Help needed to calculate soil weight in boxes
lyonsy
15 years ago
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Kimmsr
15 years agoRelated Discussions
Questions for Al: calculating soil, dolomitic lime, etc
Comments (2)Al, I love ya. You made my night giving me these answers. When I get on one of these research kicks I head down a rabbit hole in search of new information. 1) Glad to know my math was about right. I failed chemistry in high school, and it scares me a bit. I will use your number. 2) Actually, my citrus are starting to show some signs of a Magnesium deficiency... it could be the winter, and then those freezing days we had last week, or it could be something else like my fertilization. I'm waiting for a few weeks of warm weather to see what happens. If my memory serves me, I think they looked like this last winter and our first weeks of sunshine they perked back up. But, as you know, I *do* fertilize organically with the Dr. Earth products and my micros come from their Liquid 3-3-3 with Micros. (I'm *not*---at least not yet---using Foliage Pro. I know, bad bad student.) The 3-3-3 apparently has: Micronized and Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Micronized Mined and Micronutrient-dense Colloidal Soft Rock Phosphate, Naturally-mined Potassium Sulfate, Potassium-Magnesium Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Iron Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Molybdic Oxide, and Zinc Sulfate. I use this weakly, if not weekly then at least once a month. 3) Re the citrus, since I'm not using FP... (quietly bows her head and cringes), I'll ask again whether somehow working a small amount of dolomitic lime around the top of the mix, or scratching it around the outside rim of the pot, would do anything at all to help the magnesium levels? Or are you saying that it won't work because it's not incorporated. I can live with either answer... I just wanted to ask again since you initially responded that "if I was using FP." 4) Thanks for answering. That's actually interesting, because I thought they needed a little higher pH to get those micros. The tsp per gallon of peat (and wood) is a great place to start. I've never actually had any problem with the soil for my tomatoes in this mix, but after a few years of growing in it, I'm just assuming it needs a little boost of something at this point. -Cheers, Kristi...See MoreAre my soil calculations correct?
Comments (4)Usually a 'yard' refers to a cubic yard. Like a 10 yard dump truck can carry 10 cubic yards. A cubic yard is a volume measurement. A square yard has no relevance to volume ....it only describes surface area. Square yard is simply length times width. (3x3) The space described is 18 cubic feet or .667 cubic yards.(there are 27 cubic feet in one cubic yard) If buying bags, the bag label will state the volume in cubic yards or cubic feet. Ignore the bag weight and use the volume measurement given on the bag. Jan...See MoreIf buying MG potting soil, bring a calculator!
Comments (40)I see this thread is now 6 years old, but wanted to add a bit. I just started using the MG soil, purchasing it at BJ's. Regular price was $11.99, it was on sale for a week or so in mid to late May, $9.99. Sale only lasted a week, so one needs to keep their eyes open. As the original poster stated, it gets very confusing with different amounts in different sized bags. Most places were selling a 1 cubic foot bag for $8.99 in 2014. Big bags are most definitely worth it....See MoreMeasuring pH in soil, compost and li: Need help calibating a pH meter?
Comments (13)Yeah ... lots of critical things to consider such as initial and changing pH effects*, buffering, multivalent cations, anionic and cationic micronutrients, and zeolite like ion exchange surfaces on soil particles, which make it a play day for chemistry discussions. Then the attack and breakdown of plant and animal litter to slow release nutrients brings up neat microbiology and biochemistry aspects. Material science then decides to manipulate the situation with osmotic release and diffusion of encapsulated nutrients. And hydroponic principles try to partially play nature taking over the hydrology and lighting it up. Physics kicks ideas in there on this last aspect. For instance did you know that fluorescent light indeed glow when struck by energy (as you know), but much of the light intensity flashes through a series of distinct colors at 60 times a second? * Plants cheat neatly by manipulating ion exchange release of cationic nutrients. They knock off ammonium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and other positively charged ions by producing acid(s) to knock it off. H+ alone can cause the exchange but if the acid is on a small organic base (anion) like oxalate this organic can diffuse around and pull at the cations on soil that the plant wants and help knock it off, helping in the "weathering" breakdown of soil too. Chelators made by plants and microbes make it really interesting too. They diffuse around and hold certain critical nutrients so tightly that the plant has the choice of finding more, having a deficiency (specific nutrient starving), making a stronger chelator to take it back, and/or breaking the chelator down to free the nutrient. Now the fun parts ... the plant one might be considering is not be alone. A group of similar or different roots might be working together AND competing in that patch of soil, with different players at different depths Trees cheat and certain non woody plants cheat and go low. Moles, gophers and field mice run through this soil zone toox playing their games. No soil contact then no nutrient uptake, no root then no nutrient collection there for the plant, loss of stored nutrients and need to spend energy replacing the root. And there are smaller life forms co-inhabating the soil with the roots that are also directly or indirectly effected by soil pH. Let's put them into three classes as those that (1) don't generally effect a plant much, (2) can hurt the plant, or (3) can help the plant. Let's see ... hurting a plant is bad, unless it hurts a seriously competitive plant more. Helping a plant is good, unless it's again that serious competitor. Plants are not stand alone organisms in naturem. They live in community with microorganisms. So what if the soil pH helps support the growth of a microbe that can grow all over your plants roots? Sounds bad I know, but there are those three classes mentioned above. If your microbe is a pathogen that is bad. If it doesn't attack the plant but runs out and breaks down nearby leaf litter, great free food. It it doesn't hurt your plant but by being on root surfaces can compete with and stop pathogenic microbes from getting a foothold, great a free natural inoculation for immunity. There was a company called Eden Bioscience a couple decades ago here in the PNW that made an interesting observation. In large scale evergreen seedling production for forestry sometimes there were large scale fungal blights. Sadly alot of the seedlings all died at once in mass. However, sometimes there were a few seedlings near each other that did not succumb! In fact they looked totally healthy! When isolating bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi from the surfaces of these plants they found that certain kinds could be grown in the lab that protected seedlings from attack, when sprayed onto them. These microbes grew best in their optimal pH range. They indeed colonized the plants, in this case leaf surfaces. And their presence did protect the leaves from pathogen attack. Obviously similar things must be happening in nature in the leaf canopy and also soil root zone of plants. So when a plant likes acidic pH 5 - 6 soil, is this just because nutrients are more available it? When I went to school, in what now seems like the dark ages, most plant physiology books focused almost solely on this. Or is it because beneficial microbes helping feed or protect the plant need that pH? My firm assumption is that both chemical and microbial pH dependent effects interact to make an optimum environment for that plant. And that some plants in the natural environment survive best, rather than grow best, at their optimal pH range. Why do many fungi sour (strongly acidify) what they are busy rotting? Niether competive microbes nor does the dieing plant tissue like it. The fungus gets more. This is exactly why you want to check the pH in the soil that you might be soon preparing for your new vegetable or herb garden this spring. Too basic, your plants starve. Too acidic, the pathogenic fungi don't starve. Then like the heirloom story of The Three Bears ... there's one pH that's just right....See Morejoepyeweed
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