Thank you @Dirt_Wizard! It’s been an educational morning.
I made a soil PPM calculator which is probably easier for me than learning to use one, and entered a variety of assay results. This is going to be very useful for me anyway just comparing the results of all these different ingredients.
I think your inital hunch (put all the worm castings, 5lbs of clay) was pretty close, and certainly an improvement. I added in some micro analysis results figuring that’ll be ballpark. I am assuming the EWC are close to 1-0-0 and not more like 1-0.8-0.7 like other figures I’ve found. I’m adding some supplemental N in the form of AgMino or other protein-based nitrogen source to have more N than K. The only reason I didn’t do the full 18kg of castings was I was concerned with the Ca/Mg/Fe content potential.
What do you think? Cut back on the EWC a bit and use bat guano to balance my N-P-K ratio?
The micronutrient toxity is hard to determine. I’m concerned about my S, Ca, Na, Fe and Zn. Basic research indicated Fe and Zn aren’t at levels even close to worrying about, the Ca and Mg are more worrisome as a Ca:Mg ratio (if I have more Ca than Mg essentially no worries). That leaves S and Na. The sulfur level is hard to find a good guideline for, the sodium depends on my K level. My Na is several times less than K so that seems fine, and I’ve heard cannabis loves sulphur.
OVERALL: I can’t believe how accurate your hunch was. Thank you!
Which overall solution path looks better to you? The EWC-Clay-AgMino or EWC-Clay-Guano? Or just dump all the EWC and Clay?
FWIW this was one of the more detailed content analysis I found for EWC:
I joke sometimes and call it vibes, but I do strongly believe in intuitive learning, trying to build a base of knowledge to make educated guesses from then checking those guesses to learn where my understanding or assumptions are off. I need to get my soil tested eventually because I’ve just been shooting from the hip, and I wonder what MY sodium and other levels look like, I don’t water to runoff often and never flush soil, so whatever is in the soil is just in there.
I admire your commitment to tracking and calculating the numbers here as a way of learning and also having something to refer back to. I do wish I kept more notes, I think that’s part of why I post so much here it’s where I look things up all the time about my own grows.
As to guano- I don’t like bat guano, it’s not sustainable and I only have experience with using Roots seabird guano powder and their HPK liquid, which I like both but just use the powder now for topdressing or watering into the soil in early flower just after stretch.
Another organic meal to consider for nitrogen would be lobster shells:
a pound of blood is only like 3 cups/48 TBSP…doesn’t seem like a lot for 200 gallons of dirt. in any case, you’re going to be top-dressing periodically all summer. having boxes of blood and feather meals around makes sense.
personally, i would add some blood (fast) and feather (slower) to the mix. top dress with some castings, and water in some of your terp tea. essentially, following your test recommendations and using what you have.
hitting ph seems more important than excessively sweating your sulphur level.
having a soluble like the multi-mino wouldn’t suck, especially since it will help with a couple known deficiencies.
Totally feel 'ya here. I do the same thing. I just feel like I’ve never hit anything before so I’m aiming this time
It wouldn’t mean shit without you guys helping me get to these conclusions, but I appreciate your compliments! This is my journal this year, I’m not keeping a notepad other than this. If anyone else dives off the deep end into this organic stuff FULL SEND they’ll be able to look up what worked and didn’t work for me. It’s all going to get posted - good, bad and ugly
Do I need to be worried about my calcium at any point? It was actually the Roots Nitro Bat Guano I was looking at, I know they have that at the grow shop. There’s a good percentage Ca in the guano but not as much as the lobster meal.
I’ll look into this.
Good to see you buddy! I agree with you there. Those two are certainly on my shopping list because it’s obvious they’re the primary N sources as the season goes on. I’m going to do some more analysis with these options as well.
pH: That’s a hot topic in my mind right now, as I’m getting comfortable with how to address the nutritional issues. Is there a way, that doesn’t require much chemistry knowledge, to work out the pH change caused by adding these N sources? Chemistry was the only class I took in college that I totally blew off, thinking I’d never need it. How wrong I was. I like what @Tracker does, using citric [actually ascorbic] acid powder to adjust pH of his synthetics. What do I do to handle this from the get-go with organics? I mean, the plants and soil food web are supposed to regulate this down the road, but what do I do before that really gets going and I’ve got plants in there?
BTW: I ordered some soluble fulvic acid with the montmorillonite clay this morning. Hopefully this is viable, it looked like it would help on multiple fronts.
You’re ignoring all the minerals that tree leaves, kitchenscraps, grass clippings, dandelion, nettle and thistle contain. It’s really all you need, it’s all in there.
Why mine for rock dust (wasting enormous amount of resources and energy) when the plants with deep roots and trees do the mining for us, bringing all the minerals up to the surface right from under our feet in a way that is easily available to the topsoil in which we cultivate.
FWIW I’ve decided to step back, do some reading and understand a little better.
Learning about pH, and how my 7.2 is likely due to my cations with such high concentrations. Ca, Mg, K, and Na. Learning that my soil is likely rather light on exchange capacity which somewhat limits my nutrient capacity. The reason sulphur works to lower pH by pairing with excessive cations. How using essentially a third by volume relatively fresh compost is a nightmare in terms of sucking away my N and providing K, making the soil basic.
I’m looking at the “The Intelligent Gardener”
When I’m finished up reading I’ll reevaluate and make some fresh, better educated questions and decisions
That Bentonite/Montmorillonite will definitely help with your CEC some, here’s some docs from my library about soil CEC and soil testing results and interpreting them:
University of Hawaii does incredible permaculture and KNF/JADAM research, and generally really good stuff for farming or gardening in a hot sandy place:
Wood ash is good stuff, but I don’t think it’s the answer for what @FieldEffect is trying to do here, apply corrections based on an existing test, because it’s a really variable source of liming, with the calcium carbonate equivalents all over the place. I put it in my yard and garden beds but I don’t think I’d use it for this particular purpose because it would be hard to judge the exact effect without doing the acid test to figure out the CCE of your particular ashes, and the macro/micro analysis can be pretty different as well:
