Is my soil magnesium deficient?

[Kriaze]

There are some interesting comments being made here so I'll sub in if that's ok. I've just made my own compost and I have to say that I had the same approach with cramming any amendment that I could think of into it as well as my kitchen waste, I guess I'll run into problems down the line but it's all part of the learning process.

I also took some advice that you gave me last year Conradino, I took some soil out of the garden, mixed it with compost and you're right, it is growing. I named her after you and Weaselcracker for giving me the idea to do it, send her some positive energy over as it sounds like she may need it

 

[Emilya Green]

The problem with supersoil approach is that it's unreliable. What I mean is one grower will find it great, and another one will start having problems very quickly. There's no way to establish how plant will react for it cause there are so many breeding programs out there, and so many varieties popping up with very different nutrient needs. Also there is no one supersoil, recipes are usually as creative as growers get. Some will add an excess of phosphorus and potassium while other ones will push the nitrogen. It's easy to undercook your soil too, which means plants will have to deal with it as soon as they're planted in the mix, and with many nutrients locking out each other I wish good luck to those who want to figure out why this strange wilting or burning happens when it's all organic. Yes it's organic, but it's a steroid approach without any deeper thought to it. I also used molasses twice and didn't see any positive effects. Bacteria will eat the sugar and then what? How can a plant possibly benefit from it?

I see nothing unreliable about the soil mix I used. I suspect that some people get in trouble by not following directions. If you try to use supersoil (well cooked) as your primary base soil, yes, you will have trouble. If you use supersoil as directed, in only the bottom 1/3 of your container, it seems to go very well. Yes there are almost as many recipes as there are gardeners but we are talking about one specific mix, subcool's supersoil... so your argument that some people get their mixes out of whack is true, but not a valid argument when talking about gardeners who are properly following any of the popular recipes to build soil.
You seem to further argue that organic gardeners are not putting much thought into their mixes or the processes. You talk about undercooking, as if there is a mystery as to why this jacks up grows. One might get the impression that you just don't like the whole concept of organic growing and think that it is somehow a random process.

Then, since you asked, let me explain about molasses. First, it is the perfect food for the microlife that we try to maintain in our organic rhizospheres. The sugar is immediately available to the little microbeasties, and they thrive when given this nutrition. You are correct... the plant does not use the sugar. We are not feeding molasses to the plant... we are feeding it to the soil and the life contained in it. I say that I am feeding my soil, because with the 100's of thousands of living organisms thriving in it, it is considered a living soil. Plants need 17 specific elements, in their raw forms. Molasses contains a bunch of them. Once the microlife ingests and processes the molasses, guess what results? Raw magnesium, potassium, calcium and trace amounts of Al, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn, many of which, although we don't exactly understand their processes in our plants, do seem to be necessary. We feed the microlife, they feed the plants. Also, since the molasses is being broken down at the elemental level, it is not building up in the soil. Nothing in nature works as efficiently as microorganisms.

So you tried molasses twice and didn't see an effect. Maybe you need to put some more thought into why this was... possibly a lack of microlife in your garden?

 

[Conradino23]

I see nothing unreliable about the soil mix I used. I suspect that some people get in trouble by not following directions. If you try to use supersoil (well cooked) as your primary base soil, yes, you will have trouble. If you use supersoil as directed, in only the bottom 1/3 of your container, it seems to go very well. Yes there are almost as many recipes as there are gardeners but we are talking about one specific mix, subcool's supersoil... so your argument that some people get their mixes out of whack is true, but not a valid argument when talking about gardeners who are properly following any of the popular recipes to build soil.
You seem to further argue that organic gardeners are not putting much thought into their mixes or the processes. You talk about undercooking, as if there is a mystery as to why this jacks up grows. One might get the impression that you just don't like the whole concept of organic growing and think that it is somehow a random process.

Then, since you asked, let me explain about molasses. First, it is the perfect food for the microlife that we try to maintain in our organic rhizospheres. The sugar is immediately available to the little microbeasties, and they thrive when given this nutrition. You are correct... the plant does not use the sugar. We are not feeding molasses to the plant... we are feeding it to the soil and the life contained in it. I say that I am feeding my soil, because with the 100's of thousands of living organisms thriving in it, it is considered a living soil. Plants need 17 specific elements, in their raw forms. Molasses contains a bunch of them. Once the microlife ingests and processes the molasses, guess what results? Raw magnesium, potassium, calcium and trace amounts of Al, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn, many of which, although we don't exactly understand their processes in our plants, do seem to be necessary. We feed the microlife, they feed the plants. Also, since the molasses is being broken down at the elemental level, it is not building up in the soil. Nothing in nature works as efficiently as microorganisms.

So you tried molasses twice and didn't see an effect. Maybe you need to put some more thought into why this was... possibly a lack of microlife in your garden?

That is one theory, another one is maybe dropping molasses, whole supersoil concept, and go LOS/High Brix to get weed that doesn't need to be pushed nutrients, doesn't need to be sweetened up, and doesn't need to grow in super saturated soil to be healthy and produce excellent bud.

Soil doesn't need a lot of sugar to be healthy cause plants feed it with root exudates, that is a sugar that we're looking in organic grows, not some feeding bomb that will indeed increase the population of bacteria, but as soon as you stop feeding them them population will go back to the initial levels. They will eat the sugar and will contribute little to plants grow, and why would they if then do not have a direct connection with their benefactor? And yes molasses has some nutes, but the most important like calcium, magnesium, sulphur, iron will get eaten while they're replicating so plant will have nothing but potassium that will not contribute to nothing if potassium levels are already high... and everything in supersoil is very high, and that's why like you've noticed yourself you get better plants after few runs. NPK gets depleted to the levels preferred by cannabis, which is low or medium at best! Cannabis is not called weed for nothing. The plants had to fight for scraps before human being took it and started growing around their camps. But yes genetics can be screwed up completely by breeders who are basically morons with little knowledge and little will to get to the bottom of it. I mean supersoil is for me no offence here a typical American concept, which doesn't appreciate natural soil and its possibilities. It's true that soil are very different throughout the world, but it takes very little effort to get it going at a minimal pace. Also cannabis doesn't entirely depend on bacteria, but also on fungi, you need more of a 50/50 approach to have it going really well. And funghi do not really eat sucrose, they prefer lignin and cellulose in other words hard wood and leaves and also minerals in soil. With molasses it's not gonna happen. I get plants that reach 20 Brix it's like a perfectly sweet orange from Sicily (22 max), but you will only get it if plant can use mycorrhizae networks... and it stops growing with phosphorus above 80 ppm in given medium, so what do you do by adding all these ingredients to the mix? You basically stop it in tracks. No I don't believe in pushing anything but maybe a bit of calcium and magnesium, and I don't believe supersoil is the best way to go... but then to each its own

 

[Emilya Green]

as you say... to each his/her own. There are as many methods as there are gardeners. I have simply chosen to go completely naturally and organic, and have combined TLO and Supersoil ideas into what I am doing, and give credit to each for my success. My goal here is to make my operation totally independent of needing to rely on any commercial nutrient system. I increase my brix by using naturally fermented nutrients and specific bacterial foliar sprays and my liberal use of molasses in everything I make. You spend money on inoculants and drenches, I spend mine on raw materials and molasses. I don't buy my nutrients; I create my nutrients with trips to the forest to collect beneficial indigent microorganisms and by creating fermentations of fast growing weeds, eggs and fish around me. Aside from occasionally having to buy a raw material such as bat guano or roots organic soil, I buy very little anymore. As you said, we all have our methods, and with your method, you have been able to take a long time to tell Timmo that in your opinion he is not magnesium deficient and you have gotten a chance to show off your very pretty pictures, all while expressing your dissatisfaction with supersoils. kudos Conradino23 ... you win.

 

[Timmo]

OK, let's all holster our egos and get back to the task at hand: helping the beleaguered Timmo out of the pickle I suddenly find myself in. All but a handful of these plants are in the undercooked soil that everyone seems to agree is a disaster waiting to happen:

WTF am I gonna do?! Is there anything I can do to counter the nitrogen release if it happens at a bad time, or to encourage it to happen sooner rather than later? Do I strip all those plants for clones and go with a huge sea of green in different soil? I'm not too keen to just cross my fingers and hope for the best.

Conradino and Emilya, I appreciate both your efforts to help steer me in the right direction. My ultimate goal is to have raised beds that I feed nothing but homemade worm castings (made with dynamic accumulators grown in my garden or collected from my property) and compost tea, but I'm an inveterate tinkerer and DIYer, and I'm captivated by the idea of fermented plant extracts and other homemade nutes, so I'm sure I'll never just leave it alone.

I've been trying to make balanced fungal/bacterial compost tea, and I do apply mycos to my roots when I repot. I didn't know that lots of phosphorus would stop its growth.

There's a lot I don't know.

 

[Conradino23]

Pull them out, shake off from the soil as much as you can and repot to something lighter. Do not water now, do it after you repot. If roots are big enough you can trim the bottom layer if it's necessary. Don't let them cook in the sun if it's really hot. Add compost tea if you have it very light, but if you beefed it up stop spraying with it. They are strong plants they will pull through.

 

[Timmo]

I just repotted on Monday, and I'm just starting to get a nice growth spurt. Can I leave them until they're a little closer to flowering, or would that offend your European minimal-pace sensibility?

 

[Conradino23]

If you repotted, then you're done.

 

[Timmo]

I repotted into the same hot soil, just lots more of it. Am I still done?

 

[Conradino23]

Oh man I thought you've repotted into something different. Then no, you're gonna have to do it again.

 

[MrLoveGrow]

You could try flushing them every time you water. Get a few extra gallons of runoff...or find the ph that nitrogen is taken best at and avoid it, going instead to the ph that blocks the nitrogen until you flush enough out. Just a opinion best wishes!

Sent from my SM-G900V using 420 Magazine Mobile App

 

[Timmo]

Oh man I thought you've repotted into something different. Then no, you're gonna have to do it again.

Glad I asked for clarification.

So, back to the previous question: Do I let the growth spurt continue a bit, or is it the sooner the better on re-soiling them? I suppose the sooner I do it, the longer they have to recover from the procedure before flowering starts. On the other hand, although they hadn't completely stalled before I repotted them, growth had definitely slowed, and it seems like having them growing vigorously again before uprooting them would be a good idea. Or would it? Suddenly I'm picturing bare root trees, which are the opposite of growing vigorously.

 

[Timmo]

MrLove, flushing crossed my mind, but I think the soil would be too wet overall. The pH idea is intriguing, but I'm not sure I'm sophisticated or experienced enough yet as a grower to take that on in soil that supposedly self-corrects its pH. But it's a cool idea.

 

[Emilya Green]

i would not do a thing ... just wait and see what happens and learn from it. That little bit of alfalfa is not going to cause so much trouble as to go to all this work... just because one person doesnt like your soil mix. egads. You are having a growth spurt, right? Go with it. Self correcting pH soil? My microlife doesnt care what the pH is, within certain boundaries... that is why i no longer adjust it... it isnt that the soil is correcting it, it is that it no longer matters because i am not using nutes locked up in salt bonds... I feed the microlife, they feed on my supersoil. All is well, despite what some people might think. Ask yourself why it works for me, yet you are advised to dig up all your plants and start over, tossing out your good soil.

Crazy... i need to go smoke a joint and ponder this.

 

[Heirloom]

My mix:

30 gal base (equal parts peat, perlite, and compost)
3/4 c soil sweetener
9 c EWC
1 c bat guano
1 c fish bone meal
2 Tbsp Ful-Humix
2 c Azomite
2 c basalt dust
2 c kelp meal
2 c alfalfa meal
2 c crab meal
2 c neem seed meal
1 c mycos
3/4 c yucca powder
2 c diatomaceous earth

The soil sweetener is dolomite lime. The label says that it's 82.25% calcium carbonate and 4.82% magnesium carbonate. My plants seem to be doing fine (although lots of them have red stripes on the stems), but I haven't taken anything to harvest in this mix yet. So far, I've used the soil without letting it cook, but I'm getting ready to mix a big batch that will sit for a month or more. It's my understanding that dolomite lime doesn't doesn't become available very quickly. Am I getting enough mag via the other amendments? Should I add epsom salt to the mix?

That is calcite lime, NOT dolo. Dolomite is closer to 2:1 Ca:Mg. My bag is 34% Ca, 14% Mg.

I plugged your mix into my fertilizer calculator. I don't have the densities of a couple of of your components (cups per pound) but estimated close enough for this.

I did not enter the DE, yucca, basalt or EWC as I have no values for those. Calculated out to a 100lb batch, your numbers (what would be on a bag of what you mixed up) would be something like....

N-2.1 P-2.5 K-0.9 Ca-8.7 Mg-0.5 S-0

IMHO your Ca/Mg is way out of whack at 17.4:1. And that doesn't account for all the Ca in the DE or EWC. Your K needs to be brought up too IMO. I'm sure there is sulfur somewhere in there, but not much. An addition of 1/2 lb Langbeinite will take care of all three. Then your bag numbers look like...

N-1.9 P-2.3 K-2.6 Ca-8 Mg-1.4 S-1.7

And then, if you need N you can alfalfa tea or alfalfa top dress, or feed Alaska 5-1-1...or top dress neem meal (6-1-2)....or whatever source you like.

I'm not going to 'side' with anyone here in this discussion. Conrad and Emmy both grow plants worthy of admiration. Nor Am I going to tell you what you should do, other than buy and read...or re-read teaming with microbes then teaming with nutrients. Your answers are all in there.

Archaea, bacteria and fungi are crucial, the very foundation of the food web. Of course you want to feed them. Yes they will eat up the sugars and other nutrients. Yes they they lock up the nutrients in there bodies. But guess what? They have short life cycles. They don't hold on to those nutrients forever. Their remains are partially used directly by the plant. Some is cycled back into other microlife by ingestion of live or dead archaea/bacteria/fungi and then compounds excreted provide plant nutrients. Most people don't think of it this way, but soil actually has a greater nutrient holding capacity than just CEC. The biology involved in the soil food web accounts for more capacity than soil particles. It's a whole living cycle. You can turbo charge it to some extent with out collapsing it. Consider sources of sugars other than (in addition to) molasses. There is a wide world of '-oses'....glucose, maltose, dextrose, etc....to consider. Fruit extracts are a great source. Grapes and cranberrys are ones to consider.

And Epsom salt IS NOT pure Mg as someone stated. It's typically labeled somewhere around 10% Mg and 13% Sulfur. A simple look at it's chemical name....Magnesium Sulfate.....or it chemical formula....MgSO4....would tell an 8th grader that.

Flushing will only move the anions and any soluble salts. You are more likely to cause more problems than fix.




EDIT: I should clarify something. That was 1/2lb langb added to the entire volume of mixed soil. At this point you'd have to top dress a calculated amount.

 

[photos]

post up some close up pics timmo

 

[Timmo]

Thanks, Heirloom, once again. I'm working my way through Teaming with Nutrients right now. I have ADD, so I'll have to reread both books several times before it really starts to sink in. In the meantime, solid info like you've been giving me really helps put the picture together.

I got a box of Langbeinite today, along with some Pro-Tekt and Big Bloom. We'll see what I can do.

Photos, I'll try to get some better pics up shortly.

 

[Timmo]

Close up enough, or should I get out the real camera and take some macros?

 

[Heirloom]

Yep. Looks like a combo of K and Mg deficiency. May be caused by Ca toxicity. Look up "Mulder's Chart" to get an idea of how nutrients interact with each other.

Foliar with the Pro-tekt tonight.

Next watering top dress 1 tsp Langb for each gallon of soil. 5 gallon pot? 5 tsp.

Watch for the damage to halt. Obviously it's not going to fix damaged leaves so watch for slowed or ceased progression of damage.

 

[Timmo]

I just came across Mulder's Chart earlier today. Another piece in the puzzle.

I sprayed the Pro-tekt. Next watering shouldn't be far along.