AD When the crops are fed a high caloric organic matter does that limit the crops to only those that are suited to those organisms? Or does organic farming change the soil biology to accommodate a wider range of crops?
Biochar has been used as a carrier to improve or restore the populations of suitable organisms that have been reduced by chemical applications. Minerals like rock dust are sometime included in the mix. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Stoves [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Anand Karve Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2012 3:36 AM To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves Subject: Re: [Stoves] Basic soil--Basic info ! Dear Frans, The nature of the micro-organisms living in any given soil depends on the nature of the soil. If you applied sugar to a soil and incubated it, you would find only such organisms multiply, that can survive in that particular soil. Thus, if the soil is phosphate deficient, only phosphate solubilizing bacteria would survive in it. If the soil were nitrogen deficient, only nitrogen-fixing bacteria would survive in it. In the case of the vertisol soils in our region, the soil pH is above 8.5. In this soil, the iron is in a trivalent form, which is not available to the plants. Therefore, farmers are asked to apply iron sulphate to their fields. But if you applied sugar to this soil, the microbes that would be multiplied are those able to take up the trivalent iron from the soil and convert it into divalent iron. Survey of farmers who practice organic farming showed me, that the crops in such farms never show any symptoms of mineral deficiency. I thus realized that the mineral deficiencies in the soil are corrected by the soil micro-organisms. Asking farmers to apply special kinds of bacterial cultures to their soils for correcting the mineral deficiencies amounts to cheating the farmers. The necessary microbes are already in the soil. All one has to do is to feed them with a high calorie organic material, so that they multiply their numbers. Yours A.D.Karve On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 6:29 AM, Alex English <[email protected]> wrote: > Andrew, > Perhaps you have seen solubility charts? > > http://www.avocadosource.com/tools/fertcalc_files/ph.htm > It is slightly different for soiless media. > Very much a chemist's take on soil fertility. > > Alex > > > On 15/12/2012 5:20 PM, [email protected] wrote: >> >> Hi Frans, good to see your contribution. >> >> On Sat, 15 Dec 2012 22:22:03 +0100,"Frans Peeters" >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Basic soil needs humus to bring pH 8,5 to 6,5 >> >> This is because humus (humic acid?) is acidic but so will low >> temperature char that still contains pyroligneous chemicals?? >>> >>> Basic soil by Ca exess has lack of Mg take up to form Chlorofil leef >>> green >>> .Result yellow leaves . >> >> Ye Ca inhibits take up of magnesium, we have it once roots reach the >> chalk on thin soils here, it's known as lime induced chlorosis. >>> >>> Char has no chemical effect . >> >> The carbon in char is inert but presumably its the ash associated with >> the carbon matrix that makes high temperature char basic. >>> >>> Sometimes water and minerals into the char are usefull at pH 5,5 -7. >> >> Could you expand on that? >>> >>> Basic soil makes trace minerals unsoluble and not avaiable to take up . >>> >>> Zn and Se can profit of basic soil . >>> >>> Too acid under pH 5 dissoves Aluminium from clay ,a plant killer . >>> >> I take from that that if the soil becomes too acid the aluminium >> becomes labile and available, hence it kills the plants. >> >> So similarly if the soil is too basic it makes zinc and selenium >> unavailable? >> >> AJH >>> >>> >>> Regards >>> >>> Frans > > > > _______________________________________________ > Stoves mailing list > > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address > [email protected] > > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists .org > > for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: > http://www.bioenergylists.org/ > -- *** Dr. A.D. Karve Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) _______________________________________________ Stoves mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists .org for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: http://www.bioenergylists.org/ _______________________________________________ Stoves mailing list to Send a Message to the list, use the email address [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org for more Biomass Cooking Stoves, News and Information see our web site: http://www.bioenergylists.org/
