ok there is a lot to get in to here buddy
1. The white stuff is most likely an actinobacteria, or more roundly, a myco-bacterium, a bit like yeast, or rather penicillium to be more accurate and these are extremely useful. These are primary decayers, they are first things you will see typically and they mass to a white fuzz which is easily visible to the naked eye. Yes, this is a primary decayer, as matter is reduced, from say a lignin base, further microbes will get involved, and your actino types may drop back visually, typically these go into a dormant spore like state, waiting for more matter to be added or not, just waiting for the right time again. They are known N fixers :-)
There are many numbers of primary decayers, you can find more about Actino here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actinobacteria
2. Food waste and C/N ratios.
a) Ok so food waste, be careful with un-composted food waste as it can introduce many unwanted pests and or odors to the garden. If you are using food waste, compost it before taking it to the outside spaces. beware of composting inside tho also, Ammonium etc is not something to be treated lightly, ensure you know you have safe levels about you if this is happening in closed spaces.
Best way i found to do this without any hassle and in fact it can be done in the corner of the kitchen with the right bin is via a process called Bokashi, this sterilizes pathogens, reduces odors and provides lots of beneficial microbes to assist plant growth and health see here
https://www.planetnatural.com/composting-101/indoor-composting/bokashi-composting/
otherwise for composting data, I would go check out the resources via Cornell.
http://compost.css.cornell.edu/calc/cn_ratio.html
b) carbon to Nitrogen ratios. (found at Cornell too i think) you have a ball park idea, its less about what material, rather all organic material has a C/N, what this is depends on the matter itself. Eg. Kelp may have a low number, such as 10:1 where woodbark may have a C/N of 100:1. Kelp decays quickly so is ready for plants quickly too, woodchips take years and so are no good for short day annuals.
Anyway, here is a link to find out about C/N of common inputs. understanding how long you intend to grow for, and ergo how long you need to supply food and what, depends on the plant and environmental conditions. As with any successful venture, one must understand ones context first before acquiring the tools to assist, nutrients, and or soil inputs are all tools ;-)
http://www.agriculture.com/crops/cover-crops/heres-why-carbonnitrogen-ratio-matters_568-ar48014
3.. Water, the thing with water is how much DS/ carbonate it has and is it treated with disinfectants?
a) Where we have high levels of Calcium for example, both in our media, clays, soils etc and our water, exchangeable and non exchangeable, we must give more consideration to how and when we apply nutrients.
We should know Mulders chart, and we should take account of soil pH as a consequence of calcareous media, adjusting our delivery methods and timings of many key nutrients. Your water dosen't sound too bad mate. Its not exactly soft, but its not hard either. if you can, get the source tested, but dont stress too much if you cant. They do it here in the pharmacy for a small fee but I know its not easy.
http://soilanalyst.org/mulders-chart/
b) The biggest thing to watch for from a human health interest with muni water is the disinfectants, eg Chlorine and Chloramines chosen to reduce harmful bacteria, spiral forms etc. The former can be removed quickly and cheaply, the latter needs a full RO system to remove it.
I am tho never not amazed by people who seem to imagine disinfectants hit an bit of crap then make nothing. Typically in the case of Cl-, we can find compounds such as Formaldehydes and or Phosphates etc increase as organic matter is bound to the Cl- ions with Oxygen or other. There are different forms of Cl- we find typically in muni water, the pH value of the base is the determining factor in terms of disinfectant efficiency and destructive properties towards microorganisms, some of which are clearly valuable to growers.
Where water is high pH, Cl- loses its power, so in these cases locally we find the use of chloramines increasing. For me, this is a far more persistent and annoying disinfectant and something we have little long term data re impacts.
Plants do need a small amount of Cl- so dont worry too much buddy. In my opinion, if you grow with a root inoculate like Root Better, you will have an additional bio filter to help reduce the risk of negative health compounds and matter such as Formaldehydes and or metals such as Aluminum, Lead etc and so those of us choosing to grow with mycos and active biology, get protections those around not doing so dont get. :-) But we need to try to give our helpers the best space we can, so any water lower in Cl and other disinfectants are a better choice. Rain water can be used. I avoid hail and or snow collection tho as this reduces vectors for pseudomonas syringae which we dont want.
Some general data on Cl- drinking water supplies in the USA:
The national drinking water standards state that the maximum residual amount of chlorine is 4 mg/L. Untill recently the USA used chlorine gas extensively for
wastewater treatment. Today, the use of chlorine has been forced back. This was done mostly because of dangerous disinfection byproducts, such as trihalomethanes (THM).
However, chlorine still is the main disinfectant in the USA, because it is relatively cheap. The application of the Clean Air Act (CAA) Risk Management Plan (RMP) for the storage of toxic chemicals by EPA
(june, 1999) and the re-registration of chlorine gas as a pesticide
(EPA, 2001) have caused wastewater treatment plants to switch from chlorine gas to sodium hypochlorite more and more often. This is because companies do not want to make a risk management plan for chlorine gas, as this takes up a lot of their time and money.
Read more:
http://www.lenntech.com/processes/disinfection/chemical/disinfectants-chlorine.htm#ixzz4eJ0VxqN3
There are articles on our Blog to explain how to eradicate Cl- for example and prepare water for microbes.
More on plant responses to water etc found here
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2014.00086/full
4. clays and balling of material. It is normal for clays to bind to each other in the presence of microbes. Microbes aggregate soil particles like clays, and clays are minute and so look really tightly bound, when in fact there are really gaps caused by the repellent effects of – charge and -charge together, organic/ mineral matter also gets combined to sands clays etc in to clumps. This helps to build overall soil profiles and is the home for all life.
Tilled soil lacks the organic matter and soil glues and so when this collapses, it really does form a hard layer. It might look good at first, but in time it will compact or blow/ wash away in any storm.
Clays and most soil components in most locations around the globe, including SFV, have a slight negative electrical charge natively, but they also have a high cation exchange capacity. This means they can hold many other ions, typically of opposite charge. It is this character that makes them both useful (they provide a good source of nutrients for plants as they can hold many on the surface area of each particle, so increasing soil fertility) and a pain in the butt. It is easy to overload clays, they can buffer many ions and so we can go gungho before we notice a problem.
Lots of our plant nutrients contain many positively charged ions, these are attracted by the negative charge of the clays. When we overload our systems with too many cations for example (+ ions), we can change the surface charge of clays, whereby they begin to collapse in on each other and cause compaction. Compaction drives out Oxygen and water, and the soil profile collapses. Soil pH swings, typically to acid states as CO2 gases get trapped and our system goes anaerobic. Free radical ions such as H+ or OH- further add to the electrical battles in our soils. these occur as a natural response to multiple systems all running separate homeostasis, the soil is the one place all the unwanted items end, as well as the wanted :-) Biology can help reduce the impacts of radical ions as can a quality organic acid like humic or Bio Balance Media in my case. Both can work to ensure we dont get soil profile collapse easily :-)
5. the very best way to know if you soil base is healthy is to measure your day rate CO2 mate, you can buy a kit from Solvita online, or Woodsend Labs. You may also wish to purchase a SLAN test kit also for measuring Organic N levels.
Measuring the CO2 burst rate, tells you how much microbial respiration is happening. If levels of soil CO2-C drop then we typically have poor system health and efficiency, a cutoff loss response to N occurs at approx 90ppms for many grasses for example.. We should be looking at levels above this to ensure we have healthy conditions or respiration for growing organic cannabis.
data relating can be found via Solvita online, Penn State and others.
For Organic N – A SLAN to measure the pool of organic nitrogen, called alkali-labile soil amino-N, that’s available in your soil. Eg how much free N do you have, now juxtapose this with your target crop and bingo.
Any biological grower must see the plant PPM N and add plus 8% for microbial respiration :-)
Finally, voucher code is FARMNU17
Hope this helps
