Paulpash
Masterpiece
So the top 2cm of your substrate never dries out? Mine does in Summer, even in the UK. The beetle burrows from the top to lay eggs...
for all of us DE fans......
- Thread starter Joe Dupre'
- Start date
So the top 2cm of your substrate never dries out? Mine does in Summer, even in the UK. The beetle burrows from the top to lay eggs...
sdavis
Mame
I would really like to see Akadama under an electron microscope. I don't have access to one anymore. Here is a pic of DE from EP's website. Small tubes but tubes...
These are SEMs of akadama.
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
I am in love with my Microcosm!
Every tree I have that has Critters the "sprayers" don't get, or get to keep, is healthier than it has ever been!
Thank you @wireme !
I have either collected moss, or sphagnum chopped on top of most.
The sphagnum may dry, maybe a single ply of DE on things without top dressing.
And I can't be sure what the edges of the basket do, besides create 100% shin!, but I have begun mossing those too...
Other than that, my trees Don't see dry at all.
Many may argue this is why I havent been keeping many trees alive.
But my constant observation tells me otherwise.
There is way this works when I repot in the Summer time.
DE is just that good.
It doesn't sit wet.
It sits in a condition that promotes "self scaling" or whatever that BS is!
In the Sifted 8822 small size......
This is what I have been trying to get at all along!
It Allows for .....
Exactly what we Seek!
Lotta unnecessary questions here IMO.
At the end of this Banger of a 2018 I will have enough evidence to begin this quite simple, set it and forget it so you can concentrate on styling and display....
Its a plant....
In a pot....
That needs water to grow!
The Japanese use apprentices to accomplish this allowance of time....
We can do that.....
Or use sprinklers!
Too much think alert!
Hahahahaha!
Sorce
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
My guy asked me the other day....was it here? Think it was work....
"Why do you make everything so Complicated?"
Because....
The Path to Simple is Complicated!
Sorce
"Why do you make everything so Complicated?"
Because....
The Path to Simple is Complicated!
Sorce
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
I Promote Cross training. Example ..
What from A boring day at work can you apply to making your bonsai better?
Will a joke at the water cooler lead to an idea for a new watering system?
Will a Frary, or Nwaite joke be seen here as offensive? Or brought to the water cooler, which sparks the idea, which simplifies your life.
Its about taking ONLY the good stuff out of every situation you choose to put yourself in.
Our Lifes Education can come from Staring at a tree for hours, if we know how to make use of the enlightenment we can choose to obtain if we take the effort to Use the Education we create!
So while I cuss out @SU2 for the franticism!
It's only because there ARE people before us who made simple those things already, through their own complicated efforts.
To not stagnate....
We must honor them by utilizing all they have to offer, ESPECIALLY THAT ALLOWANCE OF OUR TIME!
So that we may spend it moving forward with NEW, more innovative, exciting ways to leap over unseen Boundaries!
Complicate Something else!
But it's funny cuz I think of RockM, from who I learned many things, yet go heavily against in pursuit of a fine looking ERC, or Dwarf Alberta.
Contradiction is Alive!
Hmmmm...I will name my permanent garden.....Contradiction.
I will Grow Pudding trees.
Sorce
I don't know squat about the different soils. What I do know is that I've been using straight napa dry since I started in bonsai 2 years ago. To take it even further, I don't bother to sift or wash mine. My trees are healthy and grow great. I have no issues keeping things watered and its almost impossible to overwater.
I took a crabapple air layer off late fall 2016 that didn't really have enough roots, planted in a large houseplant type pot. When I prepared it for shipping a few months later, it was a dense mat of fine roots, almost reminded me of azalea roots they were so fine.
The crab now lives with @sorce so he'll have to update with the state of its roots and how the tree does long term in DE.
I took a crabapple air layer off late fall 2016 that didn't really have enough roots, planted in a large houseplant type pot. When I prepared it for shipping a few months later, it was a dense mat of fine roots, almost reminded me of azalea roots they were so fine.
The crab now lives with @sorce so he'll have to update with the state of its roots and how the tree does long term in DE.
Gary McCarthy
Chumono
Closest place to me was down in PA. I do get down that way occasionally. Hopefully I'll remember on my next trip
Joe Dupre'
Omono
In Walter Pall's video on substrate , when someone asks what is his exact soil mixture, he puts his open hand to his mouth as if to shout " It does not matter. ........ The plant doesn't care......." Coming from a man with 1000 trees, 40 years of experience, many world class trees, etc. I feel comfortable with his findings. I think Ryan is awesome. But, remember, he studied with ONE master for six years and he has had his own bonsai business for 8 or so years. 15 years vs 40 years for W. Pall. In 40 years, a person can learn what can go wrong................equally as important as what can go right.
Wilson
Masterpiece
Up here perlite breaks down like akadama, doesn't handle the hard freezes. I still use it, it is super cheap, and works well.
PiñonJ
Omono
It’s interesting to think about the mechanism. It doesn’t matter from a practical standpoint, except when you’re looking for a replacement for akadama. Remember, we’re not talking about the akadama breaking down and roots growing around the smaller particles. The roots actually grow right through intact particles prior to breaking them into smaller particles. They have to get through somehow and a fine root hair doesn’t spring into existence fully formed. It starts as a microscopic meristematic cell.
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
Your DE is a bit different than mine....
A little darker...
A little harder it seems.
Sorce
justBonsai
Omono
Fair enough. I would think that the cells propagate from a wider surface equal to a fine root tip cross section as opposed to a small region that progressively expands outwards. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know for certain though.
leatherback
The Treedeemer
Not really. The root has a little cap in front covering the growing tip. So the tip of a root is a number of cells wide..
leatherback
The Treedeemer
I would say you are right. Straight out of the bag the kitty litter stuff is very dry. These are oven dried / baked. So you add water and they start hissing. Like any non waterproof clay pot would when dry. In summer it does not get drier than what sun and wind are able to dry away. Same as with any other inert substrate.
The question is, how well does it draw the water from the centre of the rootball ? The better the substrate distributes moisture, the quicker the core dries out through dispersikn and evaporation. I do not think the interconnectivity of the particles is higher than say akadama.
sparklemotion
Shohin
Do you have a higher resolution version of this image? (and/or a link to the source?) I think that a lot of the SEM imagery being tossed around on this thread is somewhat misleading. For example, the two images in this post have widely different scales:
Here they are at the same scale. DE still looks more "organized" but turface looks a lot less like a solid surface, doesn't it?
For comparison, here is a picture of a root meristem (Arabidopsis, not a tree but I hope you'll allow it). The scale bar is 25 microns. Source.
So, keeping that scale in mind, the root tip is about as wide as the entire DE picture (the small inset in my version) -- it seems unlikely to me that root hairs are going to be fitting into any of the "tube" structures in DE.
That being said, roots break rocks. It's why (along with freeze thaw cycles) we have sand and other smaller rocks instead of just boulders. That's because every rock/mineral will cleave if pressure is applied at the right points -- ask any stone mason (video - money shot at about 6:30). I'm betting that at some scale larger than 10 microns, akadama clay has weak cleavage bonds for some reason, so turgid root tips are able to apply sufficient wedge pressure (as opposed to say, needing huge iron wedges, as in the granite video).
justBonsai
Omono
Thank you for those images, @sparklemotion. I am fairly certain the division and breaking of akadama pieces is NOT attributed to roots entering tiny tubes which are then expanded and fractured by growing roots. I agree with your hypothesis that there is some interaction at the macro level that allows the unfired akadama to split apart.
Those SEM images of akadama are terribly small and do not show anything. Looks like there's some networking and structure present but the scale bar is unreadable.
Another thing to clarify is that the SEM image of the diatomaceous earth is depicting a diatom. One diatom. One of many shapes diatoms come in. It just so happened that diatom has a cylindrical tube like structure but is not indicative of DE as a whole. Also diatoms are immensely small. Some down to 2 microns in size meaning those tubes and networking are even smaller.
Again I am not doubting Ryan on his method or results. I am confident it is how he says. Except he want to present his information in a scientific manner. He's big on explaining and showing why things work instead of just telling people this is the way and because I said it it's right. I respect Ryan for that. But if he's going to engage in a scientific discussion it means to share knowledge and test ideas. If he just wants to blindly preach I can't respect him for that but I don't think he's doing that. He explains things best to his knowledge and openly admits areas he lacks it in.
As viewers though we should engage in discussion to further the horticultural science and ultimately further the art of bonsai. Not blindly listen and condemn others when they say new or conflicting ideas. Discussion can be so valuable but all I see on the different Facebook groups is people parroting the same conventions and putting down anyone who says otherwise. Admittedly some new comers did not put in their research and are asking dumb questions they could of solved on their own. The bigger picture I'm getting at is the kind of attitude we want to foster to help grow and develop the bonsai community.
Also as someone who has been fairly involved in the scientific community the past few years and have seen people work their ass off with insane hours to test, prove, and share their ideas. If you're going to claim the title of science and start using for itself then you better respect how science is built and works. Doing otherwise is an affront to the whole scientific community.
I did find my SEM images of pumice. I am fairly certain akadama is a pumice derived material. Some geological process I don't have any knowledge in transformed it into akadama. Let's just assume though that akadama does bear a similar networked porous structure as pumice. You look at the images yourself and measure the tunnel size with the scale bar. Compare that to the root meristem @sparklemotion shared and you'll quickly realize that the roots are at best barely the size of the opening with most tunnels significantly smaller than the roots. I think there is too much emphasis on the tube structure Ryan mentioned and may be misguiding. It's good that we are looking into the interaction between roots and soil though. Good understanding of the fundamental science can bring out techniques that may help us with bonsai.
Those SEM images of akadama are terribly small and do not show anything. Looks like there's some networking and structure present but the scale bar is unreadable.
Another thing to clarify is that the SEM image of the diatomaceous earth is depicting a diatom. One diatom. One of many shapes diatoms come in. It just so happened that diatom has a cylindrical tube like structure but is not indicative of DE as a whole. Also diatoms are immensely small. Some down to 2 microns in size meaning those tubes and networking are even smaller.
Again I am not doubting Ryan on his method or results. I am confident it is how he says. Except he want to present his information in a scientific manner. He's big on explaining and showing why things work instead of just telling people this is the way and because I said it it's right. I respect Ryan for that. But if he's going to engage in a scientific discussion it means to share knowledge and test ideas. If he just wants to blindly preach I can't respect him for that but I don't think he's doing that. He explains things best to his knowledge and openly admits areas he lacks it in.
As viewers though we should engage in discussion to further the horticultural science and ultimately further the art of bonsai. Not blindly listen and condemn others when they say new or conflicting ideas. Discussion can be so valuable but all I see on the different Facebook groups is people parroting the same conventions and putting down anyone who says otherwise. Admittedly some new comers did not put in their research and are asking dumb questions they could of solved on their own. The bigger picture I'm getting at is the kind of attitude we want to foster to help grow and develop the bonsai community.
Also as someone who has been fairly involved in the scientific community the past few years and have seen people work their ass off with insane hours to test, prove, and share their ideas. If you're going to claim the title of science and start using for itself then you better respect how science is built and works. Doing otherwise is an affront to the whole scientific community.
I did find my SEM images of pumice. I am fairly certain akadama is a pumice derived material. Some geological process I don't have any knowledge in transformed it into akadama. Let's just assume though that akadama does bear a similar networked porous structure as pumice. You look at the images yourself and measure the tunnel size with the scale bar. Compare that to the root meristem @sparklemotion shared and you'll quickly realize that the roots are at best barely the size of the opening with most tunnels significantly smaller than the roots. I think there is too much emphasis on the tube structure Ryan mentioned and may be misguiding. It's good that we are looking into the interaction between roots and soil though. Good understanding of the fundamental science can bring out techniques that may help us with bonsai.
jriddell88
Omono
I am no geologist, maybe a therorist lol
But maybe unfired akadama , a material from the earth , is soft , and some particles being constantly compressed and weighted down by rough, stone like harder materials , and water constantly being absorbed and contracted from these particles make in split and break down ?????? Hmmmm??????????????
But maybe unfired akadama , a material from the earth , is soft , and some particles being constantly compressed and weighted down by rough, stone like harder materials , and water constantly being absorbed and contracted from these particles make in split and break down ?????? Hmmmm??????????????
jriddell88
Omono
Doubt it
Steve21
Sapling
This, in addition to markyscott’s soil reference post, is the most grown up soil thread in history. Well done team ?
jriddell88
Omono
Getting together. ? storming , sharing information, the way it should be
Tou che
I don’t partake in the arguments , and try not to start any ✌?, (unless it’s about the global warning all the Europeans are causing , or politics )
Tou che
I don’t partake in the arguments , and try not to start any ✌?, (unless it’s about the global warning all the Europeans are causing , or politics )
