COorganics - All Natural - No-Till With ACT's - Winter Attic Grow

[COorganics]

More links again.

Microbeman:
Microbe Organics

OM:
Organic matter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SOM:
Soil organic matter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Humus:
Humus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

All relevant stuff for those interested in real organic gardening.

 

[labexperiment]

Yeah I thought that adding a gallon or so of molasses into your cooking soil would give you an explosion of microbes to help break down everything else in your home made soil.

 

[labexperiment]

Hey COorganics, I recently posted an article I found regarding silica benefits and was wondering if you have a way of adding silica to your soil mix?

 

[COorganics]

I haven't heard of doing that yet. I have heard of people adding a dry molasses product to soil. I really don't know either way. I would venture a guess: the molasses in the tea is used to feed microbes while they are in the tea. Once they are in the soil they are getting their sugars from root exudes.

That's just my best take on it so far. If anybody reads anything interesting on subject, please post links.

 

[COorganics]

I've seen silica powders for sale, I believe.

Post link to article here if u can find it.

Edit: I could top dress anything into the soil and eventually it would become available depending on what it was. I do still have soil cooking though and could very easily mix something else in globally if there was a good reason.

 

[COorganics]

I just thought of the azomite in my mix. I'm sure that contains silica. Fuzzy on the benefits of silica though.

 

[labexperiment]

Check it out.

Silica article, looking for others knowledge on silica.

 

[COorganics]

I read thru it twice. There is some good info in there. I think mr Kessler is not the best source for info, idk. I looked up his blog and it was lots of little tidbits, written in a way to try to grab someone's attention who doesn't want to pay attention. I think we should try to get our organics info from people who are dedicated to just that and use a lot of science. I couldnt find info on that David Hessler without also including the word hydroponics in my search.


Its comprehending the scholarly writing that I struggle with..

Couldn't be all the doobies?...in conjunction with my already limited mental capacity.

 

[labexperiment]

I will do some research into him in the next week or so and see what I can find. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[shottafire]

Silica is really good for stressed or weak plants. Its also really good in foliar sprays as a spreader.

The silica is available in the azomite and its also available in diatomaceous earth. It helps plants drought tolerance, pest resistance and strengthening stem walls.

With hydroponic plant nutrients no product really includes the silica in the base or micro. so they offer a separate bottle.

Its great for ph up in hydro as well.

In soil i would just add some azomite with a ACT tea.

 

[PeeJay]

Some sound reading on the subject of molasses from Dr. Elaine Ingham:

Bacteria grow well and rapidly on simple sugars to exclusion of any fungus, until sugar concentration becomes extremely high. The simple preservative effect with molasses is the high concentration of sugar. Most organisms cannot grow in the high concentration of sugar. Once a container of molasses is sealed, however, condensate can form on the under-side of the lid if the container suffers heating cooling cycles. As the water drips into the top layer of the molasses concentrate, the sugar content can be diluted enough to allow fungal or actinobacterial growth as a surface scum. Just skim off the surface scum before use in soil, compost, or tea. Do not feed to animals or humans after a surface scum has formed unless you can recognise the organism as non-harmful.

Addition of foods that cause rapid bacterial growth can tie-up nitrate nitrogen so fast, and so effectively that plant growth can be harmed, and even stopped. Bacteria win in competition with plants for N in soil, and thus plants can be killed as the result of lack of N. Of course, the solution to this problem is NOT to kill the bacteria, but rather to establish normal nutrient cycling processes once again. How? Get the protozoa and bacterial-feeding nematodes back to work!

Non-sulphured, Black-strap Molasses: Contains no preservative other than the high concentration of sugar. Black-strap molasses contains about 150 different kinds of sugars, from simple to somewhat complex to humics. During the extraction of sugar, heating results in condensation of the sugars into humic-like substances. The majority of foods in molasses are bacterial foods, but a few are fungal foods. Fungi tolerate high concentrations of sugar better than bacteria, so extremely high concentrations of molasses favour fungi. Testing must be performed to assess what concentration is needed to select for fungi and against bacteria in any particular set of conditions. Testing is also needed when using as a nitrate-to-bacterial biomass converter.

Weed control is often STARTED with addition of molasses to tie-up the excess nitrate helping to set the stage in the soil to grow weeds, and not the plants you want to grow. Assess the calcium situation as well, however, because if you add molasses to grow lots of bacteria, and your soil has poor structure, you may just drive the soil into reduced oxygen conditions, which can result in plant death as well. As Arden Anderson says, "No number is right until all numbers are right". Or as Elaine Ingham says, "What's the most important organ in your body? And you can stay alive with just that one, most important item? You need all your organs, right? Soil needs all the organisms, in the right numbers and right balance and right function".

Organic Molasses: No strong acids or bases, nor extremely high heat are allowed in the production of organic molasses. No preservatives can be used. Because of the lower temperatures used, less condensation of the sugars occur, so fewer condensed, humic materials are present compared to non-sulphured, black-strap molasses.

Yes folks, it is possible to over-do molasses and rob the plants of nitrates in the process. While it can be beneficial in small amounts, those who pour it on their container plants on a regular basis are not doing themselves or the plants any favors.

 

[slowgro]

Great info in here CO - really liked the Microbe Organics article. Self-taught, but with more experience and real-world research than most degrees represent. I've got a microscope - think I'll se seeing what's in the compost (hot and cold) and in the pond

 

[PeeJay]

Great info in here CO - really liked the Microbe Organics article. Self-taught, but with more experience and real-world research than most degrees represent. I've got a microscope - think I'll se seeing what's in the compost (hot and cold) and in the pond

You will need to run a serial dilution of the compost before plating and viewing. Without some knowledge of staining practices it will be hard to identify and or count what's there. There is a crap ton of protozoans and bacteria in compost.

 

[COorganics]

Welcome, slogrow.
I'm sure you can do enough research to be able to put your microscope to good use. I would love to play around with one of those things, 600$ for the one microbeman recommends. Barely paying the rent. Post pictures here if you have the ability. Would be cool to look at an act and see the result of adding certain things. Guys like Tim and friends have already done the research and posted all their findings. I'm slowly digesting all the available information out there.

It's slowly changing my idea of organic growing. The results will be fun I hope.

 

[COorganics]

Thanks for posting the molasses article PeeJay.

Molasses is something I use only in ACT's as a food source for microbes.

I have read/seen folks using it for "flushing" their plants before harvest. Does that make any sense? How?

Molasses isn't just carbs, why give your plants a big dose (or any at all) of Ca, Mg, etc etc right before harvest? Aren't we trying to run the plant out of stored nutrients, right at the end of its life cycle...to get really nice burning final product?

 

[PeeJay]

Here's my view on using ACT in containers, for what it's worth. If you have a healthy organic soil it supports an ideal population of microbiological life so long as the pH is in range and there is food for them to eat. It is a little different in a field or garden bed in soil that is not as carefully crafted as what we can do in containers - and most of us are growing in containers.

When you brew an ACT you are primarily multiplying microbes to add to the container. If the soil is good, then there is already the correct population and ratio of organisms in the dirt/container for it's given environmental conditions. Making a solution of a bazillion more and dumping them in is not such a good thing in a container. It throws off the balance that is established in the soil and disrupts the existing harmony. A grower is better off feeding the existing population so it thrives than overpopulating the medium by artificially introducing a population of unknown ratios into the mix.

Just my two cents. Bubble away if you want.

 

[slowgro]

Here's my view on using ACT in containers, for what it's worth. If you have a healthy organic soil it supports an ideal population of microbiological life so long as the pH is in range and there is food for them to eat. It is a little different in a field or garden bed in soil that is not as carefully crafted as what we can do in containers - and most of us are growing in containers.

When you brew an ACT you are primarily multiplying microbes to add to the container. If the soil is good, then there is already the correct population and ratio of organisms in the dirt/container for it's given environmental conditions. Making a solution of a bazillion more and dumping them in is not such a good thing in a container. It throws off the balance that is established in the soil and disrupts the existing harmony. A grower is better off feeding the existing population so it thrives than overpopulating the medium by artificially introducing a population of unknown ratios into the mix.

Just my two cents. Bubble away if you want.

I'm not on the bubbler bandwagon, and would agree a good soil shouldn't need re-inoculation. Reading his article, I found myself thinking more about growing flowers and vegetables - larger areas - and even for that he talks about reaching a saturation point - establishing a no-till self-perpetuating soil. I was intrigued by his focusing on the byproducts of protozoans eating bacteria which have eaten minerals....

It's all so new - my brain is overflowing

 

[labexperiment]

Thanks PeeJay, I have read your response and will read it again a few more times to make sure I understand everything.

The idea was directed more to adding it to compost for the breakdown of the organic materials that are in the compost, while the compost is cooking.

Would the abundance of microbes die off after a month or so of cooking and return to a more stable population?

And would the dying of the microbes release the nitrogen back into the compost in a usable form for the plant?

 

[Conradino23]

You want silica, CO? There's better and cheaper way Get a bunch of horsetail and let it dissolve in water. You might also use bamboo compost/ash/mulch as I do.

 

[PeeJay]

Thanks PeeJay, I have read your response and will read it again a few more times to make sure I understand everything.

The idea was directed more to adding it to compost for the breakdown of the organic materials that are in the compost, while the compost is cooking.

Would the abundance of microbes die off after a month or so of cooking and return to a more stable population?

And would the dying of the microbes release the nitrogen back into the compost in a usable form for the plant?

Yep. Nitrogen cycling takes place. An explosion of microbiology sequesters available nitrogen inside the microbes until they die leading to short term nitrogen deficiency in the plant, as I understand it. In a compost pile plants aren't growing, so we don't give a rat's ass about a wildly fluctuating nitrogen cycle.