When should I flush?

[Emilya Green]

So OP posted the thread in the wrong section of the forum?

lost me on that one boss... ?

 

[TorturedSoul]

lost me on that one boss... ?

If it's synthetic nutrients, but it's in an "organic" section...

And don't feel bad about being lost. Story of my life. . . .

 

[Emilya Green]

If it's synthetic nutrients, but it's in an "organic" section...

And don't feel bad about being lost. Story of my life. . . .

ah... well there is a lot of confusion about what exactly makes an organic grow... does it just mean natural and not synthetic, does it just refer to the soil, or does it mean not using nutes and letting the microbes run things? It is all part of the learning process.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Organic = containing carbon, lol. (IOW, just about everything.)

Organic plant-growing method = feeding microbial life, instead of feeding the plants directly, so that the plants can then consume "microbe sh!t" . At least that's how I always understood the term. And, yes, it was couched in prettier language, but I've been up way too many hours in a row to recall "politically correct" terminology.

I get that there are various methods of "organic" gardening - sourcing materials elsewhere and bringing them into the garden (which probably isn't truly "organic" unless you're walking or using an animal-drawn form of transport, but...), creating some sort of mini-biosphere in which the things the microbial life consume are created in that biosphere by the organisms that their waste products feed (which cannot be truly self-contained unless nothing is removed - but I did once see a picture of a big glass bottle thing that had been sealed for, IDK, 70 years or somesuch, and still had plant life living in it, which was cool), et cetera.

 

[skirk]

I remember the two holer outhouse in Lukenbach back in the day. Talk about something that needed flushing!

 

[shortbritches]

Glad I could help.

I'm just passing on the science.

SOM + CEC in soil = nothing or very little will leach out.

check it out:

"Cation exchange capacity (CEC) is the total capacity of a soil to hold exchangeable cations. CEC is an inherent soil characteristic and is difficult to alter significantly.

It influences the soil's ability to hold onto essential nutrients and provides a buffer against soil acidification. "


Cations are part of the nutrients in soil.

They have a positive charge and are attracted to soil particles and form a chemical bond. This is why its difficult to use water to leach out nutrients. IF you have excess cations then yes leaching will occur. Again very difficult in soil with high CEC and a decent amount of SOM (soil organic matter).


The influence is a chemical bond. The higher the CEC and soil organic matter the less leaching you will get due to the chemical bonds made with soil particles and nutrients.


Conventional soil (chemical fertilizers) and organic soil are the same when it comes to CEC and leaching nutrients.

Folks that grow in mediums OTHER than soil can benefit from "flushing" growing medium of excess not used nutrients prior to infusion (or whatever its called) a fresh round of soluble nutrients. These are not soil based mediums so they have very little CEC and SOM. So nothing for the soluble nutrients to hold on to.

There are scientists that study this stuff for a lifetime job. It's an important role, as this information is used in food production.

We cannabis farmers can take advantage of the shared knowledge.

I have more. lol

I like it thanks , I guess i' be been doing it right for 50+ yrs.but a person can always learn something even if he is an old fart