Recycled soil problems

Hi guys I have supersoil I've reammended and something in it is causing my plants stress so I'm looking for help diagnosing the issue.

I've been casually growing outdoor for years but have been taking it more seriously the last few years, and I have a few successful organic indoor grows under my belt. Two years ago I did my first supersoil mix with subcools recipe which went well with the exception they faded a little near the end but likely because it was about 1/4 to 1/3 SS in the bottom of a 65 gallon fabric pot promix bx peat/perlite mix on top. Last year I recycled my soil for the first time-I dumped all the supersoil and the basemix (promix) together in one large pile to compost together over winter. Then in the spring I split it into two piles-one to reammend as supersoil and one to stand by to be used as a base mix on top. I figured the composted supersoil/base soil mixture would be more or less like starting out the recipe with the roots organic or ocean forest rich soils. I remade my supersoil using 2/3 quantities. This second grow was ok but not as good as the first, the plants weren't totally happy and had some nutrient deficiency problems.

Now this year I did the same thing-composted all soil together over winter then reammended half of it, this time at full strength to see if it helped. It's been 7.5 weeks composting with teas added weekly but before I can use it I need to address my current issue. Here is my issue-my plants that are growing in my basemix (old supersoil I didn't reammend) are not happy-pale green, red stems, browning shriveling lower leaves. Other plants like peppers I put in this mix are also having the same problems. I thought this would be a pH issue, so I tested my well water with drops and its a little low-bright yellow, as was my runoff from my plants. Yesterday I tried adding natural pH up to my water until my runoff was looking a little more green color-closer to 7.0. But everything I read tells me that pH shouldn't be an issue. I apply compost tea to my plants and my composting soils about once a week which should be helping as well. I currently feed with roots organic liquid nutrients that I aerate for 24 hours prior to feeding (before I did the aerating, they were having trouble uptaking nutrients).

Unfortunately my nice bluelab pH meter disappeared after my last indoor run so I'm working with drops until I replace it. I bought a cheap home soil test from the garden store to see if any of my nutrient levels in my soil are super high. I'm starting the TLO book as it's more in line with the approach I want of recycling every year, I understand there are some things that don't necessarily need to be reammended which is where I suspect I went wrong. It may be nutrient burn and subsequent lockout. Any organic soil folks out there with some insight please let me know what you think. I can share pics and offer more information if needed, thanks in advance

What about the pH of your SOIL?

I mean, you lime your soil to get it right, but the Ca does get consumed over time and needs to be reapplied. It's not a once in a lifetime event, but does need to be reapplied every year or 2, especially with plants that consume a lot of Ca.

Orgainic soils tent to the acidic over time and the soils pH has a huge effect compared the the pH of water which has a temporary effect at best.

If you haven't re-limed your soil in over a year that's the first thing I would be looking at before trying other fixes.

Wet

Thanks wet, I do add lime to my supersoil each spring. I add at subcools rate of 1/2 cup dolomite lime per 8 bags of soil (I do 3x at a time cause I have a dozen 65 gallon pots.) Though it’s worth noting this is my used soil from last year I’m talking about so it hasn’t seen any new lime since beginning of last season.

Today I tested my runoff and my soil ph separate ways, they both indicate 6.0-6.5 so I think that’s good. I tested the soil pile for nutrient levels and it said low N, low P , and sufficient to high K( it’s a cheap home garden one that gives you a scale of 1-5). Honestly, I think they’re just hungry. Looking at my logs, It’s been a week since last feeding of roots organic liquid nutes, and another week prior to that. I mix in a 5 gallon bucket so these plants all got less than a half gallon each time. They’ll get aerated nutrients tomorrow and I think I’ll immediately begin making twice as much. My supersoil will be nearly 8 weeks cooking now so maybe I’ll just start setting up in their final big pots, and hopefully won’t need any liquids moving forward.

Thank you yes they're still in veg. They haven't been getting a ton of liquid nutrients, writing this on 6/16 they were last fed on 6/9, and before that 6/1, 5/21, 5/15-basically once a week.(tea also once a week separately) I only do this because I start indoors to give them a head start, then when it's warm enough they go outside into soil I reammended that spring, and from that point on they only receive water. But while they're indoors they grow in last years soil which is pretty depleted and are reliant on liquids for nutrients, but I would love to remove liquids completely. Here are some pics when I moved them outside about 3 weeks ago on 5/25 and they looked good to me, maybe I just haven't fed them enough since then.

I think I'm ready to move them into the soil I reammended on 4/30 so I'll do that with half of them and keep them on straight water and let the organics do their thing. The other half I think I'll wait to transplant and just up the liquids for a week and see if that was holding them back.

5/25:


6/15:

Soil is too hot and hasn't finished cooking. Subcools recipe takes about 3 months to fully cook (break down / activate) at 80 degree temps. Theres a lot of redundant inputs that take a long time to break down in that recipe . Some of which actually takes a couple years to break down. Like green sand and dolomite lime. Plus if it was in the cold during the winter. It wouldn't have cooked at much slower rate

So just water seed sprout tea's and em1 / lab to break everything down faster. Top dress some bokashi and castings.

hyroot said:

Soil is too hot and hasn't finished cooking. Subcools recipe takes about 3 months to fully cook (break down / activate) at 80 degree temps. Theres a lot of redundant inputs that take a long time to break down in that recipe . Some of which actually takes a couple years to break down. Like green sand and dolomite lime. Plus if it was in the cold during the winter. It wouldn't have cooked at much slower rate

So just water seed sprout tea's and em1 / lab to break everything down faster. Top dress some bokashi and castings.

Click to expand...

Yeah even though I'm growing in last year's soil that I haven't reammended yet, I did some soil tests and my K levels are super high, no N and low P. I fed with roots organics twice this week minus the K stuff but it didn't seem to help, so my new theory is that its nutrient lockout from all the residual K left in my soil as a result of reammending two years in a row without really knowing what was left in it. Weird cause they did well in 1 gallon pots in this soil for the first month but maybe they just couldn't keep up with it anymore. In any case I transplanted them all into straight promix bx last week which doesn't seem to have much nutrients just peat perlite and myco. I'll take your advice and give them straight water and teas and maybe top dress with EWC. problem is, they look nutrient deficient now so how do I know when I've "flushed" or broken stuff down and can reintroduce liquid nutrients, won't they just remain looking hungry or could I expect them to visually rebound?

Yo, I promise, fresh worm castings on top will solve your issues.