Guide to Regenerative Mineral Soil

[Muir!]

Hmmmm. Grow shops are disappearing? I never thought about that happening, no grow shops around here, lucky to find stuff at the tractor or big box stores. Is everyone just going 'online' to shop?

The grow stores here near me have become supply houses that cater to commercial growers

 

[Green Mopho]

Thanks for this!! Seems like I cant duck the soil test any longer. Once this snow stops, I'll mix everything together and go from there.

whats wrong with magnesium nitrate? and, if I remember correctly, did you mention not adding neem cake to the soil mix? are you taking any foliar questions in this thread? If I were to mix all the soil I have around here and add the amendments I accumulated over the years before I sent it in for an analysis, how long would you recommend letting it compost before I send it in?

Magnesium nitrate is unnecessary nitrogen and probably magnesium. Most forms of magnesium are soluble, so if you actually need magnesium (in soil you probably don’t), use a sulfate. There are not very many soluble sources of calcium, so if you need nitrogen, you can always use more calcium!

What foliar questions do you have? Maybe we need a specific foliar feed thread in the nutes subforum.

Composting all those amendments wouldn’t change the mineral content of them; only how available they are. Leaching (runoff) would be the only way to reduce some of those.

I would not add all those amendments before testing because once you add them; you can’t get them back out and you may and severe excesses. That’s like baking too much salt into a loaf of bread, good luck getting it back out! I would mix all your base soils you have laying around, and mix it as well as you can, and then take a soil test and then use the amendments that you actually need.

 

[Green Mopho]

I charge / cal nit my coco ONCE like hydro when I switched to “organic"

I feel any problems I have had with organic may come from not using ph adjusted water and thee water uncharging th coco..

[due to eventual lack of buffering ?]

Just my fear...I would rather to use a good percent of coco mixed with the promix

bought half a ton of jiffy slabs cheap a decade ago..and i tear them apart and charge..I will not buying different coco..

it has worked well over the years ..iwouldmlike to continue..maybe I should just feed ph 6 adjusted water
but the freakin hose and wand is so much faster ...than pump from res

You can adjust your soil to your water instead of pH adjusting your water. If your tap is alkaline, you can add acidifying amendments like elemental sulfur. If your soil pH goes acidic, you need more lime.

 

[@johnniebones5653]

Magnesium nitrate is unnecessary nitrogen and probably magnesium. Most forms of magnesium are soluble, so if you actually need magnesium (in soil you probably don’t), use a sulfate. There are not very many soluble sources of calcium, so if you need nitrogen, you can always use more calcium!

What foliar questions do you have? Maybe we need a specific foliar feed thread in the nutes subforum.

Composting all those amendments would t change the mineral content of them; only how available they are. Leaching (runoff) would be the only way to reduce some of those.

I would not add all those amendments before testing because once you add them; you can’t get them back out and you may and severe excesses. That’s like baking too much salt into a loaf of bread, good luck getting it back out! I would mix all your base soils you have laying around, and mix it as well as you can, and then take a soil test and then use the amendments that you actually need.

Would you do anything special to a potting soil mix before sending to lab like screening out perlite and things like that or just mix up base soils real good and take the sample?

 

[Green Mopho]

Would you do anything special to a potting soil mix before sending to lab like screening out perlite and things like that or just mix up base soils real good and take the sample?

Perlite won’t mess the test up too much. It will show Si thru the roof, but I honestly it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

 

[Green Mopho]

This is great, I recognize a few names from the old slownickel/icmag threads! Glad to be here. I've used kinsey ag labs and more recently Logan for my outdoor veggies and cannabis, but have never sent in a test on potting soil... As time goes on and the growshops diappear, I'm left constantly switching soils and each has a little learning curve... All that being said, I look forward to following along.

When in doubt, buy a lighter soil, front load it with a lot of calcium carbonate or calcium silicate, a little bit of calcium phosphate and gypsum, and feed only N and K as needed.