The Gee Spot - You Finally Found It

Stunger said:
Do mean you would make the WCA from oyster flour, or just use oyster flour on it's own as a top dress? If using oyster flour in WCA would you still fry/bake it, I wasn't quite sure of the reason for that?
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I would make it with oyster shells more or less the same way Azi makes his and then probably add it to water when needed.

I always add oyster flour to my rebuilding of my soils so its always kicking around too.

As a topdressing I prefer EWC as its quicker acting and has alot of other goodness.
 
Cool! So I have a huge bag of ground oyster shells. Very powdery. I can use the Chris Trumps' method and bingo WCA in a week to 10 days?
 
StoneOtter said:
Hi GEE, thanks, I'm going to do a slurry test on the rest of my mixed up soil to see its PH. I have a home soil test kit. Do you think that will help diagnosing this one? I haven't used it. I'm thinking you're right. The more mag I put into the soil the worse it gets. I have about 50 gallons all mixed up I'd like to fix before the next grow if I can. If calcium can do it I'll be a happy man! Today's out but tomorrow I'm thinking I'd like to move on testing.
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If you can balance your calcium in that soil to the over abundant magnesium, the cal and mag, when in ratio, will sit there harmlessly until needed, not causing any electrical issues because they have each other to hang out with and not cause trouble.

Then when they are needed they work well because the charges are already set correctly. If you think that 50 gallons has 5 cups too much mag in it then add 17.5 cups calcium and let it cook.

3.5:1 is a great ballpark to be in.

Don't use dolomite for this tho, it has more mag in it. Use oyster shells or something like that, and wait a couple to 3 months, but mix it weekly.

Keep it at the exact moisture it would be in if you were cloning. If you can squeeze it really hard and only get 2 or 3 drops of water, thats perfect. Let it cook and let the charge disipate throughout.

Its a great time to add more carbon too if you need to do that. You may also need to add some blood meal and alfalfa for the nitrogen to get the process rolling. Not too much nitro tho, just enough to get it composting.

Mix a little more in every couple weeks, not all at once. Then none for at least 2 weeks (I wait 4 minimum but "They" say 2 is fine. "They" will sell you CalMag too so....) before using so its not still composting in your pots.

While all that is cooking, phosphorus is becoming more available, but it won't move in the soil, it sits tight, so mix it alot to get phos even throughout the mix.

All that extra soil that evolves is why I built a 2200 gallon pot in my back yard. I had too many tubs of it in my garage.

Out there it only gets compost and leaves.

Veggies and strawberries are my cover crops. Lots of lettuces, spinaches, and kales.

It grows monster weed trees.
 
Gee64 said:
If you think that 50 gallons has 5 cups too much mag in it then add 17.5 cups calcium and let it cook.
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Ok, that's something I don't know. How did you come up with that number? 5 cups too many.

Now I can tell you a new lead. When I was taking scoops of it out of the barrel the soil was hard to dig through. Like crusty and stuck together. ???
Gee64 said:
Its supposed to work with oyster shells too. I'm just waiting for spring to cook them outdoors.
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If I need it in the SIP maybe.
 
Gee64 said:
Today is a good day! Breakfast will be comprised of "Just the Tip" of a 14" Durban bud.

Don't judge me!🤪, its not a spectacular looking, smelling, tasting, or growing strain, but the buzz is phenomenal.

I've been waiting quite awhile to play "Just the Tip" 🥰🥰
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Haha, have fun!
 
StoneOtter said:
Ok, that's something I don't know. How did you come up with that number? 5 cups too many.

Now I can tell you a new lead. When I was taking scoops of it out of the barrel the soil was hard to dig through. Like crusty and stuck together. ???

If I need it in the SIP maybe.
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5 cups was just a guess. Think about how much too much mag you may have added and then multiply that by 3.5 to ratio the calcium.

Too much cal will pull your ph closer to 7 but the myco is still very happy with that and can adjust that at the root level. Not enough and the mag will still clump and choke.

Go slow and mix a lot. Pay attention. Get the moisture, perlite, and carbon balanced as you go.

If that soil didn't grow properly its likely still loaded with minerals. Thats a lot of valuable soil.

When you think its close, plant a clone or pop a seed and see, then adjust again. Just don't plant with uncomposted blood meal or other hot nitrogens until they have composted.

Cut it a third each of coco, ewc, and your mix and then test it. Adjust perlite if needed.

If the surface clumps and goes crusty AFTER the 1st crusting, which isn't nescessarily a mag thing, break the 1st crust up to dust, water again, let it dry, and check again for crusting.
 
Gee64 said:
5 cups was just a guess. Think about how much too much mag you may have added and then multiply that by 3.5 to ratio the calcium.

Too much cal will pull your ph closer to 7 but the myco is still very happy with that and can adjust that at the root level. Not enough and the mag will still clump and choke.

Go slow and mix a lot. Pay attention. Get the moisture, perlite, and carbon balanced as you go.

If that soil didn't grow properly its likely still loaded with minerals. Thats a lot of valuable soil.

When you think its close, plant a clone or pop a seed and see, then adjust again. Just don't plant with uncomposted blood meal or other hot nitrogens until they have composted.

Cut it a third each of coco, ewc, and your mix and then test it. Adjust perlite if needed.

If the surface clumps and goes crusty AFTER the 1st crusting, which isn't nescessarily a mag thing, break the 1st crust up to dust, water again, let it dry, and check again for crusting.
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Whoa now. The soil I have to fix has been amended and cooked for a 6 weeks. So things have been done per The Revs recipe. It's from a different batch than the ones growing. Same recipe.

The slurry test just finished and it's 6.5ph. That's out of the way.
Gee64 said:
Think about how much too much mag you may have added and then multiply that by 3.5 to ratio the calcium.
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Will do. I'll look at the recipe and do some head scratching and apply the ratio best I can.
 
I've posted this elsewhere but I want a record in here too.

When I moved the 10gal swicky-pot the capillary action got interrupted. The swick pad went dry.

I top watered 9 litres in to reprime the system successfully.

The swick pad had dried out for 24 hours before I noticed.

All signs of myco in the swick pad disappeared.

48 hours after re-establishing the wicking, myco is again quickly reinfesting the swick pad.

The runoff from the priming flooded into the res and ppm soared to 1048 and PH6.8.

1 litre has been wicked up in the last 24 hours.
 
Today I was going to mix up the runoff reservoir and check its ppm and I thought lets check its ppm, then stir it and check again, maybe get an idea of how much stuff in there may not get wicked up.

So it was 1040 ppm prior to vigourously stirring and 1041 ppm after stirring.

I'm assuming then that its all leaching up.

It's down another inch and PH is 6.8
The soil ph is 6.2.

It seems all the food in that res is holding in solution.

The plant still looks cold, and it is. It will get a heater tonight.
 
Gee64 said:
Today I was going to mix up the runoff reservoir and check its ppm and I thought lets check its ppm, then stir it and check again, maybe get an idea of how much stuff in there may not get wicked up.

So it was 1040 ppm prior to vigourously stirring and 1041 ppm after stirring.

I'm assuming then that its all leaching up.

It's down another inch and PH is 6.8
The soil ph is 6.2.

It seems all the food in that res is holding in solution.

The plant still looks cold, and it is. It will get a heater tonight.
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Now that's some useful information. Thanks for posting. It will be interesting if you get similar results once you make your WCA. It's called "water soluble" calcium so I would expect it to work the same, but it would be good to get instrument confirmation.
 
I've got a Nitrogen question.

If calcium frees up the nitrogen bound with magnesium, and if there's so much free nitrogen in the air, why is it even necessary to supplement it with our nutes?
 
Azimuth said:
Now that's some useful information. Thanks for posting. It will be interesting if you get similar results once you make your WCA. It's called "water soluble" calcium so I would expect it to work the same, but it would be good to get instrument confirmation.
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Very good point👍
 
Azimuth said:
I've got a Nitrogen question.

If calcium frees up the nitrogen bound with magnesium, and If there's so much free nitrogen in the air, why is it even necessary to supplement it with our nutes?
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Well outdoors its not, theres so many microbes and so much organic matter laying around, but indoors you need inputs too.

Nitro in the air mixes with microbes and gets fixed into the soil but you also need protein, which is nitro, as in greens in compost, as you need the amino acids.

So when you get nitrogen from those inputs you are also getting all your trace aminos.

In theory if you got all your traces from somewhere you could get all your nitro from air but it must go thru a microbe.

I don't add alfalfa because its nitro, I add it for everything else it has. I just need to be aware of its nitro and burn its heat out in cooking and not on a live root, then use it for whats left.

You need nitrogen for cellular function and amino acids from inputs to build things out of with that cellular function.

When nitrogen enters the nitrogen cycle through the ground as in a green leaf, about a third of that nitro goes to the microbe that eats it, another third into the biosphere for the plant, and the last third vents to atmosphere to complete the cycle.

It comes out of the air, thru a microbe, into a plant, back to the soil as a dead plant, and then into a microbe for atmosphere and plant food to keep cycling.
 
Carbon is the big input I worry about. Plant pots break the carbon cycle.

A dead tree gets eaten by a microbe that breathes 02. The microbe combines the carbon from the dead tree with the O2 it breaths and exhales CO2. The tree breathes that co2 in and stores the carbon and releases the 02 to atmosphere for the microbe to use again.

When the tree dies that carbon falls to the ground for microbes to eat and complete the cycle and it all goes round and round.

In pots the tree never lands back in the pot when it dies so you need to supply more carbon to the soil. I like coco for this.

Most small pot grows run out of carbon 1st but molasses is a good carbon rescue.

All that works best when cal and mag are optimal. They are nutrients, but they are also soil conditioners.
 
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