Hello Calliandra,
I gotta say it make sense and I agree with you. So you are suggesting that I keep my fingers crossed so all the necessary nutrients are present in the Living Soil?
I am new to this but I learn quick and speak fluently Plant. I just got to enhance my skills MMJ dialect.
A good gardener is one that knows how and what to watch.
ZRG"lçïfrr ltsss (that means "peace upon your soil" in blue corn dialect)
M
Nah don't keep your fingers crossed, it's such a pain to do even everyday tasks like that
Chemistry follows biology, so if we have the complete biology, the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, microarthropods and worms,
they will take care of the chemistry plants need to thrive.
Because it's like this:
The plant sends around 50% of its photosynthesized energy to the rootzone in the form of exudates, which are special mixtures of nutrients for the soil organisms that will spike nutrient cycling for whatever nutes the plant may be needing. The bacterial and fungal populations grow and consume inorganic and organic matter around them, storing those nutrients in their bodies (and there are probably specific populations in all temperature, humidity, and aeration ranges - each has its own - science currently suggests there are 75,000 different bacterial species & 25,000 fungi. wow.).
So they extract these nutrients into organic, soluble forms (=nature's biobizz), that are packaged in delectable snacks for protozoa and nematodes. When these predators eat the bacteria and fungi, they get surplusses of nutrients, which they poop out into the soil, and can be taken up by the plant. Thus far what scientific research has found without doubt, though it is clear there is a
lot going on down there that we haven't even begun to understand.
VoilÀ soluble nutrients for the plant, in the exact amounts it needs
right now. And this is going on 24 hours a day seven days a week, multiple different sourcing processes going on in that rhizosphere, ph's ranging from 5.5 to 11 in myriads of microsites, and the plant is orchestrating them all.
How can we compete?!
So what is left for us meddling humans to do?
Provide the conditions so that can happen unrestrained.
In the case of cannabis we want a relatively even balance of fungal to bacterial populations, because cannabis is native to mid-successional ecosystems, where annual plants dominate. So we provide a substrate that allows them to do that: greens for the bacteria, browns for the fungi. Unless the plants they came from were stressed, your ingredients will contain all the nutrients a plant needs to survive, because otherwise, how could it even have lived, right?
So no worries about the nutes!
You just need a good diversity of organisms who will process all that into plant-consumable forms.
And those come with your inputs.
If they're diverse on the greens side, no fungicides, no pesticides, that part is taken care of.
On the fungal side, it depends, we probably all need to innoculate, since the way we've been treating the earth, those have been drastically decimated over wide expanses on the land, and thus aren't being handed around via our food either.
And you're probably already doing that to some extent anyway.
So to focus on that in terms of the microbial life we're adding, makes finger-crossing redundant
And hang on to your intuition, end of the day, that's worth more than all theory
Cheers!
)))