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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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