Hi Merla, Discussion
brings light. First
of all I would like to pay my deep respect for the plants that we are discussing their elimination from road sides. Some
of them are even Medicinal Plants but the fact that they are vegetating on the road side precludes their use as herbs. We
don’t want all those heavy metals on our herbal medicines, do we ? Thanks
for taking the time of copying all the soil analysis. Again,
I would like to emphasize the importance of a proper soil analysis. Reams
said that you need to have a 2:1 relationship of P:K in order to be able to see less weed pressure when we are talking about broad leaf weeds. I forgot to mention that in my last post. This relationship is only valid for broad leaf weeds. Hawkweed
being a Compositae falls into that category. Common Tansy as well. Knapweed
is also a broadleaf plant. This
relationship could be as high as 4:1 if you want to grow wheat, etc… Now comes the trick. This relationship that I
am talking about is only valid if one is using the type of soil test used by Reams. That
is the so called La Motte test. Why
is this so ? Because
like I said every soil test is language. Not all the soil tests are alike. Acres 17
different labs and got back 17 different soil test results with 17
different recommendations . Some of the recommendations
like Lime
for instance varied from none to 2,000 lbs/acre. A broad variation. Which one of those 17 results was the correct one ? All
of those labs used official procedures. La
Motte test uses a very weak extractor ( So
when Reams says P 2:1 K he is talking about La Motte soil test which uses a modified If
you look at the results from your own soil analysis you will see that results for P will vary from Very Low to Very High if you use weak Bray or Strong Bray. How
come that is possible ? So,
let’s forget strong bray for a while. That shows you what is in your soil but that P is deposited on the “savings account” . That P is
not readily available but it is still a good information. That information tell us that we can
make that P available over time, IF we work the biology properly. Let´s
look at Weak Bray results. What do that tell us ? You
have two soils that are Very Low, one that is average and one that is high. Now,
I dare to say that if those samples were analyzed with a Modified Morgan extractor all of them would fall into Low to Very Low categories. So,
I stand behind of I have said before. That is : YOU
HAVE VERY LOW AVAILABLE PHOSPHORUS. The key word is AVAILABLE. I
am not talking about your P “savings account” but actually what plants
can draw from that soil in terms of P. Little
to none . So
if Strong Bray says that your phosphorus is Very High that doesn’t mean
that your Phosphorus
is AVAILABLE but you know you can make it available over time IF you work the biology properly. And this is where Compost Tea fits
in. to control weeds. Well, I think he should review his point of view. I
believe that even alternative people still have the vinegar or to burn them. That is the same as taking an aspirin to “resolve”
a headache problem. Go
the root of the problem !! There
is no vinegar or flame ( or even the discussed chicken
shit ) deficiency on you soil. You
do have a Phosphorus deficiency on your soil coupled with a Potassium excess. Apply
Soft Rock Phosphate or MAP to all the plots ( some plots needs more than the others ) and those weeds
wouldn’t need to grow there. Nature’s
plans are different than ours. Grasses will indicate excess nitrate or lack of
calcium. Most
likely lack of calcium ( you don´t see excess nitrate
too often as you see lack of calcium due to low fungi in the soil ) Broad
leaf “weeds” will indicate excess potash with a decreased P
availability. As
far as I know one of the ways to increase P availability is by increasing soil
microbial activity and I don´t see why Compost Tea can’t help in that respect. One
of the research I would like to do is to measure
Phosphorus levels in several kind of soils just by applying Compost tea and nothing else. Apply CT and measure P over
time. I
am not talking about the mind set of elimination or destruction ( now actually being used in a whole country). I am talking about making the terrain inhospitable for weeds to grow
or unnecessary for the weeds to grow there . Can you tell me if there is
formula for that or would a chart be very idiosyncratic to the particular soil
scientist in a particular area? Like I said it will depend on
the type of soil analysis you do. Numbers from a conventional
lab means very little for us when we want to apply Reams concept. Albrecht here is not going to
help and there isn’t any point in reading the papers gathered in the 4 volumes published by Acres
USA. The best way to get Albrecht concepts is to take daily basis. Revert the P:K
relationship , apply Compost Tea and if the weeds grows even nicer, as they should after receiving Compost tea ,you go
ahead and cut them making a nice mulch. This process may take a year
or so but you should be able to see less and less weed pressure over time. All your Potassium levels are
Very High even with the regular extractors now imagine if we had used La Motte extractors. They would
have been Extremely High. I see no room for calcium in
this soil as their levels is already high. Calcium could expel Potassium from that soil. So, in a situation in which we
have High Potassium , High Calcium and adequate
magnesium I wold suggest adding Gypsum.
This is the only situation where Gypsum would be recommended when Calcium is close to 60% of base
saturation. Sulphate from the Gypsum will draw K out of you soil. It will also draw calcium
but you have a fair amount of calcium already. Gypsum is also a cheap soil
amendment. Summarizing : Apply Phosphorus, Gypsum and
work the biology with Compost Tea. Forget about the minors since it is a
road side plot. Regards Hi Thanks for the help
with this. You are able to do what I wish I could do--know how to control
weeds just by adding micronutrients and CT in a spray to a weedy site--a road right-of-way
or an agricultural field or even a wild meadow. If I could figure out the simplest way of doing this
on our 8-mile road, it could be a model for the whole county to get off the
herbicide treadmill. It would be a better use of the money and certainly
better for the environment and animals (including humans). The county
probably won't listen to me, but residents of our road will have the
satisfaction of not being sprayed for our efforts. I was surprised at how different the 4 analyses were from
each other in a 1-mile area. How different is the whole 8-mile
road? The mile I took was the farthest in, most untouched area. The
parts closer in have been sprayed with 2,4-D, have houses close to the road or
are next to a creek or next to a cow or an alpaca containment area or
pasture. Soil analyses costs $25/each. I'm trying to create a
method that the county could use. After all, this is just a right-of-way,
not an agricultural site. Is there a way to find the common denominator
of the deficiencies of a road and just treat that? You emphasized the K-P
relationship as one of these. Are there others? I'm going to try to give all four analyses side by
side on this email. I fear it will be too garbled to read, but I'm still
going to try. I will be glad to send it as an attachment to anyone who
wants it. I see that Phosphorus is VH on two of them and all the
Potassium base saturations are 5.4% or higher. I'm repeating the
H,M,L,VH, LH for anyone reading this who is not familiar with soil analyses. Bruce's distributor here had a chart that told him how
to analyze the Cation Exchange Capacity of the various elements. Can you
tell me if there is formula for that or would a chart be very idiosyncratic to
the particular soil scientist in a particular area? It's essential for me
to learn how to read these analyses, but I fear that the local knowledge
here--say from the weed supervisor or the extension agent--about reading them
is not based on Albrecht. I tried to read Albrecht, Vol. 1, but he writes
for other soil scientists. His many graphs were printed so small and I don't
have the background. I guess I should just try again with a magnifying
glass and take more time to reread it until I can absorb it. There's one weed missing here. I need to have a
soil test and a nutrient balance calculation done on the musk thistle
site. I'll have to make a case for this to the Weed Supervisor and he's
not been as cooperative lately as he was at first because of political pressure
that's being put on him to squelch me, I think. It's really hard for a
county employee to remain neutral when he starts getting into the old boy
network here. After all, I'm not a professor at the University of Idaho
which is mecca around here, and which is smack in the middle of money from
Monsanto, etc. I know I need to be a good little girl and not rock the
boat, but have this overweening desire to lessen our exposure to herbicides. RAPID LIGHTNING ROAD SOIL ANALYSES FOR FOUR SITES:
SUMMER, 2002, BY MID-WEST LABS
Hawkweed Com.
Tansy
Knapweed Bare Soil Org P P K
182ppm VH 237ppm VH
115ppm VH 102ppm VH Ca 1229ppm
H 934ppm
M 797ppm
H 556ppm H Na
19ppm VL 11ppm
VL 23ppm
L 13ppm VL pH buffer CEC
8.7
7.5
5.5
4.0 %
K
5.4
8.1
5.4
6.5 Mg
12.8
11.8
9.2
14.0
Ca
70.6
62.3
72.5
69.5
H
10
17
11
8.6
Na
0.9
0.6
1.8
1.4 DIPA
S 19
H
10 L
14
M
20 H
Zn 1.3
M
1.6
M
0.5
VL
0.1 VL
Mn 10
M
12 M
6
L
3 VL
Fe 39
VH
55
VH
31 VH
24 H
Cu 0.7
L
0.8 L
0.4
L
0.2 VL
B 0.5
L
0.3 VL
0.2 VL
0.2 VL Excess Soluble THANKS, JOSE, ELAINE or anyone who wants to take a
crack at this. I'm enclosing the soil analyses also as an
attachment. Webmaster, it's a lot to ask, but can you straighten it out
if it's garbled? Best, Merla * * * * * Message: 5 I got it. Part of the analysis was missing. Regards Jose P.S. In case you want a quick result you can use Soft
Rock Phosphate ----- I am the leader of a cost-share grant to do
non-chemical weed control on I do not have a good enough background to interpret a
soil analysis. I Bruce Tainio of "Tainio Technology and
Technique" in Cheney, Washington, Here is the Soil Analysis (one report) and Bruce's
Nutrient Balance SOIL ANALYSIS
REPORT
NUTRIENT BALANCE Organic matter 4.5 H * * * * * Message: 7 I find this soil analysis very strange. Jose To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: compost_tea-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
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