I’m looking for information regarding what ratios to use for adding Wollastonite to my soil. Ideally this would be done as a general amendment, rather than something to fulfill a specific lack found in a soil test.
Wollastonite is Calcium Silicate (48% Calcium Oxide and 52% Silican Dioxide). It’s a good organic Calcium amendment, as well as a good source of Silica.
Wollastonite increases pH in the soil very slowly, and is the least expensive source of Silica.
What I’m interested in finding out is, how much Wollatonite can I safely and effectively use per cubic foot of soil, as well as any feedback on what you think of it.
Wondering if op ever found good info on this. I know Bruce Bugbee was discussing using it in their base soil on YouTube. Think he mentioned something about application rate but need to go back and review.
You can use quite a bit. Calcium isn’t very problematic once you get away from CaCO3. I’ve been waiting on the silicate vs carbonate discussion ever since Trendasoil carried Vansil. Guess it’ll be another 5 years at least. I used basic slag (technically calcium silicate) for years before getting too picky about nutes. Now I use sakreet multipurpose sand for silica and gypsum for the rest of calcium. Pretty hard to over do it on sand also. I’ve done something like 8 cups per cubic foot or something, very high amounts.
IIRC it was 1g/L recommended by Dr. Bugbee. I use 4-5 grams per gallon of Vansil W-20. The “20” is the grade. Bugbee uses/references the W-10 variant in his research data ,which is more fine. All that means to me is “add extra if not as fine.”
Edit… that 4-5 grams per gallon has nothing to do with the apparant 4-5 mmol Si/L media release rate picture shown below. I didn’t want anyone making that assumption, wildly different things. I clipped this picture to show the Vansil mention.
