DrZiggy;2657699 said:
Doc, what don't you like about Cal-Mag?
In order to best answer you, I need to take some pictures of an experiment I'm doing right now.
Instead of top dressing with epsom salt I cooked some into the soil. Guess what? I've now got a Mg deficiency on a strain (Lemon Paki) that NEVER gets a Mg deficiency in High Brix soil. That's right, adding Mg to the soil didn't come close to increasing Mg in the plant tissue. It didn't help. It created a problem.
Why? This seems counter-intuitive, doesn't it?
Well, it turns out that decreasing the Ca/Mg ratio lowers brix, decreases plant metabolism and generally weakens the plants.
The reason they're Mg deficient is because the microbial action in the soil has been decreased and altered. That happened because the ratio was tampered with.
Enter Cal/Mag. When you use a product like this as a means to getting calcium and/or magnesium into plant tissue it will help if there is a true deficiency. However, there are no elements or minerals lacking in High Brix soil. They're all measured and they're all there. The soil is not in any way deficient!
So, when you take a soil that is balanced and you add Cal/Mag, which is often in a 3/1 or 5/1 ratio a couple things are happening:
1. the plant will take in the salts of Ca and Mg as best they can, "hydro style." Again, this is fine if there's a deficiency! But the last thing our soil is deficient in is calcium, and since the magnesium is about 1/7 as much as calcium, High Brix soil has more Mg than 99% of all potting soils out there. Adding more and more will at some point create an imbalance in the soil, making high brix impossible to achieve.
2. When the plants start taking in calcium and magnesium salts, almost immediately the root exudates no longer call for these elements and the microbial action drops off in this area.......and viola! Deficiency!
That's right, by adding elements to such a degree that we take the soil out of balance, we'll not see more of these elements in the plant tissue, but less!
The reason is because the soil residents feed the plant best. When you impede that process via too much salt feedings, you get less of the desired thing into the plant, not more!
So that's why I don't like CalMag! It simply doesn't help.
The "mg deficiency" people talk about isn't because we didn't think to add Mg to the soil or that more is needed, etc. It has to do with 2 things:
1. The peculiarities and draw backs to small container gardening. Outdoor plants almost never have Mg deficiencies if they have room for their roots to spread out.
2. Many strains we grow have been bred to thrive in a high salt environment. Or, to put it another way, since everyone was using massive salts----like hydro----the plants that came out best in that medium became super popular. These same strains don't grow the same way in good soil.
But many of the old, pure strains that don't shine in salt take on a whole new character in high brix soil.
This Colombian is a lot like that. Around here, everyone is saying how it's the best Sativa they've ever had, blah, blah, blah. Usual stuff.
When I tell them it's a strain that was popular in the late '70's, back when weed was supposedly not very potent compared to today and all that nonsense, it really surprises them. The reason it all seems so new and wonderful is simply because while Colombian Red won't grow very well in hydro, or in a high salt soil grow.....it does freakishly awesome in a biological grow, with living soil.
We'd all be much better off if we sought out strains that thrive in High Brix soil, instead of trying to adapt the soil to grow strains that don't really produce the desired result until salts are off the chart.
Even so, I've now proved to myself that adding Epsom Salt to cooking soil is a bad idea. It's much better to top dress on those strains that need it, or better yet, foliar feed it.
I'm working on a new spray for just this reason! It's got Manganese, zinc, copper, Calcium and magnesium, all in the proper ratio, designed by the lab for High Brix soil.
A few folks have gotten samples here and there to test and I'm waiting back to hear how it all works for them.
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