Carbon and Fertilizer question?

[nao57]

So... I've always tried to avoid chemical fertilizers. I don't hate them. But I think the real stuff is healthier for people eating the produce. So usually I use aged steer manure and so on. I don't have a lot of experience with miracle gro. And its usually cheaper to get a small trailer of aged manure.

Well... along these lines, I've been thinking... 'How do you estimate how much steer compost you need per plant? How do you know if you've got enough?' I wanted to see what you think about this. First, I know some might say well if they aren't producing vegetables you'll know; but that response doesn't work because that means you have to waste half the summer's grow time to find that out. You don't want to waste your time.

...

And on a side note, have you noticed they don't state C, or Carbon in fertilizer needs of vegetable plants and farming? Carbon IS something you need in the soil. They only quote NPK usually and then the minor elements. But Carbon holds N, and P, and K together in life. So Carbon is there. And people when they compare carbon in the soil notice a huge difference in agriculture production.

An example; they quote the great plains as having over 12% carbon in the soil when the buffalo roamed there. And that you could grow just about anything there and without a lot of trouble. And they didn't need to fertilizer pretty much up until the dust bowl events happened. That's when they started to realize they needed to take care of the soil.

Well now, the carbon amount in a lot of the midwest after all of this is now around 2%. And they can't do much without fertilizers constantly. And you can't help but notice,... yes the carbon amount is affecting this.

Carbon is a basic building block in life cells of both plants and animals... -> which become fertilizer. So they SHOULD not be hiding it when they show NPK and other fertilizer element breakdowns. To me this suggests that they don't know as much as they think they do. And I also think that food without carbon will be less healthy than food produced with natural carbon chains in it.

Hope this helps all of you. And hope to hear your thoughts on the question above on translating fertilizer amounts per plant, and when to know if that's enough for the whole season...?

 

[Debbie292d]

I honestly don't know how to answer that question because we just get a big pile of either cow manure or horse manure hauled over by a farmer neighbor every other year. We rototiller that into the garden. It's not too poopy at all because it's already half composted. Even partially composted, it's still bringing in tons of weeds, especially the horse manure. Thus why I'd like to switch to something else, but hubby wouldn't have it.

Another idea I have for you is if you aren't a member of the sister site The Easy Garden, you might want to check it out as you might find more folks there that could jump in on your questions.

 

[saysfaa]

Send a soil sample. The co- op (here) and land grant university (last place we lived) were the best places for me between costs, convenience, and options of what they test for but there are other options including sending it directly to a lab.

Do it yourself soil test kits from garden supply stores tell you some things but are not a good substitute for sending a sample in to a lab.

None of labs that I know of test for carbon. Or they didn't; some may have started if enough people want to know that for whatever reason.

The soil testing doesn't measure carbon because plants don't get carbon from the soil. They get it from the air.

Carbon in the soil is greater when there is more organic matter incorporated in the soil (hm, because the definition of organic chemistry is compounds containing carbon atoms in covalent bonding, doncha think has something to do with it?) and good soil structure - basically, good top soil.

Yes, the top soil was much deeper before the Dust Bowl. Many people learned a lot from the mistakes that resulted in the Dust Bowl but farmers knew about soil fertility before that. The bigger issue was not understanding the climate - dry years, mostly, that are common but hadn't happened in a longish time for the area. The stretch of wet years happened to be while the plains were settled. Plus the wind, of course, which didn't matter much in the wet years.

If you put more aged steer manure on your garden than your plants need then you will get deeper top soil than the year before. Assuming things like the soil is covered with cover crop or mulch, soil microbes are allowed to do their thing, and such.

Even with an abundance of such manure, it is worth having the soil tested periodically.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

The soil test suggestion is a good one. You don't want to add "not enough" manure, but the good news is it'd be pretty tough to add "too much", and whatever isn't used in year one will remain for future years.

If you raise chickens, their manure (properly aged/composted) is a great way to raise nitrogen in your garden.

 

[Smokerbill]

You're missing the fact that the roots need air too, non-compacted soil with worm/rodent tunnels and deep rooted plants that add structure/cracks. When the barometric pressure drops, gasses are pulled out of the soil. High pressure pushes fresh air back in. Good soil breathes.