Looking for help ammending soil.

[Dopegeist]

Just like the title says. I got some stuff that need ammending.

My first question is:
Lowering the pH of the medium? Is it too high? There is a lot of sulfur in there already?

I have access to lots of aged horse manure, trying to make as much use of that as possible.
Was trying to get away with manure, compost and soil...and whatever minerals I need to add for nutrients or pH.
Played around with a few mixtures to improve texture and add organic matter, seeing how those pan out on some testers.
1: 1/3 horse manure (aged 2-4yrs), 1/3 compost (store bought like Eko), 1/3 soil (shown below)...Improved texture and still very good drainage.
2: 2 parts compost, 1 part soil...Improved texture to that of near FFOF, but retains water like no other.

Thinking maybe I'll try a 1 part compost 1part soil mixture, seemed a little too dense at first but who knows.

Soil is about 80-85% sand, 15-20% silt, less than 3% clay.

field texture: sandy loam
pH (units) : 7.9 AVG [for colorado soils]
Salts (MMHOS/CM) : 2.8High
CEC est. (MEQ/100G) : 9.9Low
Lime (Qual.) : MediumAvg
Organic Matter (%) : 2.3Avg
Organic N (lbs/acre) : 69.5Avg
Sodium (meq/100g Soil): 0.65Below Avg

Avialable Nutrients (ppm)
Nitrate Nitrogen : 50.7High
Phosphorus:112.2High
Potassium:329.4high
Calcium:1867.3Low
Magnesium;321.7Avg
Sulfur:89.6High
Boron:0.8Low
Zinc:6.2High
Iron:69.2High
Manganese:4.6High
Copper:1.9Above Avg

Fertilzer Rec: (general landscape)
Nitrogen: 30 lbs/acre
Phosphorus: 0
Potassium: 0
Sulfur: 0
Lime : 0

Thanks again.
DG

 

[Blaze]

You pH is a bit high, high enough to potentially cause problems if it gets any higher. Your organic matter (OM) is also very low - cannabis thrives in soils with high OM. Definitely add a bunch of that aged horse manure. I would up your calcium and nitrogen too, cannabis likes lots of calcium and and especially lots of nitrogen.

 

[Dopegeist]

Yeah, after talking to people sounds like I need to be careful with salts from manures, or any more sulphur or any salt based pH lowering device.
Added two more testers
1: 50/50 compost/soil
2: 33/66 compost/soil

Sounds like it might be worth a try to get some peat moss and add that to the compost/soil mix as a way to lower pH of the whole mix.

Also, since pine needles are acidic. Has anyone tried adding those to a mix before?

Last, so from my reading it sounds like the pH of the medium that I'm striving for is 6.8-7.0?

Thanks again.

 

[monkeymun]

Don't add pine needles, they contain allelopathic compounds which will stunt the growth of your plants. Peat moss is fine, compost is better as it will provide nutrients and beneficial microbes too.

 

[ncga]

You also get in trouble with soil when you try to amend for the trace mineral to hard. Best to get those back slow with tea's and slow top dressing. Also best corrected with a foilar application until your soil mix levels out.

A lot of changes happen once you start watering. Cannabis , the way we grow it will take a LOT out of the soil and change it. It is predictable but you need a good fert / water plan.

 

[Dopegeist]

Thanks.
Getting some peat moss, for another test.
Figure I got a few weeks to figure this one out.
Hoping it will just be a case on needing to get the proper proportions of compost and soil.
Will be measuring the pH of the mixes shortly.

Was just concerned about what to add, and what not to add, given my high salt content.
Getting some tea brewing, my guess is this dirt is dead from salt farming.

@Blaze: Given that CaCO3 isn't an option, do you have any suggestions for Ca?

@monkey: Do those compounds stay in after composting the needles, too? I was hoping that could be an acidic source in the future, perhaps just the veggies.

I'll let you know how it pans out. Would love to make this soil work. I'll take good enough along the way to great.

 

[Johnny Redthumb]

only use well composted pine needles 10+ years. if you can dig up some pine forest floor, that black humus will be acidic.

is this for an outdoor grow? in ground or beds? or are you trying to use native soils and amend them for indoors? sorry im konfused

i would add gypsum, oyster shell, dolomite lime for sure to the soil. also azomite if you can find it has plenty of calcium and is a great ph buffer. manure will lower pH, add OM, but you already have lots pf nitrogen, so you could burn em. i would maybe wait and top dress the manure when the plants establish later in the season or if its not labor intensive layer it deep under the top soil

 

[Johnny Redthumb]

and i wouldn't worry about trace minerals. colorado has plenty of trace mineral rich soils, look at the strata layers in the mountains and cliffs and all the red rock. that is all iron and copper. if you end up with a boron deficiency, you can always foliar a supplement. it doesn't take much.

 

[Seamaiden]

Johnny, your recommendations look pretty good except for the oyster shell and DL recommendation. Both are high in carbonates and carbonates are going to drive soil pH upward and, if not counterbalanced, may keep it pegged high. I think maybe gypsum is a better source of Ca, and it doesn't appear that he's in need of additional Mg here. Your mention of B is spot on, IMO.

Yeah, after talking to people sounds like I need to be careful with salts from manures, or any more sulphur or any salt based pH lowering device.
Added two more testers
1: 50/50 compost/soil
2: 33/66 compost/soil

Sounds like it might be worth a try to get some peat moss and add that to the compost/soil mix as a way to lower pH of the whole mix.

Also, since pine needles are acidic. Has anyone tried adding those to a mix before?

Last, so from my reading it sounds like the pH of the medium that I'm striving for is 6.8-7.0?

Thanks again.

Peat moss would definitely be your friend here, good move to incorporate it. (I used to use peat moss as a filter media for delicate South American tetras to drive water pH down and soften it naturally, better than any resin on the market at that time.) If you can get the media pH a bit lower, with 6.8 being the high end of it, I think you'll be doing a little better. Everyone's given you really good advice here. :)

 

[Dopegeist]

is this for an outdoor grow? in ground or beds? or are you trying to use native soils and amend them for indoors? sorry im konfused

Outdoor, in ground. Testers are in 5" square containers. It's the vegetable garden 'topsoil' I bought, trying to make it work double duty.
Yeah, lab said lime content already high and salt content high...Thus a reason flowers of sulphur wouldn't be recommended in this situation.

i would add gypsum, oyster shell, dolomite lime for sure to the soil. also azomite if you can find it has plenty of calcium and is a great ph buffer. manure will lower pH, add OM, but you already have lots pf nitrogen, so you could burn em. i would maybe wait and top dress the manure when the plants establish later in the season or if its not labor intensive layer it deep under the top soil

Thanks on the Azomite, sounds interesting for future experimentation. Ever heard of Planters II mineral, sounds similar, mined in Colorado. Volcanos, seawater, pressure, geological time zones, ect...

I'm thinking like 2'-3' of topsoil/compost mix, then how deep of an aged manure pile under that do you think? At that point any excess salts in manure wouldn't be a big problem since at the bottom. However, planning a the row on a slight slope, and having a drain at the bottom, incase I have to try to flush the material at some point, and it's just sloped everywhere anyway.

With the gypsum, since I already have a lot of sulphur, is this a concern, or a different sulphur compound? I saw calcium nitrate, but worried that may kill off the microbes.


@Sea: My pH of from the hose is 7.5 Do I need to be concerned with that, or take any steps to fix that? Saw you talked about filtering your water through the acidic media. Still haven't ordered the water test, but ppm isn't too bad at ~250, has worked fine in hydro. Mountain well water.

Well so far the testers aren't curling up and dying, I think I even spot NEW GROWTH. Still early to say, but the winner of the four, so far, is either the 50/50 compost soil or the 33/66 compost soil.

Hopefully can find only peat moss locally and get testing.

Thanks again everyone, I promise by harvest, I'll have a camera.

 

[Johnny Redthumb]

how is your water source quality? also salty or high in lime or carbonate? look into PeKacid. it will neautralize a lot of salt and lime and lower pH, although not organic

 

[Blaze]

For calcium I like bone meal, which also adds phosphorous. Gypsum is a great amendment, but useless for adding calcium. It remains mostly in an unavailable form and will only raise available calcium levels by 1 or 2 ppm.

 

[Texas Kid]

Dolamite lime and gypsum will ph balance and buffer...I would throw some coco chips in there and maybe a bag of big and chunky perlite

I used plantersII while waiting for them to ship Azomite to me back in the day, worked great

 

[Johnny Redthumb]

bone meal outdoors can be not so good if you have wildlife in the area. coyotes, racoons, and rodents will dig up your soil and eat your roots. plus it looks like the soil has plenty of phosphorus already.

dolomite lime has a pH of exactly 7.0. It will bring down a more alkaline soil. and carbonate build up is only a problem indoors or when you lack proper drainage, or in coco. it leaches away in the ground outside.

i was suggesting gypsum, oyster shell, and dolomite as pH buffers, not as a source of calcium. gypsum is mostly insoluble calcium sulfate. both gypsum and dolomite leech away, but oystershell will buffer pH for 50-100 years while ever-slowly releasing some calcium. azomite is a good source of calcium and you could do a lite fertigation of calcium nitrate once you are planted to help replenish the soil and balance cations

 

[Dopegeist]

Thanks for the knowledge everybody. Dropping some science on me.

"Exactly, let's start making education relevant." Ali G
"If Kevin buys six ounces of Jamaican sinsemilla from Fat Tony for £480 cash in hand, and has to divide it amongst 11 of his customers, how much should he charge for an eighth so he can make £100 profit to pay off his child support?" School Teacher

Funny story, had a minor freak-out moment. Bought a shitty little 3 way meter and went "Oh fuck. It's showing 6...Bastards!"....Then I read more reviews, and found using one of those a big NO NO. Tested it on other stuff, all at 6. So in the trash you go!

Still stressing though, because now their was doubt in my mind that I was given accurate numbers (the correct one for my soil). I was saying, still stressing on how to get a good pH measurement when low and behold, to my rescue came the inter-webs.
UMass was nice enough to explain a procedure of using your pH pen to obtain accurate readings. Score.
Downside, gotta go into town again for DI water and Coffee filters. Upside, don't have to return the bales of peat I got at Wally World for $10 2.2 cuft (compressed), at least not yet. Couldn't find it anywhere, then my last effort was rewarded.

Time to mix up a few peat amended testers.

Feeling pretty confident the numbers given to me are correct, now that I chilled out. Texture was spot on with my mason jar.

It the texture mixes with the peat moss anything as well as it did with some leftover coco I had, then I think I will be putting buyer's remorse aside for the season.

I think I have a good way to ensure row drainage, making me chill out a little on my salt concern. But I did just find some wood for raised beds, so it may be Smourgousborg night at the cafeteria. Even got some landscape fabric still laying around.

"God has a plan, Gaius." Number Six.

 

[Dopegeist]

It's a little early in the game, on the testers, but it is a responsive plant when happy.

So far it's looking like s.peat moss for the win. We'll see if they go anemic, the non-peat ones are a bit droopy, which in my experience does tell me the pH is a little off on those. The cubes were pretty dry when going in on the peat moss mixtures, and I'm getting a positive vibe from the ladies.

Looking like either 50 soil, 25 compost, 25 peat ,or 1/3 each.
One compost is supposedly 6.0, the other varies (recycled veggies). So me thinks it's a good bit of pH adjustment in there.
Those proportions sound out-of-whack to anybody?

Got the samples of all the peat mixes set aside, but it may be a few days till I get DI water and coffee filters (just don't want to make it three days of driving in a row, I like it when my ass is planted for a week)...Unless I get MacGuyver and make my own water.
Figure you all know this one, but it was news to me.
http://extension.umass.edu/floricul...and-ec-pens-monitor-greenhouse-crop-nutrition

 

[Seamaiden]

Outdoor, in ground. Testers are in 5" square containers. It's the vegetable garden 'topsoil' I bought, trying to make it work double duty.
Yeah, lab said lime content already high and salt content high...Thus a reason flowers of sulphur wouldn't be recommended in this situation.



Thanks on the Azomite, sounds interesting for future experimentation. Ever heard of Planters II mineral, sounds similar, mined in Colorado. Volcanos, seawater, pressure, geological time zones, ect...

I'm thinking like 2'-3' of topsoil/compost mix, then how deep of an aged manure pile under that do you think? At that point any excess salts in manure wouldn't be a big problem since at the bottom. However, planning a the row on a slight slope, and having a drain at the bottom, incase I have to try to flush the material at some point, and it's just sloped everywhere anyway.

With the gypsum, since I already have a lot of sulphur, is this a concern, or a different sulphur compound? I saw calcium nitrate, but worried that may kill off the microbes.


@Sea: My pH of from the hose is 7.5 Do I need to be concerned with that, or take any steps to fix that? Saw you talked about filtering your water through the acidic media. Still haven't ordered the water test, but ppm isn't too bad at ~250, has worked fine in hydro. Mountain well water.

Well so far the testers aren't curling up and dying, I think I even spot NEW GROWTH. Still early to say, but the winner of the four, so far, is either the 50/50 compost soil or the 33/66 compost soil.

Hopefully can find only peat moss locally and get testing.

Thanks again everyone, I promise by harvest, I'll have a camera.

I've got a facebook friend who's in CO, and his muni water is very high in Mn, so much so that he's concerned about Mn+ with his plants.

If you're on a well, the county should have records of the well testing. If the water has worked well in hydro without having to make huge adjustments to the nutrient regiment, then I would think that it's gonna be just fine for using outdoors. I use my well water completely unfiltered, and its pH is about 8, often higher (I've gotten a reading of 9 before), and it is VERY high in carbonates. I have only filtered through peat moss for delicate fishes (wild-caught South American tetras that were spendy..! this was back when cardinal tetras were still wild-caught, I think we're able to breed them in captivity now), not for my plants.

I did miss the high S content, so gypsum may not be the best solution for you here. CaNO3 is fine for organic soil production.

Azomite is but one type of mineral that will give you lots of micros. Bentonite would be another, and if you've got access to volcanic rock dusts, use those instead of paying to import something. But, honestly, that test looks pretty complete in terms of minerals and that soil looks pretty good with the exception of the high pH and low Ca values.

You workin' the compost tea yet?

I'll have to find the paper that discusses making soils too alkaline due to irrigation water being high in carbonates. K, not the paper I'm thinking of, but fairly pertinent for you:

Sorry Blaze, I've got to disagree with you regarding gypsum and available Ca.
http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/rf/Gypsum.htm
http://ohioline.osu.edu/anr-fact/0020.html

 

[Dopegeist]

I've got a facebook friend who's in CO, and his muni water is very high in Mn, so much so that he's concerned about Mn+ with his plants.

I seen some nasty ass well water in front range, but especially in the lowlands. Feeling pretty blessed so far, but we'll see when I have the extra coin for the actual water test.

If you're on a well, the county should have records of the well testing.

We'll see, thanks for the tip. Maybe from when they drilled the well many years back. However, there is no ongoing testing requirement for wells, so it would have to have been the drilling company doing the test.

If the water has worked well in hydro without having to make huge adjustments to the nutrient regiment, then I would think that it's gonna be just fine for using outdoors.

That's the principal I'm working under at the moment. No adjustment besides pH down and Maxi Bloom/gro.

I did miss the high S content, so gypsum may not be the best solution for you here. CaNO3 is fine for organic soil production.

Noted. Thanks.

But, honestly, that test looks pretty complete in terms of minerals and that soil looks pretty good with the exception of the high pH and low Ca values.

Yeah, that has been my opinion after I chilled a moment. And especially after my peat mix testers showed that go-getter attitude.

You workin' the compost tea yet?

Yes, but right now it's just some microbes. Making use of the last of my MycoGrow. Got the worm cocoons in the pile...So it may be just compost tea from store bought composts at the minute. The outdoors work is coming along, slowly.
We'll see, may be able to score some compost from a neighbor or friend.

"Thank God we live in this quiet, little pissant, redneck, podunk, jerk-water, green-horn, one-horse, crud-hole, right-wing, inbred, unkept, out-of-date, white-trash, kick-ass.. Moooun-taaaain Toowwwwn!"

 

[Seamaiden]

I have to purchase worm castings, as long as they're fresh they're pretty good. And last night I discovered that ants invaded my mealworm colony, so bummed, but still trying to save them.

 

[Dopegeist]

Throw your chickens in there :) Get while the getting is good.

Yeah, I'll be trying some purchased castings or putting out for some live worms. The cocoons are a great value, but I may be able to stretch the budget for something more now.