Personally, I take Vermuclite, Run it through a coffee grinder until its a fine powder, put it in a jar and cover it with Distilled White vinegar and let it sit. Then I use this liquid to pH my water into the proper range. Not sure how much Silica it adds, but Im sure it at least adds some.
After looking into Wollastonite a bit more I like the idea of using it in soil.
Ease of use and sustained release are a great selling point.
But Wollastonite should probably not be used in hydro.
Since Boron works synergistically with calcium and silicon it would make good sense to add some extra Boron when you apply Wollastonite to the soil.
Also, I feel a foliar spray is another good way to supplement silicone when using Wollastonite in the soil.
A spray adds a useful layer of pest protection to the leaves that can be very beneficial when battling Powdery Mildew, mites ect., especially outdoors.
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I think I heard Bruce Bugbee say that vermiculite adds silicon to the soil blend that he uses.
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@Magu did you see this?
Not sure what bugbee said but this maybe helpful.
Vermiculite can hold a bit too much moisture.
It takes weeks to break down in soil down so adding vermiculite or DE for silica isn’t gonna do much unless you’re reusing that soil long term and the silica gets chance to decompose into silicic acid.
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I have not done this experiment yet.
Preparation of a stabilized mono-silicic acid using from potassium silicate
The raw inputs you will need are as followed
- A potassium silicate with a high K/Si ratio, such as AgSil 16H. You can also use a liquid potassium silicate, such as Grotek Pro-silicate.
- Sulfuric Acid (>90%)
- Sorbitol
- Distilled water.
If using AgSil16H follow this process first. In a 1000mL beaker, add 70g of AgSil16H and 450mL of distilled water. Stir – ideally with magnetic stirring – until the silicate has all dissolved. This will be the silicate solution.
When mixing, make sure you titrate very slowly to prevent precipitation.
This is now the procedure to prepare the stabilized ortho-silicic acid solution (700mL):
- In a 1000mL beaker, add 500mL of distilled water and a magnetic stirrer.
- Weigh 200g of Sorbitol and add them to the water.
- Start the magnetic stirring.
- After the sorbitol has completely dissolved, during a period of 30 seconds add 100mL of the silicate solution (either as prepared above or a commercial silicate equivalent to the Grotek suggestions above (around 7.5% Si as SiO2)).
- Stir the silicate and sorbitol solution for 10 minutes.
- Add 10mL of >90% sulfuric acid and stir for 5 minutes. The pH should now be lower than 2.
- The solution can now be stored.
The above process creates a stable mono-silicic acid solution that has an Si concentration of around 1% of Si as SiO2 and around 0.6% K as K2O. Used at 8mL gal it should provide around 20ppm of Si As SiO2 and 10 ppm of K.
A previous version of this procedure used 50mL of 80-85% phosphoric acid. However, phosphoric acid seems to generate solutions that are unstable after 1-2 weeks of preparation. Solutions prepared per the above process have been confirmed to be stable for at least 1 month.
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Nice read, thanks for the time spent Shag.
Also the fundamental function, where concentration are naturally the higher.
Roots with tips lacking of Si :
Roots with tips not lacking of Si :
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Si Priming
Several papers demonstrated that Si(OH)4 (hereafter referred to as Si for simplicity) acts as a “tonic” by priming plants, i.e., by preparing the defense responses which are then fully deployed at the onset of the stress, as will be discussed in detail in the next sections. The effects of Si under normal conditions are indeed latent, since, for the majority of the studies available, no major modifications, e.g., in gene expression, are observed. Under control conditions Si probably activates the metabolic status of the plant, by making it more efficient in responding to exogenous stimuli.
In rice, a Si-accumulator, Si causes alterations of C/N balance in the source-sink relationship under unstressed conditions, by favoring a remobilization of amino acids to support the increased N demand during grain development (Detmann et al., 2012, 2013). These data support the hypothesis that Si has a signaling role in plant cells. Si was indeed suggested to have a role as second messenger by binding to the hydroxyl groups of proteins involved in cell signaling, thereby partaking in the signal transduction (Fauteux et al., 2005).
It is important to mention that Si primes defense responses also in Si non-accumulators, i.e., tomato (Ghareeb et al., 2011): tomato is protected against Ralstonia solanacearum by Si which causes an upregulation, upon infection, of genes involved in ethylene and jasmonic acid signaling, i.e., JERF3, TRSF1, ACCO, as well as genes involved in stress response, i.e., trehalose phosphatase, late embryogenesis abundant protein, ferritin. In this study, the authors also observed an increased expression of a negative regulator of the jasmonic acid signal, JAZ1, together with a ubiquitin protein-ligase: the authors propose that JAZ1 helps in preventing the eventual damage caused by the stimulation of defense-related compounds and that the ubiquitin protein-ligase may degrade JAZ1. In tomato challenged by R. solanacearum, Si also upregulates a MAPK (MAPK19), a WRKY transcription factor and linker histones (H1 and H5). These findings corroborate the role of Si in intracellular signaling and suggest its involvement in transcription too (Ghareeb et al., 2011).
Silicon was shown to upregulate the expression of a leucine-rich repeat receptor-like kinase (LRR-RLK) in rice (Fleck et al., 2011), which is a protein involved in intracellular signal transduction. High-throughput technologies relying on –omics will help shed light on the missing genes/proteins involved in the signal transduction underlying Si priming (the so-called “prime-omics”; Balmer et al., 2015).
Effects of Si on Phytohormones
Silicon impacts on endogenous phytohormones are commonly analyzed in response to stress conditions. In rice plants exposed to heavy metals, Si reduced endogenous concentration of jamonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA), while abscisic acid (ABA) first increased and then decreased after 14 days of treatment (Kim et al., 2014): the ABA has an antagonist behavior with JA/SA biosynthesis. The effect of such phytohormonal changes on the expression of genes involved in heavy metal response still needs to be elucidated in Si-treated plants. Kim et al. (2011) also reported that Si reduced JA concentration in response to wounding, while Lee et al. (2010) reported an increase in gibberellins concentration in Si-treated plants exposed to salinity.
Resistance to biotrophic pathogens may be associated with SA whereas JA and ethylene (ET) are generally associated with resistance to necrotrophic pathogens. Fauteux et al. (2006) showed that Si improved biosynthesis of SA, JA and ET in leaves exposed to Erysiphe cichoracearum. Similarly, Si-treated tomato plants exposed to R. solanacearum activated JA and ET signaling pathways to increase resistance (Ghareeb et al., 2011). Brunings et al. (2009) also provided evidence that genes controlling ET signaling pathway may be activated by Si treatment. Conversely, Si improves resistance to the fungus Cochliobolus miyabeanus by interfering with the production of fungal ET (Van Bockhaven et al., 2015). Data regarding the effect of Si on phytohormone metabolism in the absence of stress are still rare. Markovich et al. (2017), however, recently demonstrated that Si increases cytokinin biosynthesis in Sorghum and Arabidopsis and that such an increase may strongly contribute to delay senescence. Plant hormones interactions are responsible for a complex biochemical and physiological network: a deep understanding of Si influence on hormonal properties thus requires technical approaches allowing to quantify a wide range of hormonal compounds simultaneously, including minor conjugated forms.
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You have a good point here…LOL
The point of the root does seem to have a special tip on it.
If you harden that tip with SI then it will be able to drill through hard compact soil better.
Do you think it affects the side/shaft of the roots too?
Or just the tip.
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(to give a context, it’s not the photos of the experiment i’m talking about even if the clay is high = zero transplantation to don’t be lured)
The experiments i’ve done were more in an effort to better understand the role of CEC in expressions, in high clay soil and low clay soil comparisons. I learned the role of Si amendment as a collateral damage of the quest in fact.
It affect strongly the plants born in high clay ratios, but i never sampled roots to make a complete analysis in a lab. Most of crops were guerilla grows and my most technological tool at this time was the CR500 used to reach the spots ^^
For what it’s worth, i think that the documentation on localized concentrations are right and apply, in the sense that it apply to cannabis and hemp. Because it affected mostly the depth of the root mass and its resilience to dry clay cycles, no real difference on the volume itself.
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