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Re: [compost_tea] Weed Control Using Compost Tea



Hi Merla-

You wrote:
The plants we want to grow are native grasses and native broadleaf
plants.  What growing there now is native grasses, red and white
clover, black medic, wild sorrel, kinnickinnick (bearberry), moss, etc.
and the weeds--knapweed, tansy, hawkweed and thistle.


The clover tells you that the site lacks organic N.  Moss tells you it is low in available iron and possibly high in phosphate.  The sorrel tells you not high P. 
The site has been fertilized?  the lack of available iron says the area has been compacted and there is a serious lack of oxygen in the soil. 

I don't know what kinnickinnick means.  Too many years since I lived in Minnesota.

The thistle says high nitrate with a vengenance.  This is typical of roadsides.  Car pollution gives you the high N and P.  Knapweed also says high nitrate, tansy suggests lack of calcium.  I don't know what information hawkweed gives us. 

Anyone else know? 

So, you need to suck up the high nitrate to get rid of the thistle, and the knapweed.  Molasses is a great way to grow a huge biomass of bacteria and some fungi, and right now, the more molasses the better.  Anyone local have some sour silage?  Perfect to put here. 

OK, now let's take a look at the Tanio report. 


SOIL ANALYSIS REPORT                  NUTRIENT BALANCE
Hawkweed                                              CALCULATION
(Tainio)

Organic matter  4.5 H
Phosphorus, weak bray       5 ppm VL                 P 200# / acre
Phosphorus, strong bray    59 ppm VH

There is good total P, but it is not available to the plants.  That's why the sorrel is there.  The answer is to get some mycorrhizal fungi out at the site.  That soil from a healthy forest and roll your seeds in that healthy soil, with some good compost tea, before you sow seeds.

The calcium looks fine, but the tansy tells us that the calcium is not available.  Fungi in general, and mycorrhizal fungi in particular, will solve this problem.


   Potassium                         182ppm VH                K 2ppm

Magnesium                       134ppm H                  Mg 10ppm
Calcium                           1229ppm H                  Ca 76ppm
Sodium                               19ppm VL
pH 1:1                                6.3
pH buffer index                  6.9
Cation Exchange Capacity 8.7
% Base Saturation
     Potassium                      5.4
     Magnesium                  12.8
     Calcium                        70.6
     Hydrogen                     10
Nitrate                              1ppm
N        60#/acre
Nitrate                              2lbs/A


Low nitrate, but good total N.  Thistle says high nitrate which means you have an active organic matter fraction making lots of nitrate, but being taken up by the thistle and other weeds.  You need to shut the bacterial - protozoan cycling down for a bit, so molasses in CT is the answer here.  Tie up the nitrate in the bacteria. 

   Sulfur                               19ppm  H

S           0

I'm confused here.  Sulfur is high, but sulfur is zero?  I don't understand the difference in sampling method.  Is the S reading extractable S?  Need organisms here to cycle nutrients.  No wonder the weeds are goring and the more desired plants are not.


Zinc                                    1.3ppm M

Z         2.4#/acre
Manganese                       10ppm M     Mn  20#/acre
Iron                                  39ppm VH
Fe           0

Iron is high, but extractable iron doesn't exit?  That's why there's moss here.

Copper                                0.7ppm L

Cu         2.6#/acre
Boron                                  0.5ppm L
B          2#/acre
Excess Lime Rate                  L
Soluble Salts 1:1                 0.2mmhos/cm L



Hope this helps

Elaine
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com
SFI Oregon, USA
SFI Australia
SFI New York
SFI Europe
SFI New Zealand

"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well, but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense, no matter how things turn out."   --  Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic


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