The growing large plants, outdoors, thread...

[FatherEarth]

Milky,

I've got some soil that the EC has surprisingly dropped over the course of a year. No plants ever grown in it and it was protected from rain...It was mixed then put into 400 gal smarties then watered with tainio and lil molasses. Tarped it and let it set. When first mixed the EC was .7-.8 a year later it's .2 in some pots .4 in others. Plants still explode when planted in it, and get a bit twisty and burn if I add more amendment mix. What's the deal?

Respectfully,
FE

FE

 

[milkyjoe]

Milky,

I've got some soil that the EC has surprisingly dropped over the course of a year. No plants ever grown in it and it was protected from rain...It was mixed then put into 400 gal smarties then watered with tainio and lil molasses. Tarped it and let it set. When first mixed the EC was .7-.8 a year later it's .2 in some pots .4 in others. Plants still explode when planted in it, and get a bit twisty and burn if I add more amendment mix. What's the deal?

Respectfully,
FE

FE

The tainio and sugar fed the microbes...plus added them
Thr bacteria solubalized minerals and raised ec. Over time the bacteria died off and the humus/cec re adsorbed the minerals

It should work thay way u ntil you over amend it like I did. Onve you exceed the holding capacity of the soil it won't go back

 

[Dreambig]

How do you guys feel about adding chelated copper, manganese, and fertibor to an organic soil? Will these chelates have a negative affect on the microbes? And could someone help with the formula used to amend a 250 gl. Pot. My manganese level is at 9 ppm. The chelate I'm thinking about using is 13% manganese. The guy at the store said 7.5 ozs would raise my 250 gl. 30 ppm but I'm not quite sure how he came up with this number. I would really like to figure out how to calculate these formulas. My copper level is at 0.44 ppm and the chelate is 14%copper. My boron levels are at 0.63 and fertibor is 15.2%... Or do you guys think I should just scratch the chelates and use something like sea crop or micropak? Thanks for the help!

 

[grow nerd]

Found some cheaper gopher mesh:

http://www.gopherslimited.com/

PVFS also sells "gopher wire" but a little different than the above link:

http://www.groworganic.com/gopher-wire-4-x-100-roll.html

 

[HorseMouth]

Milky,

Are you running any cover crop in the the winter for your OD beds/sites? I am running a Cereal Rye, I usually plant right after harvest. Also, I pack the holes with egg shells, chicken feathers, chicken poop, comfrey leaves and other products I grow here, after I harvest.

Is the cover crop keeping my EC higher through the winter with their Exudates? Is the Cover crop which I'm using to fix my nitrogen load through the winter hampering keeping my soil active?

Do you think that long winter 'sleep' of an EC of 0, or .2 (when it rains and becomes wet) is a key success in Summer time planting? Or Is a slow metabolism through the winter better?

I'm not even sure I phrased my questions properly.

Peace

 

[milkyjoe]

I like winter rye and some legumes. Soil EC drops just due to temp (the microbes go kinda dormant) but it stays kinda active at around 0.2 and is up to 0.4 right now. I will chop all that stuff this week and plant what I really want to grow.

If you look at organic winter spinach you will almost always find high nitrate cause the lack of sunshine fails to drive chlorophyll production. Evolution designed the microbes to slow down in winter so the plants do not exceed the capacity of the sun...course us, in our infinite wisdom, decided to push things

On soil I wanna reuse I like to reamend in the fall.

The picture I showed was new soil for an expansion. I find soil gets better as time goes on if you treat it right.

 

[Madjag]

Celery is known as one of the greatest hosts of mycorrhizae and is an excellent addition to a garden's ecology.

I grow a patch of it here in southern Arizona just for this reason even though it is too hot to truly get a crop of celery stalks from it.

 

[Cep]

Ornamental celery haha

Milky, have you kept track of N levels through the course of the season? I'd hesitate to add amendments in the fall in previous places because the soil organic matter wasn't very high. I've seen N go from 200+ ppm in the fall to 11ppm over the winter in soil with roughly 5% o matter. I'm guessing you've got yours built up and aren't leaching it all out with the winter rains (what little rain you get in your area). I really want to keep mine on the low end this year.

 

[Luther Burbank]

Ohohohoho, this unnamed cross(WiFi x Casey Jones I believe) I put under dep to test the flowering smells amazing. It's akin to sour skittles or some incredible meld of sour pungency and fruitiness.

 

[milkyjoe]

Ornamental celery haha

Milky, have you kept track of N levels through the course of the season? I'd hesitate to add amendments in the fall in previous places because the soil organic matter wasn't very high. I've seen N go from 200+ ppm in the fall to 11ppm over the winter in soil with roughly 5% o matter. I'm guessing you've got yours built up and aren't leaching it all out with the winter rains (what little rain you get in your area). I really want to keep mine on the low end this year.

I don't track it and when I said amendments I meant all except N, I do not put N in the mix like most people. I would rather not comment as what i am up to is not really proven and I don't want to mislead anyone.

 

[FatherEarth]

You fixing N from atmosphere with Azotobacter? Just curious...

 

[Luther Burbank]

Weirdness. Just had a Chemmy Jones come up with three cotyledons, and then an old Grape Punch seed from Bog came up with *four*. I'd seen three before, but not four. Also these Grape Punch seeds might be the largest seeds I've ever seen. Almost want to start choosing for that quality over resin until I have a large seed food variety.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

You'd want to select for the highest % of protein put in to seed , not sure if that's correlated with seed size.

 

[Luther Burbank]

The food varieties I encountered in China were always oversized large seeds. Not sure if it was for nutritional value or from ease of snacking.

 

[FatherEarth]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sun-seeker-3d-augmented-reality/id330247123?mt=8

Possible alternative to the expensive sun tracker posted in the beginning of this thread... I've yet to try it but will give it a whirl at a new location asap.

 

[Stank J.P.]

Suncalc.net seems pretty boss to me. 2 cents in there.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

Got a great example of phototropism today after a foliar with PPD , Sea Stim , Sea Crop , PHT Phosphorus , Pepzyme , BioGenesis , MycoGenesis , Spectrum , PhotoMag , Fulvic Acid , and Rejuvenate

 

[bamboogardner]

Got a great example of phototropism today after a foliar with PPD , Sea Stim , Sea Crop , PHT Phosphorus , Pepzyme , BioGenesis , MycoGenesis , Spectrum , PhotoMag , Fulvic Acid , and Rejuvenate

Hey Backyard. Lookin good as always. Say, I am familiar with all the above goodies except the PPD. What is that secret witches brew? lol.
Also, you combining all the above in one tank for spraying? I was keeping the Spectrum and Rejuvenate separate from the foliar and only using them in a drench. No problems mixing them with the foliar?
Thanks bud. It is always a learning experience reading your posts.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

I realized I left off yucca ag aid and QL Agri ...

Nothing secret about PPD.

It comes from Organic AG Products.

It's spray dried, hydrolyzed micronized cod protein ...I have a bunch left over from last year so I'm trying to use it up so I can get in to the FertiNitro I bought. I prefer its smell a lot more.

So today we put a 425 gallon tank in the back of my truck and I mixed :

2000G PPD
1000G Fulvic acid
1 Gallon rejuvenate
1 Qt Yucca Ag Aide
1 Qt QL Agri
1 Qt Sea Stim
500mL PHT Phosphorus
500mL photomag
500mL Sea Crop
12oz Pepzyme Clear
40G each of the biologicals

Rejuvenate is sugars , sea crop , sea stim , yucca , humic...works great for starting biology up in soil.

When I said foliar I was being a bit misleading I guess because the delivery was through a 1.5" Honda gas pump and fire hose.?with the throttle turned down all the way....10 gallons was applied to each plant , drenching the root balls nicely. At this same time great care was taken to also completely spray the foliage.

You may gasp at the thought..."this guy blasts his plants with a 1.5" fire hose?" Yes..I do.

It is great preparation for what's to come...heavy bud weight and maybe even the addition of even more weight on the boughs from rain. When my plants are young in the greenhouse I will spray them with the watering wand full force , too...

I just replaced my 2.2GPM 70psi pump after 4 seasons of solid use ... Tomorrow I will do a true foliar with Calcium 25...which is really mostly triacontanol...

 

[bobblehead]

I realized I left off yucca ag aid and QL Agri ...

Nothing secret about PPD.

It comes from Organic AG Products.

It's spray dried, hydrolyzed micronized cod protein ...I have a bunch left over from last year so I'm trying to use it up so I can get in to the FertiNitro I bought. I prefer its smell a lot more.

So today we put a 425 gallon tank in the back of my truck and I mixed :

2000G PPD
1000G Fulvic acid
1 Gallon rejuvenate
1 Qt Yucca Ag Aide
1 Qt QL Agri
1 Qt Sea Stim
500mL PHT Phosphorus
500mL photomag
500mL Sea Crop
12oz Pepzyme Clear
40G each of the biologicals

Rejuvenate is sugars , sea crop , sea stim , yucca , humic...works great for starting biology up in soil.

When I said foliar I was being a bit misleading I guess because the delivery was through a 1.5" Honda gas pump and fire hose.?with the throttle turned down all the way....10 gallons was applied to each plant , drenching the root balls nicely. At this same time great care was taken to also completely spray the foliage.

You may gasp at the thought..."this guy blasts his plants with a 1.5" fire hose?" Yes..I do.

It is great preparation for what's to come...heavy bud weight and maybe even the addition of even more weight on the boughs from rain. When my plants are young in the greenhouse I will spray them with the watering wand full force , too...

I just replaced my 2.2GPM 70psi pump after 4 seasons of solid use ... Tomorrow I will do a true foliar with Calcium 25...which is really mostly triacontanol...

Do you find that using Ca25 after your biological brew is the best way? I thought I read to apply Ca25 first, and then the next day tea. Does it really not make a difference in your observations? I'm assuming the order has more to do with the Cl in the Ca25.