Agreed.
I was gonna ask if he took any pictures of the plants while they were growing...
My first soil test results
- Thread starter rkmcdon
- Start date
I was gonna ask if he took any pictures of the plants while they were growing...
Yes I have had my water tested. I've posted the results around here somewhere, but the cliffs notes version is <100ppm and the water looked good
As for high soil pH, yes i have some concern there, but soil pH seems to be such a divisive topic, I'm not entirely sure if i should address it. Opinions run the gamut from, "pH everything, check ph" often to "the soil will take care of it, don't worry about pH".
As for the bicarbonate level, i had not identified that as an area for concern.
What are your suggestions?
The plants grew well and looked good (sorry, i don't have pics of them). Bud density seems decent, though nothing to write home about. The flower is still in cure so i have not yet tried or tested it.
I keep reading how reamending no-till soil should be based on soil tests, so i ordered these tests. I did both logan lab and soil savvy to get an idea if one was more beneficial than the other for future testing
Aussieaceae
Well-Known Member
Mulches and straws too. Brown mulch, leaf mulch, comfrey etc. I'd argue that you can never really have too much plant matter in your soil.
Give a variety of it too.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Then I wouldn't worry too much, or assume it's an insufficient amount based purely off your soil test. Trace minerals mean just that and should be in trace amounts.
I would agree with your comment on soil testing, but not necessarily the method. The lab test is great for nutrient levels, CEC etc.
But for reamending you really can't go past the combination of soil pH, bolus + ribbon test, and testing for dispersion.
Texture is more important than anything, besides organic matter / organic carbon.
As you say, you aren't reamending with oyster shell etc, so you "should" see it come down. Water's likely just fine.
Sorry I'm unable to load your soil results, but high potassium levels can spike pH too.
So can highly active things like compost teas.
If your soil test doesn't indicate calcium levels are too high, gypsum will be a good amendment for it and shouldn't affect the soil's ph either.
Usually rich animal waste is good to lower it. So is sulphur. But based off your ingredient list, I don't believe it would be deficient in those things at all.
Aussieaceae
Well-Known Member
Reading again, I didn't notice there's no guano in your mix, only as a top dressing. So see how things play out in future and play things by ear.
Guano might be a good all round amendment in the end, on top of your plant material. They'll both ideally need to be composted / cooked beforehand. Then added to your mix when you start cooking the soil.
Wanted to suggest as well to add the plant material in it's own composted form. Not processed into castings.
Don't get me wrong here, castings are fantastic and should have ample plant material too.
Only for specific intent and purpose, you want the whole composted plant material in your soil, for it's own beneficial structure. Plus the mineral content that leaches from it.
A wire screen is a handy tool to have laying around too. Because you can sieve your plant material, if some of it's still too large.
All the best with it all man. Hope some of what I had to say is helpful.
Cheers.
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Thank you @Aussieaceae. I appreciate you taking the time to offer up your advise. I have comfrey planted which is also destined for worm belly's, but i'm sure i can spare a little for my soil 
One other thing. So far ive been using bulk EWC's, but i have my own worm bin going. It's 4 months old now and i will probably start harvesting from it in January. Its gotten a steady diet of rabbit poop and quite a bit of green. I think switching to that will make a fairly significant difference as well
Aussieaceae
Well-Known Member
No worries man, happy to express.Thank you @Aussieaceae. I appreciate you taking the time to offer up your advise. I have comfrey planted which is also destined for worm belly's, but i'm sure i can spare a little for my soil
Personally I'd aim for a lot more brown than green, to give plenty of organic carbon and good structure / texture. Green matter holds a lot of the minerals you need, but is also nitrogen rich.
The brown materials so good, because besides soaking everything up, it also helps fluff up the soil, aids in aeration / drainage. But more importantly is a vessel for the soil life.
Note roughly the 30:1 carbon to nitrogen ratio for composting too. This is really important to try keeping to / in mind growing No-till as well. You might get better cooks out of your soils too.
I know for myself that 30:1 ratio works wonders outdoors in the ground. Material in my own case is mostly brown mulch. Sugar cane is my favorite probably.
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PM?
Sorry to be dense, but what do you mean? I checked my inbox and dont see a PM from you
Not dense man. I was asking if you were open to discussion via PM.
When I get a minute, I'll send ya' one...
Sade
Well-Known Member
For some reason my plant shows boron deficiency in veg but as soon as it hits flowering the deficiency fixes itself.
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
I'm back now lol...Ha yeah. Never remember. I think he may have gotten a time out
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
Yup, I was banned for a while. Looks like that manganese issue that I keep warning people about(and apparently get banned for sharing my exp)... I'm too late, but that TM-7 didn't help at all did it? Sorry man, but I haven't figured it out completely either...
Glad to have you back! I haven't used it long enough to know if i saw a benefit from the TM-7. One thing i did take from the soil test as well as my results to date is that in a no-till, water only grow, you still need to pH your water. I know a lot of people throw out the pH meter with no till organic living soil, but I tried and it didn't work for me. My soil pH came back at 7.2, so i started pH'ing the water down to 5.5-6.5 and its made a difference. As for those who don't need to adjust or even check pH, after a discussion with @waktoo , I think it may be more a matter of how much bicarb is in the water rather than the actual pH
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
I just never had luck adding TM-7 to the soil and I found it to work better as a foliar spray. It has little rocks in it, so mix it in water and run it through a filter so that you don't clog your sprayer. As far as fixing the Mn issue in the soil, I haven't found a solid way to do it yet. All I know is that using Chelated micronutrients will only help iron issues. For some reason, chelators have a stronger affinity towards iron than other trace elements. Look at the section labeled "Fertilizer sources of Manganese": http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Management/pdfs/a2526.pdf
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
Hey man, just wanted to check in on you. Now that you have your soil tested, we should be on the same page when I'm talking about Mn problems because I've been dealing with it since I got into organic growing and compost/vermicompost. I kept having questions that nobody could answer on here, like how do you lower phosphorus in my compost because it was like 15x too high(common for me). I found out that excessive P can lower the amount of iron in your soil and they have an antagonistic relationship, so raising the amount of 1 will lower the amount of the other. So, I had to put 2 and 2 together to realize that I needed to add more iron and manganese to my compost and that will lower the amount of available P. Hippies would use companion plants like comfrey, borage, nettle, and a few others for composting because they are high in iron. I have lambsquarter on my property and it happens to be rich in Mn, so that's what I use. I'm also big on Greensand, but it's pretty expensive, like $80 for 80lb bag.
Fixing manganese issues have been the hardest thing in gardening for me. I felt a little better when I came across an article that explained manganese a little better, this is only 2 pages but it had at least two points that really stuck out and changed the way that I approach this. #1- Organic soils higher than 6% organic matter and Ph neutral(6.5) will lock out manganese. This is BIG because this is talking to EVERY indoor grower that is using a peat based mix. Manganese will get locked out almost as soon as you add it to the soil. That's why they use chelates. #2- Chelates have a stronger affinity for iron than the other soft metals, so adding chelated manganese might actually increase your Mn deficiency. http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Management/pdfs/a2526.pdf
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
Soil Ph is important, even in organic soil. I use a Kelway analog Ph meter. I don't even send in a soil sample unless the Ph is within reason. Also, how did you like the soil testing? I mean, how did the Soil Savvy test compare to Logan Labs? This is the exact reason why I got banned for a month, Northwood didn't like me telling people to use Soil Savvy. So, he followed me around and bombed ALL of my posts until I did the same to him. I'm the one that got banned though, for trying to help people. Those fucking Logan Labs tests are hard to read and it cost 2-3x as much as the soil savvy test. Ban me for trying to help someone out.
I still don't like the Mehlich 3/Saturated paste test, but Waktool sure does too. He's another guy that gave me grief for using Soil Savvy. I was having this very same issue that you are having about 3yrs ago and Waktool was trying to discredit Soil Savvy rather than address the real issue. He's a one trick pony, he will tell you that your water source might have bicarbonates and to get your water tested. Also, "Mehlich 3/Saturated Paste is the industry standard" but my problem is that nobody can read it? Can you read your Logan Labs test results? I feel like I wasted money when I used them. Then, I found out that my Logan Labs test results were skewed because I didn't ask for the "weighted scoop" for lightweight medium. Did you ask for it??? The labs have a scoop and ground soil will weigh 2 grams from that scoop, but if you have a lightweight medium, they need to weigh it instead of using their scoop. Using Logan Labs is just so confusing and easy to skew the results so I found it worthless to use. Bam, wasted $100 on Logan Labs. It's the saturated paste test that's important. I mean, Spectrum Analytic would atleast give you a bar graph with their Mechilch 3/Saturated paste, I would use Spectrum Analytic over Logan Labs, "but Logan Labs is the popular one". I started buying 4x packs of Soil Savvy kits at a time to cut down on shipping time and it only cast $100 for 4 tests. Do you think that it would be more beneficial to get 1 Logan Labs test or 4x Soil Savvy test kits? I was able to "fix" my soil and get it retested. I was able to figure out what inputs actually do what. Like, I found out that kelp does nothing but raise my Na levels and maybe copper and a little iron but it's not the "complete trace minerals" that everyone claims. The same with most rock dusts, find one that's high in Fe, Mn, and Zn. It's going to be hard to do. A mix of azomite and greensand works for me, sometimes I add manganese sulfate too.
I feel bad for making this post but I've been going to the VA for therapy and the doctor keeps telling me "tell people how you feel". I'm just now getting around to talking on here again. I'm getting kicked around by the FNG and getting banned for trying to help people. During my ban, I took RIU off of my tool bar and started going on Facebook a lot more and I'm having a lot more deep conversations with people. So, RIU is starting to fall out of rotation for me. I imagine that's what happens to a lot of senior members on here, they just leave because of the new crowd. We get into arguments with a FNG, then we get banned over some B.S. I think that I'm on strike #2 and #3 is perma-ban.
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MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
You can monitor this with a soil Ph meter. They have new fancier ones than my analog Kelway meter if that's what you are after. I might look into one myself, something like a conductivity meter that they use in "High Brix" gardening. I started getting interested in High Brix when I realized that they were focusing on micronutrients. I didn't really delve into too deep, but I would like to. Oyster shell is something like 97% calcium carbonate, so it's going to have the biggest impact on your Ph. I hardly use the stuff unless I KNOW that I have low Ph, which just happened to me. I checked my pots and they were down to Ph 5.5, so I was able to adjust. My goal is to stay around Ph 6.2 for optimal micronutrient availability, but 5.5 is too low. Ph 6.5 is too high and you will have mineral lockout.
The only time that I found gypsum helpful was when I had too much boron. It was an calcium source that wouldn't raise the Ph. Otherwise, I see calcium/magnesium as locking out potassium. The worst thing you can do is add Cal/Mag during flower if you don't need it. Also, for cannabis, the potassium is supposed to be 2x higher. I heard it on Kis Organic's podcast with the creator of Soil Savvy.