Sending my compost and worm castings to a lab...

So, @MustangStudFarm I found this page
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-1490/PSS-2225web2013.pdf

And this page
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-6620/HLA-6036web.pdf

To be upfront, I'm just reading from those two pages. These reports don't have some of the info I consider vital, which is fine because those two pages help understand the report quite a bit. I (and many others) have a different ideology of soil mineral balancing from many (probably most to all) universities. These university programs are the basis for mainstream agriculture and are not focused on growing the healthiest plants or most nutrient dense food. It's all based on cost efficiency to crop yield and in the back drop is research funding from fertilizer companies to try to get more fertilizer sold through university crop trials. Most university ag programs go by the SLAN (Sufficient Levels of Available Nutrients) method and the reason I'm saying all this is because they don't tell you very much besides whether or not adding some kind of fertilizer will most likely give you yield increases or maybe give you yield increases or probably won't give you yield increases. What the person who filled in the comment section on your report should have written is, "You have 10 times+ the amount of some minerals and the rest are in heavy excess", not just "EXCESSIVE" with no solution to having potentially toxic soil. And none of this takes in to account how they actually might be testing your soil which is a long story. Anyway, I'm ranting, but some of this stuff is frustrating to read because it's not going to help out someone like you by just saying, "EXCESSIVE" or "SUFFICIENT" or "INSUFFICIENT". Or use blood meal as an organic alternative. How much blood meal? They didn't tell you that. They only gave you recs for 34-0-0 ammonium nitrate (it would be 8.5 lbs. of 12-0-0 blood or feather meal to equal their 3 lbs. of 34-0-0 recs, just FYI). And really it's not easy to get a good soil test report on nitrogen because it's so reactive so that recommendation doesn't mean much. Did you keep your soil sample chilled? Did they keep it chilled for the 3 weeks they had it? So unknown amounts of nitrogen could have been off-gassing that otherwise wouldn't have been if it was left undisturbed? Again I'm ranting, but it's frustrating when you dig into pretty much any field of science and realize that they're all just putting on a show for the general public for the most part and aren't looking at the whole picture and don't really want to look at the whole picture. Anyway, I'm done rambling. There's probably something in there worth reading in that little rant somewhere, but I'm not making any guarantees, ha ha.

How much soil do you have that you took this sample from? And is it a lightweight peat based soil? You can either cut it with new soil or put a bunch of gypsum in it and let the gypsum work its magic. And that would be the calcium sulfate di-hydrate gypsum preferably, not the calcium sulfate anhydrate. Calcium sulfate di-hydrate will work faster. Or you can cut some of the soil with new soil and put a bunch of gypsum in the rest and let in wash out some of the excessive minerals to use later. Gypsum acts like a reset button if you overdo it.

And I don't know how to read anything from your manure report. You can probably get some input from the lab on that one. Next time just send in your compost/manure to have it tested the same as your soil.

And just to let you know, my beginnings of studying agronomy came about for the same reason you sent in a lab test. I was recycling my soil and adding amendments and everything was going great. I was growing amazing weed and then I had an entire crop fail and everything hit a wall. I unknowingly had made my soil toxic. My plants were handling okay until that one extra straw broke the camel's back.

Below is the soil report I got back from that greenhouse that failed which is a different greenhouse than the soil report from above.This greenhouse was only 400 sq ft and I ended up dumping 320 lbs of gypsum in it to knock out the excesses. Also, here's another example of the differences in Ca and Mg between the M3 and AApH8.2 tests. And I like Spectrum Analytic for certain things, but I have a feeling the CEC isn't accurate.


Okay, I'm tired and off to bed.

rikdabrick said:

So, @MustangStudFarm I found this page
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-1490/PSS-2225web2013.pdf

And this page
http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-6620/HLA-6036web.pdf

To be upfront, I'm just reading from those two pages. These reports don't have some of the info I consider vital, which is fine because those two pages help understand the report quite a bit. I (and many others) have a different ideology of soil mineral balancing from many (probably most to all) universities. These university programs are the basis for mainstream agriculture and are not focused on growing the healthiest plants or most nutrient dense food. It's all based on cost efficiency to crop yield and in the back drop is research funding from fertilizer companies to try to get more fertilizer sold through university crop trials. Most university ag programs go by the SLAN (Sufficient Levels of Available Nutrients) method and the reason I'm saying all this is because they don't tell you very much besides whether or not adding some kind of fertilizer will most likely give you yield increases or maybe give you yield increases or probably won't give you yield increases. What the person who filled in the comment section on your report should have written is, "You have 10 times+ the amount of some minerals and the rest are in heavy excess", not just "EXCESSIVE" with no solution to having potentially toxic soil. And none of this takes in to account how they actually might be testing your soil which is a long story. Anyway, I'm ranting, but some of this stuff is frustrating to read because it's not going to help out someone like you by just saying, "EXCESSIVE" or "SUFFICIENT" or "INSUFFICIENT". Or use blood meal as an organic alternative. How much blood meal? They didn't tell you that. They only gave you recs for 34-0-0 ammonium nitrate (it would be 8.5 lbs. of 12-0-0 blood or feather meal to equal their 3 lbs. of 34-0-0 recs, just FYI). And really it's not easy to get a good soil test report on nitrogen because it's so reactive so that recommendation doesn't mean much. Did you keep your soil sample chilled? Did they keep it chilled for the 3 weeks they had it? So unknown amounts of nitrogen could have been off-gassing that otherwise wouldn't have been if it was left undisturbed? Again I'm ranting, but it's frustrating when you dig into pretty much any field of science and realize that they're all just putting on a show for the general public for the most part and aren't looking at the whole picture and don't really want to look at the whole picture. Anyway, I'm done rambling. There's probably something in there worth reading in that little rant somewhere, but I'm not making any guarantees, ha ha.

How much soil do you have that you took this sample from? And is it a lightweight peat based soil? You can either cut it with new soil or put a bunch of gypsum in it and let the gypsum work its magic. And that would be the calcium sulfate di-hydrate gypsum preferably, not the calcium sulfate anhydrate. Calcium sulfate di-hydrate will work faster. Or you can cut some of the soil with new soil and put a bunch of gypsum in the rest and let in wash out some of the excessive minerals to use later. Gypsum acts like a reset button if you overdo it.

And I don't know how to read anything from your manure report. You can probably get some input from the lab on that one. Next time just send in your compost/manure to have it tested the same as your soil.

And just to let you know, my beginnings of studying agronomy came about for the same reason you sent in a lab test. I was recycling my soil and adding amendments and everything was going great. I was growing amazing weed and then I had an entire crop fail and everything hit a wall. I unknowingly had made my soil toxic. My plants were handling okay until that one extra straw broke the camel's back.

Below is the soil report I got back from that greenhouse that failed which is a different greenhouse than the soil report from above.This greenhouse was only 400 sq ft and I ended up dumping 320 lbs of gypsum in it to knock out the excesses. Also, here's another example of the differences in Ca and Mg between the M3 and AApH8.2 tests. And I like Spectrum Analytic for certain things, but I have a feeling the CEC isn't accurate.
View attachment 3850746

Okay, I'm tired and off to bed.

Click to expand...

What an interesting read, thanks!
My more general takeaway from it is "People, don't overamend your ROLS!"

What actually happens when the gypsum "cancels out" excessive nutrients?
Does it sort of soak them up? And over time, what happens then, do they get released again?
Cheers!

calliandra said:

What an interesting read, thanks!
My more general takeaway from it is "People, don't overamend your ROLS!"

What actually happens when the gypsum "cancels out" excessive nutrients?
Does it sort of soak them up? And over time, what happens then, do they get released again?
Cheers!

Click to expand...

Hi calliandra, sorry for the slow reply. Gypsum doesn't really cancel other elements out. Elements for the most part are adsorbed (with a "d", not absorbed with a "b", just FYI) onto the exchange sites in to soil which are either on clay particles or humus particles. Clay particles have cation exchange sites (negatively charged) and humus has both cation (negatively charged) and anion exchange sites (positively charged). The elements are drawn and held to these by electromagnetic attraction. And as far as elements go calcium and sulfur are kind of bullies in the soil profile which is fortunate because they are the most important elements for healthy plants. Calcium has a double positive charge and has a stronger attraction and hold on cation exchange sites than all other elements except aluminum (Al+++). [*Little tangent: Hydrogen (H+) also displaces Ca++, but it is easily displaced by calcium carbonate (CaCO3), because of the chemical reaction H+ has with the carbonate in CaCO3. H+ is an acidic cation (so is Al+++) and the calcium and carbonate in CaCO3 reacts to the acidity of the hydrogen and the carbon and hydrogen (plus oxygen) make carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) and the calcium replaces the hydrogen on the cation exchange sites.] Back to gypsum, basically gypsum creates a strong base and a strong acid when it hydrolyzes in soil and does a good job at displacing everything, but if something is in excess it will generally be displaced more because there's just more of it to displace. Gypsum can even leach excess Al+++ out of the soil if there's enough of it even though Al+++ has the stronger electromagnetic hold. If you can picture a magnet against a wall with a ball of Al+++ stuck to it and a whole bunch of Ca++ balls crowding around that ball of Al+++ trying to get to that magnet on the wall while little balls of sulfur are trying to have a reaction to stick to the Al+++ to make free aluminum sulfate [Al2(SO4)3] then you can see how gypsum can displace even the biggest bullies in the soil. In general Ca++ does a good job bumping other cations off of exchange sites and sulfur chemically reacts with everything and can displace everything. And for the most part the displaced minerals will leach deeper into the soil profile and in pots they'll come out of the bottom of the pot with excess water.

And if you're not testing your recycled soil then you really don't know what elements are potentially building up to the point of toxicity especially after a long time of reuse and especially if you're adding fertilizers with broad amounts of macro and micro-nutrients. You won't really know if you're adding too much or not and a lot of times plants won't show signs of toxicity until the straw has broken the camel's back. Can you tell if you plant is using up as much Fe, Mn, B, Cu, P, K, etc. as you're putting in the soil when you reamend? All of those minerals have reactions with other minerals and can keep plants from absorbing them. This happens to farmers with large swaths of land regularly. Everything will be going as usually with good crop growth with their regular fertilizer schedule that has always worked and then they'll have total crop failure which is really sad since a lot of farmers don't have enough money to carry their entire farm through a year of no income. Sometimes it happens from deficiencies, but more often than not it's from too much of one or more minerals antagonizing the uptake of other minerals.

And @MustangStudFarm if you call up the university and ask if they know what the CEC is on your soil and ask if they actually weigh out 2 grams of it for the M3 test or do they just a calibrated scoop. Also, is your soil a lightweight mix or closer to the weight of normal field soil? You're soil might not be as high in minerals as it looks from those tests if it's lightweight soil you'll get a higher mineral read out on the soil report and especially if it's lightweight and they use a calibrated scoop for the soil testing instead of weighing it out. It is still most likely high, but probably something more like double the amount of minerals that you'd want instead of 10x the amount.

MustangStudFarm said:

Soil Test:
View attachment 3850484
Notes from the soil test
View attachment 3850485

Manure Test
View attachment 3850486

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i'm just confused.
from this chart it doesn't look bad, but they totally confuse me on measurements per fuckin acre.
what the bejesus am I supposed to do with that?!
7565 lbs of calcium per acre?
how the fuck is that helpful?

greasemonkeymann said:

i'm just confused.
from this chart it doesn't look bad, but they totally confuse me on measurements per fuckin acre.
what the bejesus am I supposed to do with that?!
7565 lbs of calcium per acre?
how the fuck is that helpful?

Click to expand...

There is two pounds per acre for each one part per million. The pounds per acre is based off a 6-inch Furrow slice so there's 21780 cubic feet per acre. It's not difficult to convert pounds per acre to pounds per cubic foot or to pounds per square foot. I could show you later it's just simple division. The confusing part is that these tests are based off a 6-inch Furrow Acre slice which is assumed to weigh 2 million pounds. And if you're growing in a lightweight peat based or cocoa based mix it could weigh one third the weight of normal mineral field soil which is made more complicated when labs use a scoop on peat based soils that is calibrated for mineral soil instead of weighing out the correct amount. There's ways to get a decent idea with weighing out a gallon of your own mix and converting the numbers accordingly

rikdabrick said:

Hi calliandra, sorry for the slow reply. Gypsum doesn't really cancel other elements out. Elements for the most part are adsorbed (with a "d", not absorbed with a "b", just FYI) onto the exchange sites in to soil which are either on clay particles or humus particles. Clay particles have cation exchange sites (negatively charged) and humus has both cation (negatively charged) and anion exchange sites (positively charged). The elements are drawn and held to these by electromagnetic attraction. And as far as elements go calcium and sulfur are kind of bullies in the soil profile which is fortunate because they are the most important elements for healthy plants. Calcium has a double positive charge and has a stronger attraction and hold on cation exchange sites than all other elements except aluminum (Al+++). [*Little tangent: Hydrogen (H+) also displaces Ca++, but it is easily displaced by calcium carbonate (CaCO3), because of the chemical reaction H+ has with the carbonate in CaCO3. H+ is an acidic cation (so is Al+++) and the calcium and carbonate in CaCO3 reacts to the acidity of the hydrogen and the carbon and hydrogen (plus oxygen) make carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) and the calcium replaces the hydrogen on the cation exchange sites.] Back to gypsum, basically gypsum creates a strong base and a strong acid when it hydrolyzes in soil and does a good job at displacing everything, but if something is in excess it will generally be displaced more because there's just more of it to displace. Gypsum can even leach excess Al+++ out of the soil if there's enough of it even though Al+++ has the stronger electromagnetic hold. If you can picture a magnet against a wall with a ball of Al+++ stuck to it and a whole bunch of Ca++ balls crowding around that ball of Al+++ trying to get to that magnet on the wall while little balls of sulfur are trying to have a reaction to stick to the Al+++ to make free aluminum sulfate [Al2(SO4)3] then you can see how gypsum can displace even the biggest bullies in the soil. In general Ca++ does a good job bumping other cations off of exchange sites and sulfur chemically reacts with everything and can displace everything. And for the most part the displaced minerals will leach deeper into the soil profile and in pots they'll come out of the bottom of the pot with excess water.

And if you're not testing your recycled soil then you really don't know what elements are potentially building up to the point of toxicity especially after a long time of reuse and especially if you're adding fertilizers with broad amounts of macro and micro-nutrients. You won't really know if you're adding too much or not and a lot of times plants won't show signs of toxicity until the straw has broken the camel's back. Can you tell if you plant is using up as much Fe, Mn, B, Cu, P, K, etc. as you're putting in the soil when you reamend? All of those minerals have reactions with other minerals and can keep plants from absorbing them. This happens to farmers with large swaths of land regularly. Everything will be going as usually with good crop growth with their regular fertilizer schedule that has always worked and then they'll have total crop failure which is really sad since a lot of farmers don't have enough money to carry their entire farm through a year of no income. Sometimes it happens from deficiencies, but more often than not it's from too much of one or more minerals antagonizing the uptake of other minerals.

Click to expand...

Hi rikdabrick, thanks for taking the time to explain all this!
I'm going to sit with it a bit, and may come beck with questions later

rikdabrick said:

There is two pounds per acre for each one part per million. The pounds per acre is based off a 6-inch Furrow slice so there's 21780 cubic feet per acre. It's not difficult to convert pounds per acre to pounds per cubic foot or to pounds per square foot. I could show you later it's just simple division. The confusing part is that these tests are based off a 6-inch Furrow Acre slice which is assumed to weigh 2 million pounds. And if you're growing in a lightweight peat based or cocoa based mix it could weigh one third the weight of normal mineral field soil which is made more complicated when labs use a scoop on peat based soils that is calibrated for mineral soil instead of weighing out the correct amount. There's ways to get a decent idea with weighing out a gallon of your own mix and converting the numbers accordingly

Click to expand...

Oh and very cool to know, I've been grappling with the conversion for a while too!

rikdabrick said:

And @MustangStudFarm if you call up the university and ask if they know what the CEC is on your soil and ask if they actually weigh out 2 grams of it for the M3 test or do they just a calibrated scoop. Also, is your soil a lightweight mix or closer to the weight of normal field soil? You're soil might not be as high in minerals as it looks from those tests if it's lightweight soil you'll get a higher mineral read out on the soil report and especially if it's lightweight and they use a calibrated scoop for the soil testing instead of weighing it out. It is still most likely high, but probably something more like double the amount of minerals that you'd want instead of 10x the amount.

Click to expand...

I have been reading, but it was rather depressing on my part lol. Send in the soil to get sampled and they probably didnt run the right tests and took 3 weeks to do it.

MustangStudFarm said:

I have been reading, but it was rather depressing on my part lol. Send in the soil to get sampled and they probably didnt run the right tests and took 3 weeks to do it.

Click to expand...

my thoughts as well man.
and besides, from the looks of those veging plants, there ain't anything wrong with your soil at all
assuming that's the same soil?

greasemonkeymann said:

my thoughts as well man.
and besides, from the looks of those veging plants, there ain't anything wrong with your soil at all
assuming that's the same soil?

Click to expand...

Alright, I will show my pics. This is after I just added perlite, my goal was 40% aeration and I tried to over shoot rather than under. If I questioned, I added more perlite.


The white pot in the center looks like I doesnt have enough aeration, I had to topdress with my other soil because I was running out. I am going to transplant these into the 8gals from 3gal, like the one on the right...

rikdabrick said:

There is two pounds per acre for each one part per million. The pounds per acre is based off a 6-inch Furrow slice so there's 21780 cubic feet per acre. It's not difficult to convert pounds per acre to pounds per cubic foot or to pounds per square foot. I could show you later it's just simple division. The confusing part is that these tests are based off a 6-inch Furrow Acre slice which is assumed to weigh 2 million pounds. And if you're growing in a lightweight peat based or cocoa based mix it could weigh one third the weight of normal mineral field soil which is made more complicated when labs use a scoop on peat based soils that is calibrated for mineral soil instead of weighing out the correct amount. There's ways to get a decent idea with weighing out a gallon of your own mix and converting the numbers accordingly

Click to expand...

Hey, noticed your Bodhi grow.. The first pic was SunShine#4(not the soi), and 2 Loompa's Headband crosses Cocoon and Lazy Lightning. The 2nd pic is a Black Raspberry. 3rd is Lazy Lightning also. I am getting a lemon juice and skunk smell from the room and it seems to be a strong odor, excited!

MustangStudFarm said:

Alright, I will show my pics. This is after I just added perlite, my goal was 40% aeration and I tried to over shoot rather than under. If I questioned, I added more perlite.

View attachment 3852454 View attachment 3852455
The white pot in the center looks like I doesnt have enough aeration, I had to topdress with my other soil because I was running out. I am going to transplant these into the 8gals from 3gal, like the one on the right...

View attachment 3852456

Click to expand...

beautiful plants man!
nothing wrong with that soil, it's ALL because of the lack of aeration!
cool..
my original hunch was right (see post #10, and yes I am tooting my own horn)
good to know my man!
now go grow soma fatties

MustangStudFarm said:

Hey, noticed your Bodhi grow.. The first pic was SunShine#4(not the soi), and 2 Loompa's Headband crosses Cocoon and Lazy Lightning. The 2nd pic is a Black Raspberry. 3rd is Lazy Lightning also. I am getting a lemon juice and skunk smell from the room and it seems to be a strong odor, excited!

Click to expand...

That sounds awesome. I've got a bunch of Bodhi to crack this winter. Keep your eyes out on the Hawaii Growers thread.

greasemonkeymann said:

beautiful plants man!
nothing wrong with that soil, it's ALL because of the lack of aeration!
cool..
my original hunch was right (see post #10, and yes I am tooting my own horn)
good to know my man!
now go grow soma fatties

Click to expand...

I don't doubt you're right, but I will also say it's almost guaranteed there's too much magnesium in the soil. Magnesium tightens up the soil and an excess of magnesium is not wanted unless you're in really sandy soil or maybe a really aerated light weight mix. Soil, even heavy clay soil, will drain easily when it's saturated with calcium and the magnesium is kept in check. The level of calcium saturation would be higher for heavy clay than a peat or loamy soil though. It's also easy to get Mg build up with repeated use of dolomite. See my soil tests above. That 30% Mg saturation came from dolomite and I was only adding 4 cups for 400 sq. ft of greenhouse every 3 months. Someone shouldn't really need 40% aeration to make their soil work, but that is a good quick fix and you are justified in tooting your own horn, ha ha.

rikdabrick said:

I don't doubt you're right, but I will also say it's almost guaranteed there's too much magnesium in the soil. Magnesium tightens up the soil and an excess of magnesium is not wanted unless you're in really sandy soil or maybe a really aerated light weight mix. Soil, even heavy clay soil, will drain easily when it's saturated with calcium and the magnesium is kept in check. The level of calcium saturation would be higher for heavy clay than a peat or loamy soil though. It's also easy to get Mg build up with repeated use of dolomite. See my soil tests above. That 30% Mg saturation came from dolomite and I was only adding 4 cups for 400 sq. ft of greenhouse every 3 months. Someone shouldn't really need 40% aeration to make their soil work, but that is a good quick fix and you are justified in tooting your own horn, ha ha.

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I hear ya man, but I LOVE me some aeration, I have nearly 40% at least in mine, in my experience cannabis does so much better in a compost-based mix with lots of aeration, CRUCIAL when using dense humus type soils, like castings and compost

Them roots need O water forces out air & the flow brings in fresh Oxygen

But more drainage means more water so it striking the balance is the sweet spot

greasemonkeymann said:

I hear ya man, but I LOVE me some aeration, I have nearly 40% at least in mine, in my experience cannabis does so much better in a compost-based mix with lots of aeration, CRUCIAL when using dense humus type soils, like castings and compost

Click to expand...

I agree 420%! I have ~40% perlite in my mixes with more aeration (like pine bark fines), that ends up as humus as time goes on. I use no compost in my mixes but VC and the worms, working on the top dressings, makes it denser and adding even more humus. More perlite is needed every reamend.

My raised beds started as pure red clay. Took a shit ton of lime to get it right at first, but it only needs more dolo every other year or so. If more Ca is needed, gypsum is used, but too much Ca will start locking out K, so everything in moderation. Getting OM in is the hard part and my leaf mold piles are on top of the raised beds. It's slow, but steady.

@stang
Those plants look fantastic!! A learning lesson on aeration and why Grease and I use high amounts. Bet you never have a too dense mix again.

Wet

greasemonkeymann said:

I hear ya man, but I LOVE me some aeration, I have nearly 40% at least in mine, in my experience cannabis does so much better in a compost-based mix with lots of aeration, CRUCIAL when using dense humus type soils, like castings and compost

Click to expand...

Do you use dolomite or any other Mg products? Have you ever sent in samples to be tested of your castings or compost?

rikdabrick said:

Do you use dolomite or any other Mg products? Have you ever sent in samples to be tested of your castings or compost?

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nah, no d-lime, I use comfrey/kelp/ and composted leaves to supply the mg, also a very small amount of langbeinite
never sent anything in to be tested man, my compost is very, very kind to me, so I don't tinker with it.
Just make a bigass compost with leaves and grass, and after it's humus it's perfect to use

Wetdog said:

I agree 420%! I have ~40% perlite in my mixes with more aeration (like pine bark fines), that ends up as humus as time goes on. I use no compost in my mixes but VC and the worms, working on the top dressings, makes it denser and adding even more humus. More perlite is needed every reamend.

My raised beds started as pure red clay. Took a shit ton of lime to get it right at first, but it only needs more dolo every other year or so. If more Ca is needed, gypsum is used, but too much Ca will start locking out K, so everything in moderation. Getting OM in is the hard part and my leaf mold piles are on top of the raised beds. It's slow, but steady.

@stang
Those plants look fantastic!! A learning lesson on aeration and why Grease and I use high amounts. Bet you never have a too dense mix again.

Wet

Click to expand...

they really do look fantastic, and that's a relief to me, I've been wracking my brain on that weird soil-test and couldn't make heads-or-tails from it (simply don't have any experience with that at all)
and it was confusing to me why his smaller plants did much better, but now we know.
very good to put a nice little bow-tie on this lesson
it's real easy with organic-humus heavy mixes to be a lil too dense, especially in the winter months where the soil transpiration is lessened as well
Good learning experience, and good to even learn about the soil testing
@rikdabrick kudos to you my man for helping translating some of that stuff, and dishin out some good knowledge on it