Re: [compost_tea] Adding Lime/Calcium to Soil

From: David Anderson <squtch_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:24:34 -0800
Ted,

Do you know what salts are being tested for and what form they take to
show up in the count?

Does it report on *all* salts in the soil, or just those that are
freely available and readily soluble? Is it reporting on the salts
that are contained in the living organisms as well?

My guess would be that it is not measuring the salts that are
minerally locked up, but that it is counting the salts that are
biologically locked up. If that is the case, it would show a much
higher level of salt than is actually available if you have high
biological activity.

Salts are a basic cellular building block. Add more cells, and they
will use more salt, and that salt can't leach away. You may even be
lowering the available salt

But like I said, that is just a guess, and only semi-educated at that.

Dave


On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 10:12:25 -0800, Ted Peterson <ted.peterson_at_tcsn.net> wrote:
> In every single soil test I have taken using tea I have brewed, I have seen
> a rise in salinity.  Sometimes the rise is very small and sometimes larger
> but all is below toxic levels for salt.  So I wonder if CT -- I should
> specify my CT because I don't know if anyone else takes soil tests like I do
> to measure soil properties.  So, it could be my tea here.  I have growers
> who use my and other recipes and soil tests I take indicate the same but
> they are still using my methodologies and these could be the cause of the
> saline rise. -- use wouldn't or couldn't obviate the application of salts.
>  
> Ted Peterson
> SOE

>  
>  

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: soilfoodweb_at_aol.com
> To: compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 6:57 AM
> Subject: Re: [compost_tea] Adding Lime/Calcium to Soil
>
> Adding calcium to the soil will harm the organisms in that soil. 
>
> Calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, calcium nitrate - all inorganic salts. 
>
> Salt, in whatever form you add it, takes water away from your organisms.  If
> you happen to add a salt when you are adding water, or when alot of rain is
> occurring, taking water away from your organisms is less of a worry, but
> then think. 
>
> Salt moves with water.  So where is any soluble material you are adding
> going if you add a salt when there is alot of  water in the soil?  Yep,
> right out of the rooting zone of your plant. 
>
> The proverbial catch - 22, right? 
>
> Add the calcium to your compost pile.  This way the organisms tie-up the
> calicum in PLANT AVAILABLE forms, instead of in a salt where the organisms
> will be harmed.  Add calcium carbonate to the compost at 1/60 of what the
> recommendation was for your soil.  Why so much lower?  Because you won't
> have the leaching losses.  The beneficial biology grabs the calcium and
> holds it in organic forms. 
>
> This work was developed with Arden Anderson, and he has been doing testing
> in Mexico.  Arden still likes to add a little salt (calcium carbonate)
> directly to the soil, but no more than 100 pounds per ac of the salt to the
> soil, the rest of the addition to the compost, usually 70 to 100 pounds per
> ton of compost.  Use half a ton of compost to teh acre then, and we are
> seeing the same benefit to the soil as adding the tons and tons of lime or
> gypsum. 
>
> OK?  We go over this in any SFI course being given now.  Please come to the
> Fresno seminar that Arden and I are giving together in January 24, 25, 26
> the end of this month.  We'll be covering this biologically friendly way to
> apply nutrients. 
> --
> Elaine Ingham
> President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
> SFI Corvallis, OR
> SFI Port Jefferson, NY
> SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
> SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
> SFI Culiacan, Mexico
> SFI Jerome, Idaho
> SFI South Africa
> http://www.soilfoodweb.com
>

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Received on Tue Jan 11 2005 - 18:36:50 EST

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