I've been fighting Mn problems since I started organic growing and I think that I solved it.

[MustangStudFarm]

I'm not sure I've ever had a micro deficiency in soil

Farmers call ground soil "Mineral soil" so I don't think that outdoor has the same problems. I'm new to outdoor growing but I'm excited to let my plants grow into native soil and hopefully I won't have Mn or other micronutrient problems outside.

 

[Aussieaceae]

Here is my last test, I think that sodium and boron are toxic and P levels are too high also. It's really hard dialing this in because you can't change one thing w/o messing with other things. I don't even use kelp anymore. I did use Canna brand coco coir and they said that they don't use salt water during the harvesting process, but I found out that coconuts grown on the coast can be high in sodium anyways. It's gotta be where my extra sodium is coming from. Anyways, I just got this test back in a couple of days ago and I haven't posted it yet. I stopped using Big-6 and chelates and used only Mn sulfate but I think that extra B and Zn came from the Big-6. Sorry, I was using your quote to update my post. I don't claim to be an expert or anything and I'm open to constructive criticism lol.
View attachment 4457116View attachment 4457116 Thumbnail expands better.

Honestly mate, imo more brown organic material should bring those levels down. It should theoretically help.

I think the sodium is what you should be focusing on, before trying to correct any possible deficiency.
If I'm correct, sodium will lockout almost everything. Calcium, magnesium and iron especially, which I think all have a direct relationship with manganese. High levels of phosphorus would probably have an accumulative effect on those lockouts as well.

I don't use it myself, but I would assume rock dust has high levels of phosphorus and iron too.
Most green matter is iron rich, especially leafy greens.

Gypsum is really useful for sodic soil outdoors, because it breaks the crusty surface layer up into smaller pieces. But it is generally a rule of thumb, to always put a layer of brown mulch, or organic material on top.
I might be wrong, but i'm not sure how effective gypsum would be at actually removing sodium from the soil.

Would spent mushroom compost or something similar be a good amendment here?
I'm not sure if there's such a product, but even shredded straw or something?
Is your soil heavy?

Farmers call ground soil "Mineral soil" so I don't think that outdoor has the same problems. I'm new to outdoor growing but I'm excited to let my plants grow into native soil and hopefully I won't have Mn or other micronutrient problems outside.

That's definitely a good point. Very true a few feet down.
Would you effectively emulate the same thing using rock dust and green sand?

Hats off to you guys doing recycled soil indoors. The two are very similar, but definitely different in practice.

Curious to ask, do you know why the nitrogen level is low?
I'm pretty sure for outdoor soil, a lot of nitrogen is formed / released during the composting process. Then processed into a useable form by the soil life.
Could there be a link here with the low nitrogen levels in your soil analysis?

 

[Bungalow]

I added more rockdust: greensand, basalt, azomite, oyster shell flour, and gypsum. I probably wasn't using enough in my original mix. I was using less rock dust to keep the Ph low and Mn more available. I was also hoping that low calcium wouldn't interfere with potassium levels, but it looks like I was in excess. I was reading that you can achieve higher brix levels by having more K than N. I was having trouble with low potassium for a while, but I think that I got it down now lol. I had to stop using kelp because of the sodium.
I'm glad that you are here because I was running out of people to talk with about this. My wife is in her 2nd year of horticulture school, but they are not really teaching organic methods at her school. She said that they used to compost, but they had budget cuts. I didn't think that compost costed anything, but who knows.
I came across something that I felt was important the other day. I was reading about Ph levels and the availability of Mn. I read that acid loving plants will have higher amounts of Mn present in the plant. It gave me an idea to compost or FPE acid loving plants. Another idea was to grow comfrey but keep the Ph lower to help with the uptake of Mn. My wife has been talking about blueberry plants since we moved in here and it might be time to really start some along with some rhododendrons and azaleas.

Happy to help. I've seen a lot of similar issues so I felt it'd be good to share my experience. The extra dusts shouldn't hurt anything in the short term. In the long term, you use less and less micros as they're becoming available in the soil. That's crazy that a horticulture program says they can't afford composting, lol... Part of the industrial agenda to neuter traditional farming and self sufficiency imo..

I don't think fermenting acid plants could hurt as long as you dilute sufficiently. Making traditional 1:1 ratio plant : sugar will also result in highly acidic ferments with any input. That's why the dosage is generally 1 tsp/gal or even less on these. Small amounts of nutrients consistently, with catalyzing hormones/sugars/enzymes etc. Definitely get some blueberries going though, they're awesome if you can keep the deer off, haha. Could make some fermented fruit extracts too, and maybe do some experimentation with feeding consistent anthocyanin. I doubt it would translate to a plant, but hey who knows?

I think Aussie made a great point too. Without sufficient carbon in soil, bad things happen. I believe this is why some people notice so much improvement from something like molasses - it's carbon; not a long lived source though. I like using pine bark in mixes, sometimes more than a fifth of the mix. Great for texturing soil, as was mentioned. Over time it will increase the cec as well.

 

[MustangStudFarm]

Honestly mate, imo more brown organic material should bring those levels down. It should theoretically help.

I'm using bag compost right now, but my leaf mold is over 2yrs old and it will be ready for this spring's outdoor grow. I had this bag compost tested and it was very high in sodium. I'm guessing that Malibu uses cow manure from a dairy farm and maybe they give their cows salt lick or something???

 

[MustangStudFarm]

Gypsum is really useful for sodic soil outdoors, because it breaks the crusty surface layer up into smaller pieces. But it is generally a rule of thumb, to always put a layer of brown mulch on top.
I might be wrong, but i'm not sure how effective gypsum would be at actually removing sodium from the soil.

When I was researching how to leach my soil of sodium, they kept saying to use gypsum because of the soluble calcium and the sulfur keeps it from affecting the Ph.

 

[MustangStudFarm]

Curious to ask, do you know why the nitrogen level is low?

I wasn't going to address the N until the rest of the soil was on par. I'm currently running rain water through my soil, so it would be a waste of N right now. I got feather meal and alfalfa tea today.

 

[MustangStudFarm]

Could make some fermented fruit extracts too, and maybe do some experimentation with feeding consistent anthocyanin.

Interesting!!!

 

[Bungalow]

Gypsum is really useful for sodic soil outdoors, because it breaks the crusty surface layer up into smaller pieces. But it is generally a rule of thumb, to always put a layer of brown mulch, or organic material on top.
I might be wrong, but i'm not sure how effective gypsum would be at actually removing sodium from the soil.

Curious to ask, do you know why the nitrogen level is low?
I'm pretty sure for outdoor soil, a lot of nitrogen is formed / released during the composting process. Then processed into a useable form by the soil life.
Could there be a link here with the low nitrogen levels in your soil analysis?

Here's a related bit of info on the subject:

Also, on the nitrogen note, there could be an issue with the nitrification cycle; it's possible that instead of the ammonia being sequestered in the form of nitrite, that it's gassing off before it can be converted to usable forms. I've read that LABS/EM1/bokashi are very effective at increasing this nitrification: ammonia->nitrite->nitrate. This could even be related to a carbon imbalance creating an environment that is inhospitable to the correct microbes for conversion. Generally if soil structure and minerology is ideal, microbial diversity will flourish and things will tend to be available upon the plant's request due to mycorrhizal and bacterial symbiotes.

 

[Aussieaceae]

I'm using bag compost right now, but my leaf mold is over 2yrs old and it will be ready for this spring's outdoor grow. I had this bag compost tested and it was very high in sodium. I'm guessing that Malibu uses cow manure from a dairy farm and maybe they give their cows salt lick or something???

You may be right. In general animal waste does have higher levels of sodium.
Afaik, besides the effect they can have on erosion, cow paddocks are often dispersive as well.

When I was researching how to leach my soil of sodium, they kept saying to use gypsum because of the soluble calcium and the sulfur keeps it from affecting the Ph.

Yeah it's really good like that. I like gypsum a lot because of it's minimal effect on ph. Great for pot lol.
May be already well aware, but it's only really otherwise useful on dispersive soil. It will only really have that breakdown effect, when dispersion is present. If your soil has no PEDS it probably isn't of much use sodium wise.
Breaking up non dispersive soil, organic matter is always your best bet imo.

I might be wrong though, I'll have to double check, i'm thinking outloud.
I've got a good textbook on soil. I'll give it a good read and get back to you.

Edit: because gypsum is so soluble, it may have a positive on removing sodium from container soil, if also leaching.
But this is honestly something i'm unsure of and need to check. I'll get back to the thread later today, or early tomorrow.

Have a good 1 man.

 

[MustangStudFarm]

I like using pine bark in mixes, sometimes more than a fifth of the mix. Great for texturing soil, as was mentioned. Over time it will increase the cec as well.

I had this part of my first compost pile(my best) and I have been trying to figure out what I did that was so right. I recycled bag soil that pine bark and used greensand, both probably helped with Mn levels. I also did a few things that I'm not sure that helped like I found a rotten tree and ran it through my wood chipper with the leaves. I also added a nutrient kit that was a mix of organic fertilizers, but I was never really sure what I did that was right. My first compost was the best harvest that I have ever seen and I have been striving to get back there since 2016. It's like the harder that I try, the worse that I get. Anyways, I have leaves that I collected in Nov 2018 that should be ready this summer. I used a lot less rabbit bedding and more leaves this time. Until then, I have been using Malibu compost from a bag.

 

[MustangStudFarm]

Could it be you're using a lot of rich waste for your compost / soil?
Animal / fruit and vegetable waste, stuff like that?
Maybe more brown material needed?

I could be wrong, but I think that oak leaves are high in phosphorus. The ground soil here is high in P(low iron), so I imagine that it's in the leaves of the trees too. My soil test shown that my ground soil is just missing N, K, and Fe so that might not be hard to fix at all. It just sounds like it needs some compost. Every micronutrient(except iron) is at perfect levels, so I plan on running raised beds(or smart pots) that allow the roots to grow into the ground.

 

[MustangStudFarm]

Edit: because gypsum is so soluble, it may have a positive on removing sodium from container soil, if also leaching.
But this is honestly something i'm unsure of and need to check. I'll get back to the thread later today, or early tomorrow.

Have a good 1 man.

This looks exactly right from what I have been reading. It should also help with high boron and help a little with high P. It's good to see some experienced guys around here, you are appreciated lol!

 

[MustangStudFarm]

3. traditional KNF: 1:1 mix of sugar and plant material. The high sugar content suspends the microbes and makes them go to "sleep." Best shelf life, and if you like adding a bit of sugar at certain times it's an added bonus. Ferments made with sugar will be much more acidic. The alcohol formed from the sugar and plant material will extract the water (chlorophyll) from the plants, along with a cocktail of the auxins that were present at the time of extraction (take your material at sunrise, when there's still dew.)

The summer of 2018, I made some FPJ out of a roma tomato plant that I had. I bought the plant from HomeDepot and it never produced fruit, but it got HUGE. It was creeping all over my yard and it looked very healthy, but it started producing way too late in the season. Anyways, I cut it down and made an FPJ out of it(little green tomatoes too) because it was going to snow the next day and freeze. It turned out to be one of the best products that I ever used. However, when I tried to make it out of different inputs, I could never get enough juice to come out of the plant. I used cannabis trim and a different time I used huge weeds from my yard, they were about 6-8ft tall. I have a lot of brown sugar on hand, but I feel like Ihave just been wasting it because I can't get anything else to produce liquid like my tomato plant did. It's a breath of fresh air being able to talk about some of this! I was distracted by kids earlier and really couldn't reply right away.

 

[Growitpondifarm]

Yea this thread has some great info in it. Love reading this type of science based soil info. I have similar issues with my current potting soil I use in my cannabis garden as stang. What’s interesting to me is, while my soil savvy test results are very similar to stangs, I’m not seeing the negative effects in the plants like stang has. Vigor and yield seem to be on par. Wonder what the difference is?

I too have struggled with high sodium levels and anemic micro availability, especially iron. I’ve stopped mixing in ocean based amendments and hoping that time will fix the sodium levels.everything is coming down in next week or two and I’m almost more pumped to test my soil in the bed this go around then for the harvest, haha.

 

[Aussieaceae]

I could be wrong, but I think that oak leaves are high in phosphorus. The ground soil here is high in P(low iron), so I imagine that it's in the leaves of the trees too. My soil test shown that my ground soil is just missing N, K, and Fe so that might not be hard to fix at all. It just sounds like it needs some compost. Every micronutrient(except iron) is at perfect levels, so I plan on running raised beds(or smart pots) that allow the roots to grow into the ground.

I reckon you're on the money there with extra compost. One that's really aged and spent. With a light and fluffy texture. More for soil structure than anything.
Don't get me wrong the fresher stuff is fantastic, i'm just not sure if it will help in your situation.

You raise a good point on your leaf mulch. In theory if it's been getting rained on etc and properly aged and broken down, it "should" be ok. Most soluble phosphorus has probably drained away. I'd probably make sure it's dry, before adding to your indoor mix. But I can't rightly say, I haven't composted oak leaf before and don't have much exp with indoor mixes. So please take what i've said with a grain of salt.

This looks exactly right from what I have been reading. It should also help with high boron and help a little with high P. It's good to see some experienced guys around here, you are appreciated lol!

What do you reckon your plan of attack should be?
Leach your current mix, then bulk it out with the compost?

Man I always like reading your posts, you always post a lot of good information. I'm definitely going to tag along, really keen to see what the solution is.
I'm more obsessed about soil than I am growing Ganja lol. It's great bashing heads together with everyone here. XD

Yea this thread has some great info in it. Love reading this type of science based soil info. I have similar issues with my current potting soil I use in my cannabis garden as stang. What’s interesting to me is, while my soil savvy test results are very similar to stangs, I’m not seeing the negative effects in the plants like stang has. Vigor and yield seem to be on par. Wonder what the difference is?

I too have struggled with high sodium levels and anemic micro availability, especially iron. I’ve stopped mixing in ocean based amendments and hoping that time will fix the sodium levels.everything is coming down in next week or two and I’m almost more pumped to test my soil in the bed this go around then for the harvest, haha.

 

[Aussieaceae]

I couldn't find anything container specific in my textbook, it was all specific to land.

I did find a fairly informative page online, which might help. They seem to suggest mixing the gypsum into your irrigation water. Here is the link - http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-90162008000100010

Pretty sure I remember seeing something similar said previously in this thread, but notice the mention of a drop in ph?
Would it be the release of the sulphur, after the calcium binds to clay particles and / or leaches away?
Made me curious.

Anyway that's enough from me, I've posted here enough.
I'll stay tuned in.

All the best and good luck.

Edit: apologies if the link doesn't work, i'm not sure why it isn't for me. There's a permalink on the page too, hopefully it works.

Gypsum-saturated water to reclaim alluvial saline sodic and sodic soils

 

[MustangStudFarm]

What do you reckon your plan of attack should be?
Leach your current mix, then bulk it out with the compost?

I had about 300 gallons of rain water and I pretty well leached it out 1gal of water to 1gal of soil. I added the gypsum to the water and mixed it in and top dressed with Greensand, Azomite, and Basalt. I have a decent homemade compost tea brewer and I brewed some alfalfa/compost tea to replenish some N and K from leaching. My wife suggested that we used Spectrum Analytic instead of Logan Labs or Soil Savvy and we are going to get a Mehlich 3 test and saturated paste test done. I should be close to being dialed in, so we will see.

 

[MustangStudFarm]

What’s interesting to me is, while my soil savvy test results are very similar to stangs, I’m not seeing the negative effects in the plants like stang has. Vigor and yield seem to be on par. Wonder what the difference is?

I think that I am dealing with boron toxicity.

 

[Bungalow]

@MustangStudFarm For plants that are a bit on the dry side, add a small amount of water after mashing the sugar and plant material together. Just enough to slightly submerge the material. A rock or any other heavy inert object can be placed on top to keep it fully submerged - this will prevent fungal growth on the surface.

It sounds like that compost had a superior texture, and since it was your first run you likely weren't hitting toxicity in any element. With diverse inputs, it was likely balanced enough across the spectrum to produce good results. I don't think Liebig's law of the minimum is entirely correct, but it does outline the concept of less is more, and that toxicities are just as damaging as deficiencies (while being harder to correct.) We definitely overthink these issues, and over apply solutions. If you get this tuned in, try to always compost everything you can that comes from that soil, and add it back. Then, with tests, you can make an estimate as to which elements, and how much of each is being removed from the soil each season. From there, you can custom tailor your own fertilizer program to be adding specifically what you need.

As for the comments on gypsum in containers, it's not widely studied because gypsum is primarily a field application (read: highly potent,) and most conventional container gardening uses pre mixed formulas with relative balance and suggested application rates. However, cation exchange is cation exchange. Elemental calcium holds the strongest positive charge, and will knock other cations off bound sites on its way through the soil. If watered to runoff, these displaced cations will be pushed further down into the soil, and eventually out. It will completely sap all K (and Na) in your soil if heavily applied (look at elements to see how affected they will be - Ca is +++, Mg ++, K +.) However, K is easily added back (and cheap.) Elemental sulfur has a similar effect on anions, though not as pronounced (anions are far less immobile on their own, and will leach with enough plain water.)

 

[MustangStudFarm]

most conventional container gardening uses pre mixed formulas with relative balance and suggested application rates.

This is basically what my wife said that her professors told her. However, I have never came across a bag soil that worked half as well as my 1st batch of compost.