Geeman, I wonder if you might explain why ppm needs to be within certain parameters. Like many things, I’m just following instructions until I understand it. But it seems like ppm could be made up of calcium, magnesium, iron, etc. or all of the above. Is the composition important? Could it be all one or the other & be ok as long as it’s between 55-65 ppm? What happens if ppm is too low?
Calcium is electricity. It's EC. Microbes run on it, and so do plants. So too much will fry things.
The CEC, Cation Exchange Capacity of the soil, also runs on electricity. Magnetism to be exact, but magnetisn is electricity.
The carbon platters (humates) and/or clay colloids that move the cations attract positives, and calcium needs to be about 70% of what is on a colloid/humate, Mg needs to be about 15%, and the rest of the cations fill it to about 97% full. Then hydrogen fills the last 3-ish %.
When full and balanced, everything sticks magnetically and balances the charge, locking things to the colloid or humate.
The hydrogen, which is really quirky, is neutrally charged, but can flip slightly positive or slightly negative any time it likes. By flipping it's charge it can lock or unlock the platter.
If it flips slightly more negative, another cation gets attracted, if it flips slightly more positive, a cation gets kicked off, like 2 magnets repelling each other. It controls flow.This is how food is either locked out or available.
When a cation gets repelled off, the hydrogen flips back, and a new cation gets attracted to the platter. Hence the CEC, or Cation Exchange Capacity. That room for hydrogen is the Potential Hydrogen, or PH.
Too much calcium can kick all the hydrogen off, as Calcium is a very strong electrolyte, so PH goes out, and lockout occurs. Calcium raises PH. Not enough calcium lowers PH.
Also, calcium creates tilth. Tilth is how the electrical field in the soil magnetically sticks the particles together.
When Ca, and to a lesser but still large degree Mg, are present, they supply a lot of positive electricity. This electricity charges the soil particles just right so like a magnet, they can stick or repel, and when the charge is just right, every 2nd particle repels, and like repelling magnets, it flips itself over. So in reality, every 2nd particle stands on edge.
When calcium is low, all particles stick tightly like a stack of plates in the cupboard a foot high, but add more calcium, and every 2nd particle flips, so every 2nd plate stands on edge. The 1 foot stack is now 6 feet tall.
It's called tilth or soil conditioning.
All that space created is now a passage for air, water, and microbes, in the soil, and microbes, much like an electric bus, will pull electricity from it.
Too much calcium, so too much electricity, will make the soil fall apart. It turns to dust, and the microbes get fried. The CEC goes out of whack and water washes the loose cations into the roots and nute burn occurs. Everything crashes. All the cations go hydroponic.
Too little calcium and all the plates fall into a stack. Compacted crusty soil.
So calcium controls PH, tilth, and EC. Too much or too little screws it up, so when you add it you add it in small doses. You can always add more, but it's hard to remove it, flushing is the only way, and it electrocutes everything while it's waiting to be flushed.
You need it to come in contact with every soil particle, so you need lots of water with only a small amount of ppm, not a bit of water with a high ppm, even tho both scenarios may actually contain the same amount of calcium.
50-60 ppm is perfect.
) then have at it.
. My wife was really concerned how long I was sitting in it hahahaha.
