do is exude or give off Hydrogen ions, H+ ions, and if these H+ ions are in high enough concentration in the soil solution that some of them surround the nutrient cation and get closer to the negatively (-) charged exchange site than the nutrient cation is, the H+ ions will fill the exchange site, neutralize the (- ) charge, and the nutrient cation will be free of its static bond and can then be taken up by the plant or microorganism.

The way this works specifically with plant roots and microbes is that they expire or breathe out carbon dioxide into the soil. This carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) combines with water in the soil and forms carbonic acid (H 2 CO 3 ); the H+ Hydrogen ions from the carbonic acid are what replaces the cation nutrient on the exchange site. A Calcium ion that is held to the exchange site has a double-positive charge, written Ca++. When enough H+ ions surround it that some of them get closer to the exchange site than the Ca++ ion is, two H+ ions replace the Ca++ ion and the plant or microbe is free to take the Ca++ up as a nutrient.

How the CEC is measured, and what to do with that information once you have it.

Exchange capacity is measured in milligram equivalents, abbreviated ME or meq. A milligram is of course 1/1000th of a gram, and the milligram being referred to is a milligram of H+ exchangeable Hydrogen. The comparison that is used is 1 milligram of H+ Hydrogen to 100 grams of soil. If all of the exchange sites on that 100 grams of soil could be filled by that 1 milligram of H+, then the soil would have a CEC of 1. One what? One ME, one milligram equivalent (meq), the ability to adsorb and hold one milligram of H+ Hydrogen ions.

Let me repeat that: 100 grams of a soil with a CEC of 1 could have all of its negative (-) exchange sites filled up or neutralized by 1/1000th of a gram of H+ exchangeable Hydrogen. If it had a CEC of 2, it would take 2 milligrams of Hydrogen H+, if its CEC was 120 it would take 120 milligrams of H+ to fill up all of the negative (-) exchange sites on 100 grams of soil.

The "equivalent" part of ME or meq means that other positively (+) charged ions could be substituted for the Hydrogen. If all of the sites were empty in that 100 grams of soil, and that soil had a CEC of 1, 20 milligrams of Calcium (Ca++), or 12 milligrams of Magnesium (Mg++), or 39 milligrams of Potassium (K+) would fill the same exchange sites as 1 milligram of Hydrogen H+.

Why the difference? Why does it take 20 times as much Calcium as Hydrogen, by weight? It's because Calcium has an atomic weight of 40, while Hydrogen, the lightest element, has an atomic weight of 1. One atom of Calcium weighs forty times as much as one atom of Hydrogen. Calcium also has a double positive charge, Ca++, Hydrogen a single charge, H+, so each Ca++ ion can fill two exchange sites . It only takes half as many Calcium ions to fill the (-) sites, but Calcium is 40 times as heavy as Hydrogen, so it takes 20 times as much Calcium by weight to neutralize those (-) charges, or 12 times as much Magnesium, atomic weight 24 (Mg++, also a double charge), or 39 times as much Potassium+. (Potassium's atomic weight is 39, and it has a single positive charge, K+, so it takes 39 times as much K+ as H+ to fill all the exchange sites, once again by weight.) The amount of + charges, the quantitiy of atoms, of K+ or H+, is the same.)

What We Have Learned

We have now learned the basics of CEC, cation exchange, in the soil. 1) Clay and organic matter have negative charges that can hold and release positively charged nutrients. (The cations are adsorbed onto the surface of the clay or humus) That static charge keeps the nutrients from being washed away, and holds them so they are available to plant roots and soil microorganisms

2) The roots and microorganisms get these nutrients by exchanging free hydrogen ions. The free hydrogen H+ fills the (-) site and allows the cation nutrient to be absorbed by the root or microorganism.

3) The unit of measure for this exchange capacity is the milligram equivalent, ME or meq, which stands for 1 milligram (1/1000 of a gram) of exchangeable H+. In a soil with an exchange capacity (CEC) of 1, each 100 grams of soil contain an amount of negative (-) sites equal to the amount of positive (+) ions in 1/1000th of a gram of H+.



Base saturation equivalents for H+, Ca++, Mg++, K+ and Na+:

Per 100 grams of soil,1 meq or ME=

1 milligram H+

20 mg of Calcium Ca++ (atomic weight 40)

12 mg of Magnesium Mg++ (atomic weight 24)

39 mg of Potassium K+ (atomic weight 39)

23 mg of Sodium Na+ (atomic weight 23)
Per Acre , to a depth of 6” to 7”, 1 meq or ME=

20 lb Hydrogen H+

400 lb Calcium Ca++

240 lb Magnesium Mg++

780 lb Potassium K+

460 lb Sodium Na+



Per 1000 square feet , 6” to 7” depth, 1 meq or ME=

O.46 lb of Hydrogen H+

9.2 lb of Calcium Ca++

5.5 lb or Magnesium Mg++

17.9 lb of Potassium K+

10.6 lb of Sodium Na+

Per Hectare , to a depth of 15cm to 18cm, 1 meq or ME=

20 kg of Hydrogen H+

400 kg of Calcium Ca++

240 kg of Magnesium Mg++

780 kg of Potassium K+

460 kg of Sodium Na+

To convert hectares to 100 m 2 move the decimal point 2 places to the left: 400 kg/ha = 4.0 kg/ 100m

Metric Measurements: Kilograms and Hectares:

The convention used for estimating lbs/Acre in the English/Avoirdupois system is that the top 6” to 7" (15 to 18 cm) of an acre of soil weighs 2,000,000 (two million) pounds, so one part per million (1 ppm) = 2 lbs/acre.

The convention used for estimating kilograms per hectare (kg/ha) is that the top 15 to 18 cm (6” to 7") of a hectare of soil weighs 2,000,000 kg, so 1 ppm = 2 kg/ha.

Considering the huge variance in soil densities, from light weight peat-type soils to heavy clays, unless one wishes to dig up, dry, measure, and weigh a volume sample of the particular soil they are working with, it's safe enough for agricultural purposes to simply say:

1ppm = 2 lb/acre = 2 kg/hectare

1ppm = 20g/1000ft 2 = 20g/100m 2

When calculating soil amendments, be conservative. If you think the amount you are putting on may be too much, use less. It's a lot easier to add more than it is to take something out after adding too much.

To calculate CEC accurately, see the appendix section “Calculating TCEC”.



The practical application of this knowledge to your garden, lawn, pasture, or field, is covered in depth in The Ideal Soil, available HERE

You may want to look at How to Read a Soil Test HERE

Examples of soil test results may be found HERE

©2007-2014 Michael Astera all rights reserved.

 

[Former Guest]

Very interesting LLB! It's crazy how they only recommend 10% Organic Matter though, plants have the capability of up-taking 30% which is why a lot of living soil recipes are equal parts peat/humus/aeration. While the cation exchange capacity stuff is still over my head, I still took a few things away from this - and now understand why my soil got crusty a few years back outside... dol lime! Thanks for clearing that up for me finally, I never knew wtf was up with that layer of crust.

It looks like my pH is low because of the excess Phosphorus then huh? That and/or the lack of calcium available?

I'm waiting for Jeremy to get back to me but I think he's been mad busy lately because BAS orders aren't arriving on the 2nd day anymore. It's been 4 days since my order, so I think I may be getting everything on Monday along with his diagnosis for the soil test. Wish me luck!!

I'm sure Jeremy can help you or milky joe here on icmag.

Probably a combo of the two are throwing of ph.

I'm gonna buy the book sometime soon. The first two chapters are free which is where this stuff came from along from the thread by c-ray.

 

[Kiloz]

View Image

The stalk from the 1st cycle is already decomposing, as the next generation emerges besides it...

god that is beautiful! nature sure knows whats up lol

 

[bobblehead]

Up your calcium and your pH will be fine. Your cec is high, so i would avoid adding more organic matter and focus on supporting the biology to break it all down.

 

[Team Microbe]

Up your calcium and your pH will be fine. Your cec is high, so i would avoid adding more organic matter and focus on supporting the biology to break it all down.

Sounds good Bobblehead, thanks for the advice

 

[Team Microbe]

Time to transplant!

By the 2nd cycle in this pot, the soil is rich and can easily be dug out by hand to transplant this cutting. These stalks are already breaking down as the biology isn't skipping a beat in between cycles (as long as I water like usual to keep microbes alive).

Silver Lotus #1


After transplanting I'll water & foliar each of these cuttings along with whatever I'm giving the rest of the garden that day. Today it was Aloe Vera, Agsil16H, and coconut water if I remember correctly...

Just a little mulch porn - there's just something about the fresh green growth popping out of the brown decaying mulch that looks so good to me... maybe it's the resemblance to the forest itself. After all, this is mimicking the forest in every way shape and form - the 1st generation grows to maturity then falls to the ground as mulch, providing food for the next generation of plants.... thus; no-till.

Here's a random shot of one of the seeds I popped this week - Cat Piss x Stardawg by Greenpoint Seeds

lol

 

[cmoney_bags]

Thats one hell of a sprout. Uonly plan on veg 3-4 weeks for the 25gallons? Is there a certain height u try to achieve?

 

[Team Microbe]

Thats one hell of a sprout. Uonly plan on veg 3-4 weeks for the 25gallons? Is there a certain height u try to achieve?

Yeah most likely under 4 weeks. They will grow to about 5'-6' if I tie the tops down LST and let everything bush out from the bottom... if I didn't tie anything down they would be around 6'-7' and that's a problem since my lights hang at 6.5'

I don't try to achieve height, but more so filling in that canopy the best I can. I'll tie plants down to fill in gaps and spaces until everything is filled pretty much.

 

[Kiloz]

Its crazy how fast the old stem is decaying... I love how the whole pot is alive as its own community. living art right there.
I'm trying to source as much of the ingredients i need locally to start something similar, a true inspiration

 

[Former Guest]

I read it should degrade by the end of the cycle so you can plant the next plant in it's place on rotation

 

[Team Microbe]

Its crazy how fast the old stem is decaying... I love how the whole pot is alive as its own community. living art right there.
I'm trying to source as much of the ingredients i need locally to start something similar, a true inspiration

I read it should degrade by the end of the cycle so you can plant the next plant in it's place on rotation

Yeah it's a beautiful thing for sure... my friend (who's in his 14th no-till cycle) just posted a video of him pulling out his stalk from the previous cycle, and it looks like it was chewed by termites because the only part of the stalk that was solid was the 2'' piece above the soil, he pretty much just pulled it out like a baby's tooth

I think only 1/2'' of the stem under the soil wasn't decayed.