Gypsum Anyone?

Homesteader · Dec 26, 2016

leadsled said:
Gypsum is good, but not to be used a sole source of calcium.
Gypsum is calcium sulfate, calcium + sulfur.
Best to get your base saturation of calcium to 60% with calcium carbonate before adding gypsum.
Have seen growers make soil mix solely with gyspum and then hit very high levels of sulfur.

What happens with to cannabis with the levels of sulfur you are talking about? I use crab shell in my mix as well to to add some volume and chitin.

Ecompost · Dec 26, 2016

Homesteader said:
The problem is as @Slownickel will tell you, that standard soil tests will give you a false reading of Calcium that is not available to plants and farmers will look elsewhere at issues thinking they are covered with calcium, but in fact their plants are deficient and the calcium in their soil is held up in carbonates.

yeah depends whose scale and what method, I seen Ca ppm readings from tests in our own fields i know to be nonsense

Ecompost · Dec 26, 2016

Slownickel said:
Jumpin,

Homesteader is doing a great job. That last post of his came from the PGA, they were the ones to discover this issue, not the aggies at some University. The golf course guys had to figure it out! That is really kind of funny, but as you will read, most soil analysis over estimate calcium as they are breaking down calcium carbonate in the process, grossly over estimating Ca sometimes by more than 90 times!

I have a soil here in Peru that has 100,000 ppms of Ca according to the typical M3 procedure. Yet, when we follow the guide of the PGA guys who were forced to figure this out, and we apply the AA@8.2, I barely have 1,400 ppms of Ca in that soil. I am probably one of the only folks in the world that would put gypsum on soils with 100,000 ppm of Ca. With that said, a good friend of mine is in Italy and will be apply gypsum on some white soils there too! This should be fun!

My grow.... https://goo.gl/1U92jS

I can slam a load on the red soils in Spain bro in the new year. The calcium and mag are both high, generally its sodic I understood from the wild fires and dumping of seawater. I know from having a brief moment with a fork and spade, its like a rock. I will get some fresh tests done once the move is complete in Feb/ march and see for sure, but the locals tell me its typically in the 1200+@8.2

Seamaiden · Dec 26, 2016

Homesteader said:

FASCINATING comment re: Ca application based solely on %, completely irrespective of soil pH!

leadsled said:
Gypsum is good, but not to be used a sole source of calcium.
Gypsum is calcium sulfate, calcium + sulfur.
Best to get your base saturation of calcium to 60% with calcium carbonate before adding gypsum.
Have seen growers make soil mix solely with gyspum and then hit very high levels of sulfur.

There's also Cal-Phos from soft rock phosphate, but I don't know if it shifts pH, and based on this care must be taken if using it in combination with lime.

http://www.cantonmills.com/Calphos.php

I know this is a gypsum thread but the excess S is something to consider, and we all need a bit of P somewhere, right?

Slownickel · Dec 26, 2016

leadsled said:
Gypsum is good, but not to be used a sole source of calcium.
Gypsum is calcium sulfate, calcium + sulfur.
Best to get your base saturation of calcium to 60% with calcium carbonate before adding gypsum.
Have seen growers make soil mix solely with gyspum and then hit very high levels of sulfur.

Lead,

Heard lots about you. Thanks for chipping in.

All is relative to where one is standing. If I am in an alkaline soil, with alkaline water, I would be using super phosphate (calcium phosphate), gypsum and powdered milk. Applying calcium carbonate to an alkaline soil in an annual crop just won't work under those conditions.

From the few soil analysis and water analysis that I have seen in Cali, Oregon and Colorado, the above is the norm.

In an acid soil, I would say lime to get your pH correct and then add gypsum on top, not necessary to mix it in as it is very soluble. I would make a 50/50 calcium carbonate/gypsum combination with say 15 to 20% compost or worm castings and spike it in around the plant. This gets rid of human error and lets the plant send roots to the concentration it likes. Calcium is trans-locatable in the roots. Roots that get Ca can send it to roots that don't have what they need. Great concept, works spectacularly.

Hard to generalize without knowing pH of the media/soil and of the water. There are huge bicarbonate issues in much of the water analysis that I have seen from Cali, Oregon and Colorado. When there is bicarbonates, the pH is over 7.5 or so.

Thanks for stepping up! Heard lots about you!

Slownickel · Dec 26, 2016

Ecompost said:
I can slam a load on the red soils in Spain bro in the new year. The calcium and mag are both high, generally its sodic I understood from the wild fires and dumping of seawater. I know from having a brief moment with a fork and spade, its like a rock. I will get some fresh tests done once the move is complete in Feb/ march and see for sure, but the locals tell me its typically in the 1200+@8.2

Eco,

I am of the firm belief that there is not enough nutrient density unless there is a minimum of 2000 ppm of Ca using the AA@8.2

Ecompost · Dec 27, 2016

Slownickel said:
Eco,

I am of the firm belief that there is not enough nutrient density unless there is a minimum of 2000 ppm of Ca using the AA@8.2

I will boost whats there once I get the warmer soil temps if the test comes up short buddy. We have several hectares so its a pretty str8 forwards process at this stage to mark out several areas and distribute varying levels. We can pick non connected sites too so can really get to see how each performs.
We grow lots of Citrus, Nuts, Olives and various perennial veg, all of which are somewhat hyper dependent on correct levels of Ca, both for our purposes in end taste and of course pest reduction across the season.

Are you doing anything with SiOH4 among your studies? We have been getting super results from the addition on our Potatoes, our red and hard fruits. I am entirely convinced that Silicon is one of the keys to efficient nutrient uptake, esp of Ca, P, K, Mg and other minerals Mn, Cu etc etc and so have been boosting it with a monosilicic acid

Ecompost · Dec 27, 2016

Slownickel said:
Lead,

Heard lots about you. Thanks for chipping in.

All is relative to where one is standing. If I am in an alkaline soil, with alkaline water, I would be using super phosphate (calcium phosphate), gypsum and powdered milk. Applying calcium carbonate to an alkaline soil in an annual crop just won't work under those conditions.

From the few soil analysis and water analysis that I have seen in Cali, Oregon and Colorado, the above is the norm.

In an acid soil, I would say lime to get your pH correct and then add gypsum on top, not necessary to mix it in as it is very soluble. I would make a 50/50 calcium carbonate/gypsum combination with say 15 to 20% compost or worm castings and spike it in around the plant. This gets rid of human error and lets the plant send roots to the concentration it likes. Calcium is trans-locatable in the roots. Roots that get Ca can send it to roots that don't have what they need. Great concept, works spectacularly.

Hard to generalize without knowing pH of the media/soil and of the water. There are huge bicarbonate issues in much of the water analysis that I have seen from Cali, Oregon and Colorado. When there is bicarbonates, the pH is over 7.5 or so.

Thanks for stepping up! Heard lots about you!

added to this discussion of how Ca is used in a system, for those of you using mycos, it is vital you keep the P levels lower during mycorrization, and so i would avoid any CalPhos anyway, but the ca is a vital element. it is if you like, the ticket the fungus and the plant use to acknowledge each other. It is the equivalent of using an SSID and password to access any network. Failure to manage the P levels will result in your plant failing to acknowledge the Mycorrhiza and your money is going down the pan too. Often this results in people slamming mycos for ineffectiveness, when again its a user error not a problem with the products more often than not.

The model of spiking nutrients is a really effective method. One thing to note, my plants that have full mycorrhization, have a smaller average root mass, but a larger yield in flowers. I put this down to the plant spending less time on its root dev personally, since the mycos are more effective at expansion through tight gaps in soil profiles and so probably better at scavenging/ locating alternate food sources etc

Not least Mycos have powerful acids which can readily break bonds where P has become more fixed in our systems, i think its worth investing a little time in understanding how they successfully initiate.

So if you want here you go http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1046

and http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2013.00426/full

Ecompost · Dec 27, 2016

Seamaiden said:
FASCINATING comment re: Ca application based solely on %, completely irrespective of soil pH!

There's also Cal-Phos from soft rock phosphate, but I don't know if it shifts pH, and based on this care must be taken if using it in combination with lime.

http://www.cantonmills.com/Calphos.php

I know this is a gypsum thread but the excess S is something to consider, and we all need a bit of P somewhere, right?

I liked this little slide regarding P in a system :-)

Ecompost · Dec 27, 2016

Seamaiden said:
FASCINATING comment re: Ca application based solely on %, completely irrespective of soil pH!

There's also Cal-Phos from soft rock phosphate, but I don't know if it shifts pH, and based on this care must be taken if using it in combination with lime.

http://www.cantonmills.com/Calphos.php

I know this is a gypsum thread but the excess S is something to consider, and we all need a bit of P somewhere, right?

also this is neat explanation of P in soils

Ecompost · Dec 27, 2016

Slownickel said:
Jumpin,

Homesteader is doing a great job. That last post of his came from the PGA, they were the ones to discover this issue, not the aggies at some University. The golf course guys had to figure it out! That is really kind of funny, but as you will read, most soil analysis over estimate calcium as they are breaking down calcium carbonate in the process, grossly over estimating Ca sometimes by more than 90 times!

I have a soil here in Peru that has 100,000 ppms of Ca according to the typical M3 procedure. Yet, when we follow the guide of the PGA guys who were forced to figure this out, and we apply the AA@8.2, I barely have 1,400 ppms of Ca in that soil. I am probably one of the only folks in the world that would put gypsum on soils with 100,000 ppm of Ca. With that said, a good friend of mine is in Italy and will be apply gypsum on some white soils there too! This should be fun!

My grow.... https://goo.gl/1U92jS

This is great, thank you so much for sharing your drive images. Your land there is not unlike the soil we are moving on to. Its consistency looks similar even if the base color is more in tune with your containers here, hard to tell since I suspect your adding the Ca in as topdress outside but it really look very similar. We are in the Sierra in the S. Costa Blanca. Its largely Citrus and Almonds etc but we have about 18 hectares total but split across 3 sites and only 6 acres has been developed so far. It is my last project ....so i say now :-)

Slownickel · Dec 27, 2016

Here is the original PGA article explaining soil analysis and why most folks are getting the wrong message about Calcium levels when the pH is high and yet needs Ca.

https://goo.gl/tu1id6

Ecompost · Dec 28, 2016

Slownickel said:
Here is the original PGA article explaining soil analysis and why most folks are getting the wrong message about Calcium levels when the pH is high and yet needs Ca.

https://goo.gl/tu1id6

Thanks buddy :-)
makes perfect sense to me, why test outside the parameter of the real world. I hadnt spent much time looking at this issue, but a quick search on it has pointed to several resources, some from Israel etc that have also highlighted this issue. What is true of Ca must also be true of P, where we have so many forms how does one know which test is best?
In Esti the soils are heavy with Ca (60% plus Base Sat) etc abundant in P but it badly lacks K typically and so I tend to run a humic (k) acid treatment in spring and then top dress with organic matter (inc palm tree ashes) each fall before we get the snows. I might add gyspsum etc, esp where we use the PTA mulch, preferring this since the carbonate value of the water here is high. We havent noticed any drop off in the quality at this stage at least. Right now adding Ca/ Lime or other isnt really something we do with regularity.
I am more focused on a ratio of fungus to bacteria personally than i care about elemental test results, for just the reasons the PGA and you guys brought to my attention here, i find it hard to trust results from such tests, when I have seen fields of bassicas growing in near zero water soluble P, and yet producing 1.6kg cabbages with awesome regularity no sweat.

Actually, most of the land in Esti is in top knick, it simply doesnt get panned as hard as the systems we are picking up in Spain where the extended light and warmth means the soils get hit harder for longer. But as you rightly point out, the challenges are varied depending on ones location.
That said, land outside of our control is ropey in Esti too, some widely eroded spaces and land left to go way to far before anyone acts. It has been a poor nation, and so practice has been to shave costs. The price was paid by the land :-) Now the farmers feel it too

Appreciate the links and data tho, this is interesting for me to get in to this side of growing and not keep my head in microbes :-)

Seamaiden · Dec 28, 2016

@Ecompost -- enjoy the graphics, but they don't really answer the questions I was trying to pose.

1) Does SRT/Calphos shift pH?
2) Is it an acceptable substitute for a Ca-providing lime that's high in CO3?

@Slownickel -- any opinions? My 50lb sack of Calphos cost me about the same as the gypsum, IIRC.

Ecompost · Dec 28, 2016

Seamaiden said:
@Ecompost -- enjoy the graphics, but they don't really answer the questions I was trying to pose.

1) Does SRT/Calphos shift pH?
2) Is it an acceptable substitute for a Ca-providing lime that's high in CO3?

@Slownickel -- any opinions? My 50lb sack of Calphos cost me about the same as the gypsum, IIRC.

Ok, so 1) not to my knowledge, it appears to have a wide operating range, however, I see some issues with it where you might use other products alongside it, but this is standard for all things P and anyway, many of these I think you wont be using anyway, insectiides and fungicides etc which may well cause some precipitation. Also anything that requires a high pH value, so where you might add some forms of say K silica. I have seen it at high levels of Alk (like pH 11) forming a gel like substance, not sure what this might mean in soils, but its not much fun in a sprayer. Sorry i cant be more definitive but I will ask Tanel in the morning its his first day back :) I use an ACV or BRV with my Calphos at 1:5 to help its solubility. Anything about 4.5-5% should work (vinegar i mean apple or brwon rice)
2) I use a nano milled calcium high in CO3 as its a simple limestone such as that you are talking about i think, but I only use it as a foliar application. One of the things about it, it binds with H+ ions when nano milled and this releases the CO2 and the interaction splits the Ca the Mg and the Fe present where they can be readily absorbed. Its very effective at fixing Ca etc without the challenges of substrate.

I am not sure if this helps as its not my area of specialization but I hope @Slownickel or @leadsled may shed more definitive responses.

Ecompost · Dec 28, 2016

I use this as a source of Calphos btw, we keep chickens :-) same rec from the KNF handbook and Unconventional Farmer
How to Make

Collect a bunch of eggshells and wash to remove inside filaments. Remember, you can also use bones and other good sources of calcium like seashells, clams and oysters, etc. Likewise, if you only want calcium, even limestone can be used, or simple lime.
Pan fry the eggshells. Fry until some are brown/black, some white. The burnt shells are your Calcium source while the white are the Phosphorus source.
After roasting the eggshells, grind them up. You can do it manually, with a mortar and pestle, throw them in a blender or electric coffee grinder, etc.
Add them to a jar and add 5 parts vinegar by volume. For example, if you have 1 cup ground shells, add 5 cups vinegar.
- The acid in the vinegar helps digest them. You will notice bubbling as this process converts the ingredients to liquid calcium phosphate.
Wait until tiny bubbles disappear
Seal the jar and ferment for 20 days.
Filter into another jar
Now you’ve made your own Calcium Phosphate

How to Use

Mix 1tbsp per gallon

Plants

spray on leaves during transition phase to flower, and when fruits are large and mature
- Transition Phase: Induces flowering, eases nutrient demands of transition phase, strengthens flowers
- Mature Fruit: Strengthens plant stems, leaves, fruits, helps fruit mature properly for optimum sweet flavor!

Animals:

Feed to animals during breeding time and during pregnancy. Helps breeding efficacy and litter success rates they say.

Slownickel · Dec 28, 2016

Seamaiden said:
@Ecompost -- enjoy the graphics, but they don't really answer the questions I was trying to pose.

1) Does SRT/Calphos shift pH?
2) Is it an acceptable substitute for a Ca-providing lime that's high in CO3?

@Slownickel -- any opinions? My 50lb sack of Calphos cost me about the same as the gypsum, IIRC.

Calphos won't move your pH, nor will it work well if it is not applied to an acid soil or well worked into worm castings, etc.... even then, it will be super slow and cannot be depended on for an annual crop such as yours.

Gypsum is for an alkaline or neutral pH soil/media. It is a calcium and sulfur source. there is no phosphorus in gypsum.

What is your pH and what are you growing in? Regardless, if you really want to dial it in, send in a soil sample....

Homesteader · Dec 28, 2016

Ecompost · Dec 29, 2016

Slownickel said:
Calphos won't move your pH, nor will it work well if it is not applied to an acid soil or well worked into worm castings, etc.... even then, it will be super slow and cannot be depended on for an annual crop such as yours.

Gypsum is for an alkaline or neutral pH soil/media. It is a calcium and sulfur source. there is no phosphorus in gypsum.

What is your pH and what are you growing in? Regardless, if you really want to dial it in, send in a soil sample....

I would argue, speed of access to calphos is yes related to pH, but more widely and more pertinently to a healthy biological mass and in particular fungal mass also. Speed of access in your model seems to be fixed only on the diffusive ability of P in a soil systems, and if our forests didn't stand so tall i might be inclined to agree. Where does the p come from in a forest system? So how can our trees access it and how are they so productive in light of the exclusion of Gypsum or other?

I tend to think people cant access CalPhos because they dont have a decent biome of biology. Fungus secrete organic acids, this helps mobilize P and Ca, fungus like Mycos can spend all day doing this and storing said ions in crystals along a hyphal network, to be shared with our plants. Further, fungus recruits the services of other PSB's and Sidephore forms which further help break the bonds of Organic P, Ca etc and maintain its overall mobility.
Many P forms (superphosphates) will utterly destroy most soil biology, (Sulphur is a fungicide) and calphos is by far the safer form for the wider health of organisms in soil systems imo. getting adequate supplies seems to me to be a case of evolution, which we farmers have tried to break unsuccessfully in most cases. Symbiosis and therefore bio organics has a far greater potential for the up regulation of elements like P

If you destroy your soil fungus, then you have to spend more time managing your soil and plants needs. I get intensive ag, i do this myself, but i still do it with biology and in ways other people say is not possible. I will put the tests together as discussed earlier in the thread and see how the soil amendments work over what we know works with active biology and calphos for example. If anyone doubts the speed of transfer from a symbiont, then i guess your not really paying attention to the stuff you see outside or just how quickly a bad microbes can make you sick ;-)

Ecompost · Dec 29, 2016

Homesteader said:

I think all of this points to us being able to use cations to replace cations, or anions to replace anions and I agree this may well be a common problem in terms of overall nutrient density in our foods. . I know myself from tissue tests on food grown with the municipal tap water here in Esti, that rates of N and P or other proteins are lower and so the value of the product is lower too. This we solved by filtering to some extent.
I guess the fundamental behind this is reference the quality of produce
@Slownickel is producing right, where more Ca dense foods equal more value over those higher in K. More K just means less Ca, Less Mg and less Na...and so less value to higher animals whom might then be eating it.

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