Scrixx
Seedling
Hello all, it's been about 9 months since I've made a post.
This is continuing my post from before. I ended up doing an experiment to get the values. I have since gotten more soil components and will be repotting my plants this spring. I let them grow out last year when I got them. Expect more posts from me with my trees!
Particle size are 1/8"-3/16"
Terms:
AFP - air filled porosity - percentage of the soil that's air
WHC - water holding capacity - percentage of the soil that's water
My thoughts on this:
My initial soil mix was 3 pumice:3 lava rock:1 Diatomaceous earth(DE) :1 forest products(FP). It gave 24% AFP and 32% WHC. Total porosity was 56%, AFP was beautiful but the WHC was too low. I added another portion of DE and FP. Making the mix 3:3:2:2, but that shot the porosity down to 11% which is not good at all but increased WHC to 43%.
I believe the problem is that my DE is smaller than the rest of the components despite being sifted to 1/8"-3/16". It filled the spaces between the other components and ruined the porosity in exchange for 43% WHC. If I were able to get larger DE I think it would keep the porosity higher and increase WHC. Since I don't have that, I'll be sticking to my initial mix of 3:3:1:1. I considered adding more forest products but I did not want very much organics in my mix and I don't even know what it is. Just that it looks to be about 70% bark. So I erred on the side of caution. I used it to up the WHC a bit.
Thoughts? I'd like to up the WHC more but adding DE will ruin my porosity. What can be done to increase WHC?
Another interesting thing is the DE. It's Napa #8822. The AFP is 16% and the WHC is 43%. 16% AFP is a little low but the WHC is actually good. Maybe this is why some people have success in 100% DE? It's not perfect but it provides quite an acceptable AFP/WHC.
The pumice and lava rock are actually very similar. I heard lava rock is suppose to retain more water than pumice. Though maybe my pumice is weird or not really pumice? I heard pumice is suppose to float but mine do not. Not sure but what I get from this is that they're pretty interchangeable.
Special disclaimers:
I'm just a guy and this was a backyard/garage experiment.
Don't expect perfect results but they're good enough as rough guidelines.
Old topic:
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/diatomaceous-earth-c-e-c-and-whc.27494/#post-451971
This is continuing my post from before. I ended up doing an experiment to get the values. I have since gotten more soil components and will be repotting my plants this spring. I let them grow out last year when I got them. Expect more posts from me with my trees!
Particle size are 1/8"-3/16"
Terms:
AFP - air filled porosity - percentage of the soil that's air
WHC - water holding capacity - percentage of the soil that's water
My thoughts on this:
My initial soil mix was 3 pumice:3 lava rock:1 Diatomaceous earth(DE) :1 forest products(FP). It gave 24% AFP and 32% WHC. Total porosity was 56%, AFP was beautiful but the WHC was too low. I added another portion of DE and FP. Making the mix 3:3:2:2, but that shot the porosity down to 11% which is not good at all but increased WHC to 43%.
I believe the problem is that my DE is smaller than the rest of the components despite being sifted to 1/8"-3/16". It filled the spaces between the other components and ruined the porosity in exchange for 43% WHC. If I were able to get larger DE I think it would keep the porosity higher and increase WHC. Since I don't have that, I'll be sticking to my initial mix of 3:3:1:1. I considered adding more forest products but I did not want very much organics in my mix and I don't even know what it is. Just that it looks to be about 70% bark. So I erred on the side of caution. I used it to up the WHC a bit.
Thoughts? I'd like to up the WHC more but adding DE will ruin my porosity. What can be done to increase WHC?
Another interesting thing is the DE. It's Napa #8822. The AFP is 16% and the WHC is 43%. 16% AFP is a little low but the WHC is actually good. Maybe this is why some people have success in 100% DE? It's not perfect but it provides quite an acceptable AFP/WHC.
The pumice and lava rock are actually very similar. I heard lava rock is suppose to retain more water than pumice. Though maybe my pumice is weird or not really pumice? I heard pumice is suppose to float but mine do not. Not sure but what I get from this is that they're pretty interchangeable.
Special disclaimers:
I'm just a guy and this was a backyard/garage experiment.
Don't expect perfect results but they're good enough as rough guidelines.
Old topic:
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/diatomaceous-earth-c-e-c-and-whc.27494/#post-451971