Building a healthy organic soil

[Hermitian]

Originally Posted by drew51

My blueberries might benefit as the soil is filled with sulfur which the bacteria change to sulfuric acid. I also use Ammonium sulfate a few times a year adding more sulfur, and when i run out of rainwater I add sulfuric acid to tap water, yet adding more acid.

I have customers up east whose soil (due to the water supply) runs between pH 4 and 4.5. They use alkaline supplements on their blueberries and other crops!

[drew51]

Originally Posted by Hermitian

I have customers up east whose soil (due to the water supply) runs between pH 4 and 4.5. They use alkaline supplements on their blueberries and other crops!

Wow! My water has a PH of 7.8. The alkalinity isn't too bad though. They are in raised beds to control soil PH. I'm adding three more this spring. In pots though. I live in the suburbs, so room is limited. I want more, but I'm moving in 5 years, at least I can take the ones in pots with me. One is Sweetcrisp and the name fits, it has a crispy texture, and is very sweet. Some consider it in a league by itself. Of course I'll need a pollinator so added Southmoon, another superior great tasting cultivar and also Legend which is said to be the best tasting Southern High Bush, all are SHB. My other blueberries are Northern High Bush. They will be in 23 inch diameter pots.
The west side of MI has acidic sandy soil, we grow the most NHB of any state.
I'm on the east side with clay loam alkaline to neutral soil.
I will divide or make cuttings and take the ones in the ground with me. I also have a rare heirloom peach tree, Old Mixon Free. Thomas Jefferson grew it.
Only one nursery sells it (sold out till 2015), but in 5 years who knows? So I'll be harvesting scions and grafting them on Lovell rootstock to take with me. All the others can be replaced.
Old Mixon cling I have never seen for sale. It may be lost to time?
Some might still be growing at Monticello? Unsure?
If peach trees are not started new every couple a decades, the trees will die.
They do not come true to seed. An almond can pollinate a peach!

http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/in-bloom/oldmixon-free-peach


http://heritageseeds.org/seed-profiles/oldmixon-free-peach/

[Hermitian]

Originally Posted by drew51

... Legend which is said to be the best tasting Southern High Bush, all are SHB. My other blueberries are Northern High Bush. They will be in 23 inch diameter pots. ...

The NHB do insist on pH 4.75 to 5.25, but the SHB are much happier in 5.75 to 6.25. The culture is entirely different.

[drew51]

Originally Posted by Hermitian

The NHB do insist on pH 4.75 to 5.25, but the SHB are much happier in 5.75 to 6.25. The culture is entirely different.

Yeah I have a meter as it is needed! Thanks for the tip! I will leave out the sulfur! Pine bark/peat moss/pumice mixtures (what i use) has a PH around 5.0. Heck i might have to add lime! I add cottonseed meal and other chemical and organic fertilizers. The mix has no nutrients to speak of. Blueberries though love to grow in peat moss!

[Hermitian]

Originally Posted by drew51

Yeah I have a meter as it is needed! Thanks for the tip! I will leave out the sulfur! Pine bark/peat moss/pumice mixtures (what i use) has a PH around 5.0. Heck i might have to add lime! I add cottonseed meal and other chemical and organic fertilizers. The mix has no nutrients to speak of. Blueberries though love to grow in peat moss!

The region I live in is semi-arid. We water our non-native plants year-round, and especially the non-native evergreens in the winter. Hence, it is the irrigation water that dictates the pH. My water happens to be just a fraction above 7, but some areas of the county have a pH like yours or worse (8.5!). One approach is mix in pH supplements to the mulch around your perennials and to re-dig your raised beds every season. But in my environment where the water is almost always coming from a pipe, it is a lot less labor to put the acidifier in the irrigation water. And for the organically minded, there are plenty of natural extracts and minerals that are up to the task. I think you'll find that over all it costs less money too.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by drew51

Bacteria counts are lower in container soils. Usually no worms. Often bacteria are killed from the conditions. The soil is warmed a lot more. Plus even if there, the process could take decades. I would agree in ground it is probably useful, even if it takes decades. I plan to farm the same spots for years and years. One of the largest problems with in ground is keeping the nitrogen levels high. Plants use a huge amount.

The grassland biome is considered a self fertilizing biosystem. So to get that benefit for yourself, you can mimic some of these natural processes. A well known one is the nitrogen fixing bacteria in symbiosis with legumes. But actually that is just the tip of the iceberg.

I have posted other places what Helen Atthowe is doing with living mulches and what the USDA is recommending with cover crops. And of course I am attempting to develop my own. But those Aussies and Kiwis came up with a really intriguing one. They call it Pasture cropping. It is a permaculture technique that has been in development since the 1960's. It has had limited success as people learned how to do it, but recently it was paired with Alan Savory's Holistic management and has taken off.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Hermitian

The material in question (rock from gravel quarries) is not decomposed by bacteria in any significant quantity on a timeline of years or decades. If you want to talk about decomposition from acid, then yes it can occur but your plants would be dead from the acid concentration.

For other types of rock minerals, yes mineralization is possible in many cases.

Many forms of life actually have acid in their digestive systems, and that doesn't mean they make the soil actually acidic over all.

[Hermitian]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

The grassland biome is considered a self fertilizing biosystem. So to get that benefit for yourself, you can mimic some of these natural processes. A well known one is the nitrogen fixing bacteria in symbiosis with legumes. But actually that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Over the last 50 years there have been several in-depth studies of human sustainability -- most notably from Cornell U. When we consider the planet biosphere as a whole and start following where the calories we consume come from and where they go, it turns out that we (the humans) send most of them to a biological dead-end. Fifty years from now the population will be such that industrialized nations will have to obtain their drinking water and fertilizer inputs from sewer factories -- and I'm talking about chemical and distillation processes, not sewer sludge. One hundred years from now most nations are likely to require parents to obtain a license before conceiving a child. Welcome to Stand On Zanzibar.

Originally Posted by Redbaron

Many forms of life actually have acid in their digestive systems, and that doesn't mean they make the soil actually acidic over all.

Yes, and now what molar acid is required to break down feldspar into ionic forms?

[drew51]

I think we have no clue what the future holds. In Japan the population is decreasing. We know it is very crowded there. Young people are not only not interested in having kids, many young people have no interest in even having sex. So I'm not so sure overpopulation will really be extreme

From a news story...
------------------
"The data confirmed a wider social belief that younger men are becoming “herbivorous”, a label attached to passive men who do not actively seek women and sex.
The latest biennial survey found that 36.1 percent of Japanese males between the ages of 16-19 said they had no interest or even despised sex, a jump from 17.5 percent in the 2008 study.
Compounding the issue was data that showed 59 percent of girls in the same age group felt the same way, up 12 percentage points from 2008.
The data is a worry for a government aiming to encourage couples to have
children to reverse a falling birth rate and avert a potential economic calamity."
-----------------


So who predicted Japan would have a problem with low birth rates?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...lobal-economy/


Anyway we are going to be needing a lot less food in Japan in the near future!!

[Hermitian]

Originally Posted by drew51

I think we have no clue what the future holds. In Japan the population is decreasing. ...

Current adult population, density (persons / sq.mi.)
Japan - 127.5M, 836
U.S. - 298M, 84
India - 1B, 954
China - 1.3B, 365
World 7B, 120

Japan currently accounts for about 2% of the world population.

[drew51]

Yes, but that decrease in population is a result of biological pressure. At least IMHO. So it will happen all over eventually. I would bet soon we see this in other countries.
The difference is poverty. India is getting better and so is China. So I bet soon the youth of those countries will respond to the biological triggers. It's not cultural, it's biological.
The overcrowding was worse in japan, if it becomes as bad elsewhere, that will trigger these biological responses. Sorry, i didn't make my point clear. i realize Japan is small, and will not mean much, but when it starts to happen in India and China, it will make a difference. I bet we see a decrease in those populations in the next 20 years.

So far 20 countries have zero or negative population growth. And many many more are almost there!
http://geography.about.com/od/popula...phy/a/zero.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/ma...anted=all&_r=0

[Hermitian]

Originally Posted by drew51

Yes, but that decrease in population is a result of biological pressure. At least IMHO.

Yes, I agree about the biological pressure. If you wish to use empirical data, then the turning point is around 800 adult persons / sq.mi. That implies a total world population around 45B. Resource distribution would run out long before then. This is why the folks at Cornell keep pointing at the year 2050.

[drew51]

I doubt they are correct. Canada is about to go negative. So are we. So the sq mi figure doesn't hold up. Lot's of room in Canada!


"Given Canada's overall growth of 0.9% in the year 2006, we divide 70 by .9 (from the 0.9%) and yield a value of 77.7 years. Thus, in 2083, if the current rate of growth remains constant, Canada's population will double from its current 33 million to 66 million.
However, if we look at the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base Summary Demographic Data for Canada, we see that Canada's overall growth rate is expected to decline to 0.6% by 2025. With a growth rate of 0.6% in 2025, Canada's population would take about 117 years to double (70 / 0.6 = 116.666)."

http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/populationgrow.htm



I doubt even those figures will hold up to fact. We will see! No dispute the growth rate is in decline. These figures assume the growth rate doesn't decline more, and it will. They assume the decline stops at .6% with no basis for making that assumption

In 1960 the world growth rate was 2%
Today it is 1.4%
Again why will this decline stop at 1.4%? it won't. Soon world population will be decreasing.

[Hermitian]

Originally Posted by drew51

... Soon world population will be decreasing ...

If by soon, you mean a few decades I agree. It will be for some unpleasant reasons, but still too late. The source of Nitrogen for worldwide agriculture is running out. As the price goes up, alternatives will be employed. Metropolitan sewage facilities have cut the term of their lease agreements back to 10 and 5 year periods as the bidding for affluent intensifies. The Chilean nitrate will cease to be affordable in 15 to 20 years. It will get really ugly after that.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Hermitian

Over the last 50 years there have been several in-depth studies of human sustainability -- most notably from Cornell U. When we consider the planet biosphere as a whole and start following where the calories we consume come from and where they go, it turns out that we (the humans) send most of them to a biological dead-end. Fifty years from now the population will be such that industrialized nations will have to obtain their drinking water and fertilizer inputs from sewer factories -- and I'm talking about chemical and distillation processes, not sewer sludge. One hundred years from now most nations are likely to require parents to obtain a license before conceiving a child. Welcome to Stand On Zanzibar.



Yes, and now what molar acid is required to break down feldspar into ionic forms?

I have little interest in what might happen if we continue on the path we are now in agriculture. I was convinced long ago that the path we are on leads to a biological dead end.

“As the small trickle of results grows into an avalanche — as is now happening overseas — it will soon be realized that the animal is our farming partner and no practice and no knowledge which ignores this fact will contribute anything to human welfare or indeed will have any chance either of usefulness or of survival.” Sir Albert Howard - Father of Organic Agriculture

I believe that was written in about 1947 or 48.

This thread is "Building a healthy organic soil" right?

Which acid in which biological life form at what concentration is responsible for breaking down and making available the minerals in rock dust, I don't really know exactly. I could Google a while and try to find it for you if you are skeptical. But clearly something is doing it, as this evidence shows.

Convincing Evidence

That is a pile of pure sterilized rock dust. ALL the minerals required for plant life completely locked in mine tailings or in the air. Yet restore the functioning grassland biome, and bingo, the carbon and nitrogen from the air and minerals from the rock dust become available, and even in this worst case scenario, the land begins to produce food for us humans. Not in decades, or hundreds of years, but right away.

I am not saying that anyone in Tomatoville should start gardening or farming in a pile of rock dust. That's the worst case scenario anyone could possibly think of besides trying to grow something on solid rock! But thinking that biology doesn't have a solution for extracting minerals from rock dust or seaweed extract, highly underestimates biology.