Another soil topic...!

fredman

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My biggest concern is with the constant changes inside the pot....:confused:

I don't have a lot of hort knowledge, but are blessed with wheelbarrows full of logic and a solid general knowledge. I've been wrestling with this for a long time, and still are no closer to an answer that makes logical sense.

There is so many variables that influence the "happiness" of the microbial life inside the pot. How they got there is one thing, but how they stay alive, and be happy enough to survive and multiply is another. They have unlike in a stable ground environment, everything against them inside a little pot..... an alien and ever changing environment that must test them to their absolute limits. Constant moisture, heat, food, pH, alkalinity, salts, etc. etc. etc...... fluctuations. In a stable ground environment they don't get these fluctuations on a daily basis. Inside a pot those fluctuations are emphasized. How do they adapt? Do they adapt? Some species must be tougher than others in there. What happens when the weaker ones die off? What was their function, and how is it done inside the pot when they are gone?
The only thing I can hope for, for their sake, is that they are incredibly tough creatures, that can put up with much more than a dry and acid vapour environment can throw at them......:cool:
We only assume that they are happy and feed them accordingly. The environment that we provided for them suites us, but the question is, how much does it suite them really?
Can help it but sometimes when I look at a pot, I wonder are they happily smiling happily at me:), or screaming for help....and I cant hear them :eek:
 

wireme

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Oh, yeah, tough they have revived soil bacterias that laid dormant for 250 million years. A tough week in the pot will be OK.
 

sorce

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Oh, yeah, tough they have revived soil bacterias that laid dormant for 250 million years. A tough week in the pot will be OK.

But....
Being dormant 250 million years, they must not be the same. So do ours work the same?

If so, how long does it take to go from dormant to useful?

Way too much thinking going on, and I like thinking!

I'm pretty sure I could water my trees with tap water in rocks and they would live just as well as any other.

Sorce
 

wireme

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The point is a lot of these organisms can go dormant in an almost indestructible form when conditions are not right. They can multiply very rapidly when a food source or favourable conditions appear.
 

fredman

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True but they evolved to adapt slowly over time. In a pot it happens on a daily basis. Something they have never been exposed to...
Surely they aren't evolved to go dormant and wake up again on a daily basis? They surely cant be very effective if they constantly have to adapt and readapt to the fluctuating conditions in there....

Nah for me there is just to many variables, uncertainties and assumptions. Has anybody got any links to specific scientific studies that has been done on this subject?
 
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Dav4

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True but they evolved to adapt slowly over time. In a pot it happens on a daily basis. Something they have never been exposed to...
Surely they aren't evolved to go dormant and wake up again on a daily basis?
Nah for me there is just to many variables, uncertainties and assumptions. Has anybody got any links to specific scientific studies that has been done on this subject?
You're over thinking it. Practice sound horticulture and the microbes will come and stay in the soil for the long haul.
 

fredman

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Don't get me wrong Dav4. I don't loose sleep over it. I reluctantly accept it, but I do also think its something important to think about ...:p
 
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