Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by MorpheusPA » December 1st, 2020, 5:22 pm

That iron availability link won't work. Let's try this one:

Or not. Use the image.

http://ucanr.edu/sites/Salinity/files/247732display.png

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by Masbustelo » December 1st, 2020, 9:09 pm

Morpheus Thanks for taking the time to write all that. It will take me a while to digest it all.

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by edslawn » December 1st, 2020, 10:30 pm

MorpheusPA wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 5:14 pm
OK, then. Get used to the sidenotes and Fun Facts. I'll put them in parenthetical statements so you can skip them if you want.

Iron's just weird...
Great information that really helps me better understand the OM relationship to iron.

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by MorpheusPA » December 2nd, 2020, 12:27 am

edslawn wrote:
December 1st, 2020, 10:30 pm
Great information that really helps me better understand the OM relationship to iron.
I didn't really take a deeper dive into that because it's late in the chain--when the OM becomes a longer-chain fulvate to a humate, then the connection comes into play. Those have the ability to connect and attract iron ions to them and hold them (at least somewhat) against other attractions in play in the soil solution.

In and of itself, raw OM does not, at least not to that extent. Simpler molecules rarely have much ability to attract or hold large numbers of other ions to any great extent (although water is a rarity in that, in droplet form, it's all holding itself together via electromagnetic forces due to the oddball shape of the molecule and the dipolar form of it).

There's a lot of deep diving to do on the relationships of OM to longer-chain carbon molecules that eventually degrade to fulvates and down to humates eventually.

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by Masbustelo » December 2nd, 2020, 2:27 am

Is there a relatively simple answer regarding the timeline converting organic matter to fulvates to humates?


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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by MorpheusPA » December 2nd, 2020, 3:25 am

Masbustelo wrote:
December 2nd, 2020, 2:27 am
Is there a relatively simple answer regarding the timeline converting organic matter to fulvates to humates?
Eh, I'm still up. I just started "Flight 7500" since I'm not tired yet and I'm working on the start of a desert stone arch. This is particularly amusing because the primary colors used for desert paintings are in the ochre family (red ochre, yellow ochre, all the sienna and umber tones, and so on), and all these are based on ferric oxides (and some other oxides, but that's besides the point right now). Which is exactly what we're discussing. Most of the other tones are the modern Mars pigments, which are also crystalline iron derivatives invented in the 20th century. I'm using Mars red, Mars yellow, and...well, I could use Mars black, but I tend to prefer carbon black for aesthetic reasons. Just a fun side note on how the iron compounds in the ground end up in art, on walls... Ask me about my philosophy of earth tones, sometime.

But as to your question, regrettably, no. Although there's also a morphological issue (linguistically speaking) there in that humates and fulvates ARE organic matter. :-) But while soybean meal is also organic matter, it contains no humates or fulvates as of yet. Or not that I know of, anyway. I knew what you meant, but just to clear it up.

Decay cycles take...as long as they take. Two weeks to two years will see a compost pile relatively stable depending on handling of it. If you really work at it and hit the mix right, two weeks will see it stabilized enough for use...barely. There's nothing high-energy left. You may be in the very short fulvate range, but somebody would have to check, and I have my doubts on that.

A pile of branches and leaves in the woods somewhere that fell in that spot? It could take a hundred years (https://twinenviro.com/2019/10/11/how-l ... -decompose ) The same article states that lettuce takes 25 years to decay--it's just not that unstable, apparently. Coulda fooled me, I can't keep a head of the stuff good in my fridge for 2 weeks.

Recent studies have shown that once they get there, stable and stabile (they're rather abstract and freestanding little molecules and I couldn't resist the pun) humates stay in place for a long, long time. We used to think residency was on-order decades. We now think centuries. That's bad news in terms of the carbon cycle in that surface cycling must be much faster than we had hoped it was. This also means that less of what we're adding is actually going to long-term humates than we may have thought.

That's not a problem. We still gain all the benefits of more OM along the way, even if the ultimate result is that most of what we're adding is going to burn off to water and CO2 and other basic chemicals in a century or so. And some percentage will still go to humates, even if it's small.

I've been updating some of my thinking in light of that information and adjusting calculated inputs, but I need my next set of soil tests with OM results. I am extremely fortunate; I started with tapped-out ag land, completely collapsed soil, and an OM so low it was disgusting. If it's there, it's 'cause I put it there--or the lawn did. I know what I added.

I simply never got around to testing in 2020 what with the whole disaster area the year turned out to be. So far, 2021 isn't looking that great, either. But we'll see. If I can get the stuff out without risking zombification, I'll try. :-)

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by andy10917 » December 2nd, 2020, 7:50 am

Hey, all -- my intention when I created this thread was to encourage threads on topics that might get a bit deeper than is typical when we're all running around during the Busy Season. Unfortunately, it's become a mish-mosh of random stuff - even though there is good discussion material here.

Discussion topics that are random and contain mixed material lose value quickly, as they are harder to search months or year later.

Please open new topics/threads on what you'd like to discuss in-depth, instead of tacking it on the end of this thread.

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by MorpheusPA » December 2nd, 2020, 2:24 pm

So we shouldn't deeply discuss the idea of opening new threads to discuss things here, because I feel that has deep and lasting psychological impact... :-)

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by Masbustelo » December 2nd, 2020, 8:13 pm

I'm now hesitant to post anything else in this thread.

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Re: Longer/Deeper Topics for Off-Season?

Post by MorpheusPA » December 2nd, 2020, 8:54 pm

Just make a new thread with the question, I guess.

I feel we need a new forum, "Deep Thoughts," for stuff like this.

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