Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #63 - Living Soil Deep Dive | Tad Hussey [KIS Organics]

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#63 - Living Soil Deep Dive | Tad Hussey [KIS Organics] · The Shed Organics Show

0:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Shed
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Organics Show today. Wow, another incredible guest,
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somebody who I've looked up to for quite a few years, someone
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who also hosts a fabulous podcast on the science and
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cultivation of medicinal plants and really dives into some of
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the topics that I just, you know, they're just a deep dive
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down so many of these different areas to understand the
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complexities of soil and of health and plant health and all
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of these different things. And that person is Ted Hussey
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that we're joined by today from Kiss Organics, Keep it Simple
0:41
Organics over in the United States.
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I'm a huge fan of his, as I've said, and to be able to sit down
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with him and to pick his brain on a few topics that have been
0:51
interesting me lately was a real privilege.
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And it's something that, look, I was just so excited during this
0:59
conversation. I kept jumping around to
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different questions. So I apologize in advance if you
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kind of hear me go off down all these different directions.
1:06
My brain was just running with all of these different
1:08
questions. And when I've got someone who
1:11
I'm so excited to talk to and just find out so much about, I
1:15
just can't help but rattle off on these questions.
1:18
So I really appreciate you being patient with me and Tad being
1:22
patient with me and all my different questions.
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But there's so much value in here in such a short space of
1:27
time that I know this is another one for the notepads to come
1:31
out. So without mucking around too
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much, I'd love to get into this conversation and at the end,
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stick around because I'm going to share with you how you can
1:41
connect with the wonderful things that Tad has got going on
1:44
and how you can find some of the cool episodes on his podcast
1:48
that we talk about as well. So here it is.
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Here's the conversation with the incredible Tad Hussey from Kiss
1:55
Organics. Yeah, that's actually really
2:13
timely because I was working on a podcast and I realized that
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this is this is probably going to be published a little ways
2:20
down the road, but I don't know if you heard that Doctor Elaine
2:24
Ingham passed away. Yeah, terribly.
2:28
We're, we're recording this mid to end of February, just for
2:31
context for listeners. And I had been working on a
2:35
podcast talking about the soil food web.
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And I was also working, I, I was working on a post talking about
2:44
cognitive biases, which is something that Bryant Mason, the
2:48
soil doctor, he, he did a recent post talking about that.
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And, and so it got me thinking about where I first started in
2:56
the industry with compost tea. So my father was one of the very
3:01
first soul food web advisors. And when I came into the
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industry, I mean, I grew up around plants.
3:07
My parents owned inertia and landscape business my entire
3:10
life, but I didn't really understand how they grew.
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I didn't go to school initially at that time, at least for
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botany or for, you know, plant Physiology or horticulture.
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So it was all, it was all kind of new to me.
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And so the only context I had was this was the soil food web,
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what I had learned from from Doctor Ingham.
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And so I had this cognitive bias towards soil biology.
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I think that skewed my perspective a little bit.
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And it wasn't until I started learning about minerals and soil
3:45
testing that I feel like I really, and, and it was hard
3:49
because for a while there I just, I thought, you know,
3:52
compost would save the world. It was this message we'd gotten
3:55
from the Rodale Rodale Industry Institute since I think the 70s.
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And it was, it was this real big mind shift for me to learn about
4:07
all the different aspects of agronomy and how to merge the
4:14
the importance and beneficial effects of microbes and nutrient
4:20
cycling in organics with minerals and nutrition and how
4:25
they work together to really fully complete an organic
4:28
system, if that makes. Sense yes yeah, yeah, yeah it
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definitely So what do you believe now then in regards to
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that because I totally agree with that like the bias because
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you know you tend to learn something and then especially
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with someone so prominent as Doctor Elaine when you see these
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ideas and you know I'm guilty of it as well.
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We regurgitate almost or re you know spread all of these things
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and then more and more people in our circles are starting to talk
4:59
about them. So then I hear that same message
5:02
reinforced many times and we may be overlooking something, we may
5:08
be simplifying it a slightly too much.
5:12
So talk to me about that relationship then quickly with
5:16
the minerals as well and bringing in the nutrition
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because there is, you can have a soil test that is either, you
5:23
know, it can be really good with all the numbers in the minerals.
5:27
But if you don't have the biology working in the way that
5:30
it should, then we're not going to be getting access to those
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minerals. Is that kind of along the lines
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of what you're thinking? It is, but when I think about it
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from the perspective of as a cultivator, I guess, or is it
5:48
even just a home gardener now, what do I really control in all
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of this and what kind of behaviors do I have in terms of
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how I treat my soil or how I treat my plants?
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And that's where I think the soil test really comes in handy
6:00
because the soil test tells us exactly what minerals are
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present in our soil. What minerals are going to the
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plant is going to have access to the amounts of nitrogen,
6:08
phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, you know, all of the
6:11
sulfur. And these are the minerals that
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create the biomass of the plant, the leaf tissue.
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They're the ones that really control what the plant has
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access to as a resource for secondary metabolite production.
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So if we want terpene expansion, you know, the smell and the odor
6:30
or the taste of a, of a vegetable, we have to have that
6:34
secondary metabolite production occurring.
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And as an organic gardener, as someone who grew up with a, a
6:41
family that believes in like regenerative agriculture and
6:44
organic practices, I'm already doing going to be doing those
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things. They're going to promote
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microbial life. You know, I'm going to keep the
6:53
soil evenly moist. I'm going to, you know,
6:56
outdoors, I'm going to be mulching and adding organic
6:59
matter and, you know, planting pollinator crops to encourage
7:06
beneficial insects, you know, all of these things that I would
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do. So for me, I, the, the soil test
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is really that key piece of information that allows me to
7:17
make decisions about my garden. Because if, if the soil has good
7:23
mineral content, the, the micro, it's, it's a food minerals are
7:27
essentially microbe foods. So at least on the organic side.
7:30
So if we have sufficient minerals there, the microbes are
7:34
going to show up to eat it, provided, you know, you're using
7:37
decent compost, you've, you're, you're maintaining A moisture
7:41
level and a temperature in your soil that they like.
7:43
So I don't see the soil food web is giving me a lot of actionable
7:49
data in terms of how I manage my garden, but I do see it as
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something that I know is going to be there and it's something I
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want to promote. So maybe I utilize compost teas,
7:59
maybe I add specific commercial microbial inoculants.
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Maybe there's a, you know, those bio pesticides that we can use
8:06
like Bavaria and this area that are specific for pest control.
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So there's a lot of ways we can utilize microbes when thinking
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about the soil, food web and thinking about organic gardening
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that allow us to be a little bit more targeted and precise.
8:22
OK, that makes a lot of sense. And I want to touch on the soil
8:26
testing because you've done probably an ungodly amount of
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soil testing on all sorts of different things over the years,
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right. And not obviously not just your
8:39
your own working on products and trying to develop living soil to
8:43
be able to sell to people because that's a whole nother
8:46
kettle of fish in itself, isn't it?
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Because you want to bring it to market.
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It's all of these different things that you go try and get
8:51
consistency with inputs and all sorts.
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We were talking to Matt from Easy as Organics a little bit on
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that collaboration and how trying to get something that
9:00
will work that you can give that is replicatable and can last
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with all the nutrients in it and the biology in it for a cycle or
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whatever it is seems like a big task.
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But going back to just soil testing in general, if you were
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handed a soil test straight, you know, from my soil, if I handed
9:21
you my soil test immediately, what are the first few things
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that you're looking at or I should be looking at to try and
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really understand the the context of which my soil is
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coming from? Yeah, that's a great question
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and topic because I think, I think it's one thing to get a
9:40
soil test, it's another thing to actually understand it.
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And a lot of people feel intimidated by soil tests, which
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I know I was when I first started, when I first looked at
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just a bunch of numbers, you know, without having targets.
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It's very confusing. I will caution people, I've put
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these numbers into AI and it's given me some wild answers.
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So for those of you that think that AI is there yet on soil
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testing analysis, I would just warn you we're not quite there
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yet. As far as what to look for.
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I think there's one thing we have to discuss first, which is
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that actual soils and what we're calling living soil these days.
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So you know, based or cocoa based media is not, it is not
10:24
truly soil that's actually a soil less media.
10:27
So even though we call it living soil, it's technically from an
10:31
agronomic definition or a soil scientist, they'd say that's,
10:33
that's potting soil, that's soil less media and it has very
10:37
different properties and different targets than you would
10:41
have for actual soil, which is sand, silt and clay.
10:45
So that's an important distinction.
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And then I then you want to think about, you know, is this
10:51
for outdoor or is this for controlled environment
10:53
agriculture? Am I growing in a raised bed
10:56
with potting soil or am I growing in situ like in the
10:59
ground in a field or is this for my ornamental landscape?
11:04
All of those things are going to have different targets.
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And so understanding that I think is really important.
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But when we look at an actual soil test, it would just the
11:13
numbers on a test two things. So the first thing I'm going to
11:19
look at is what do I think is the limiting factor of growth?
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And that's the most important thing.
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I think as a gardener, we should always have in the back of our
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head you're, you're a detective, like you're always trying to
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figure out what can I improve in my garden.
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And in this case, we're talking specifically about fertility.
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But if that plants not getting enough light or you're
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underwatering it, it doesn't matter how perfect your soil
11:40
test looks. Your plant is the limiting
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factor of growth is somewhere else.
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So I apply that same mentality to the soil test itself when it
11:49
comes to fertility. So the first thing that I look
11:52
at on a soil test is pH. Now, I've heard people say
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inorganics pH doesn't matter. You know, you can throw away
12:00
your pH pen and unfortunately that's not totally accurate.
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I think in a lot of cases people get away with not having to use
12:09
or worry about pH as much because of the buffering
12:12
capacity of soil and then potting mixes, inorganic
12:16
systems. But if we want to make it easier
12:19
for the plant to uptake nutrients, if we want to reduce
12:22
the uptake of heavy metals, we can control all of these things
12:26
by manipulating pH or have being in the right pH window window.
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And it's a wide range. It's a higher range than you
12:34
would get for, you know, salt growers, but it is it is still a
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range. And so that's the very first
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thing I look at because you can think of it like this, like if
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the plant has to work harder to access its nutrients, then that
12:47
energy is being diverted from something that could be a lot
12:51
more productive, like putting on biomass or like we talked about,
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you know, secondary metabolite production.
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Yeah, true. I've seen a lot of people that
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might have, you know, they might have all the right minerals
13:04
available in the soil and all of this kind of thing.
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But then when they're going to, when they're getting that test
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or say, for example, they, they get a test because their plants
13:13
aren't performing so well and they go, but I've got all the
13:16
minerals here present on the test.
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And it's like, well, yes. But then the pH, the actual
13:22
environment that the soil is within is just not conducive for
13:27
those plants to be able to access those minerals or the
13:30
microbes to do their job. And if we're adding, then
13:33
people, you know, tend to add lots of stuff or they'll add
13:35
compost that they'll add in in these, you know, fish or
13:39
whatever. And a lot of these things can be
13:41
acidic, right? So you're, you're even pushing
13:43
the pH even further out of whack.
13:46
So yeah, I know pH is definitely one that's that's probably
13:50
something to be looking at. Do you look much at the say,
13:54
calcium magnesium ratio as well for soil structure?
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I do, but the, so like I said, the first thing I would probably
14:04
look at and, and when I say that I'm talking about a complete
14:07
soil test specifically, I, I'm familiar with the ones from
14:10
Logan Labs here in the United States, which is a Maleic 3
14:14
test. So it's an acid extraction that
14:16
sort of tells you all of what's in the soil, but not what's
14:19
available right now. And then a paste test, which is
14:23
water extraction. So what kind of comes out right
14:26
at the moment, This is what the plant can kind of see at the
14:28
moment. So between those two tests, you
14:32
get a real good idea, a really holistic picture of what what
14:36
the plant can get right now for nutrients and what's coming down
14:39
the road. So like I said, pH is the first
14:41
thing I look at. Then probably the next thing is
14:45
I look at the soluble salt level.
14:47
That's sort of the EC. So these are things you can do
14:50
without a salt test. This is just if you have a combo
14:53
meter, you know, you can look at EC and you can look at pH and I
14:56
have people do that. Those things don't tell you what
15:00
makes up the fertility in your soil, but it can give you a
15:05
rough idea of where you're at if you're low on fertility or high.
15:08
So those are, that's the first thing I look at because if
15:12
you're, if you're EC or your PPMS of soluble salts are really
15:16
high, that plant may have a tough time accessing water and
15:20
nutrients due to the salt pressure.
15:22
And again, when I say salt, I'm talking about mineral salts, not
15:25
sodium. I think people need to make sure
15:27
they understand the difference there.
15:31
And then after that I probably look at sodium and chlorides and
15:35
I think that's a big one for Australia because you guys are
15:39
so hot, you end up, it's very hard to keep sodium down.
15:47
You have very high salinity in your soils and that brings on a
15:51
whole nother set of challenges that raises your pH and it
15:53
raises your EC without bringing in anything beneficial to the
15:58
plant. And and you mentioned, you know,
16:02
if you have some, you know, all these minerals that are there in
16:05
abundance, but you're still not seeing a happy plant.
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The next thing I look at is chlorides.
16:12
Chlorides, your plant needs a little bit of chlorides for some
16:15
physiological processes, but too high of chlorides.
16:19
That's where I see a lot of people get in trouble with just
16:23
poor vigor. They may see weird, you know,
16:28
chlorosis or necrosis on the leaf, the plants just not not
16:32
yielding the way we want. I think a lot of that is a lot
16:36
of times we see torso tests that are really high in chloride.
16:38
So again, this is limiting factor perspective.
16:41
Those are the first few things I look at and then I from there I
16:46
jumped in nitrogen. Nitrogen is one of the hardest
16:50
mineral elements to to see because we have three pools
16:54
essentially. We have, we have, we have
16:58
nitrates and we have, we have ammonia.
17:02
And then we have organic nitrogen, which is that pool of
17:06
nitrogen that we can't see that's locked up in the organic
17:09
matter or the cellular walls of the microorganisms in the soil.
17:13
And so we're always guessing a little bit of nitrogen.
17:15
But looking at the soil test, I can usually say, OK, this plant
17:20
ran out of nitrogen. And that's a very visual, easy
17:22
thing to see with any plant because it's a mobile nutrient.
17:26
So if you have yellowing, starting at the bottom of the
17:28
plant and working its way up, you're probably low in nitrogen.
17:32
Whereas on the flip side, when you're too high on nitrogen,
17:35
you're going to have weird inter nodal spacing.
17:39
Your plants going to be more susceptible to pests and
17:42
pathogens, and your yields are going to go way down.
17:45
You're going to have a dark green plant or some people talk
17:47
about the claw, you may have heard.
17:49
So nitrogen is probably the next thing I look at to really manage
17:53
tightly after those things. Now I start looking at calcium,
17:58
magnesium, potassium. Interesting to see where we're
18:01
at there. So that's my order of jumping
18:05
around that's. Perfect.
18:06
No, that's really good. That's helpful because I think
18:09
you know, especially something like nitrogen, I, I understand
18:14
that it's because it's the first one on of all of our basic NPK
18:18
fertilizers and everyone's looking for that N value.
18:21
And it's, and so many people in, in agriculture are, you know,
18:25
spending so much money on nitrogen and just managing your
18:29
nitrogen better can have so much effect on how much you've got to
18:34
spend on your inputs and all these types of things.
18:37
And it also shuts down so many of the other minerals if you've
18:39
overdone it or or underdone it and things like this as well,
18:43
from what I understand at least. And bring it back to Doctor
18:47
Elaine. I was listening to her chat to
18:50
Matt Powers on on a video a while back and she was saying
18:55
how in like the weeds and the the weeds that we have thriving
19:02
on the high nitrate nitrogen in the soil and how if we've got a
19:06
low level of ammonium nitrate in there and the balance is all she
19:10
sort of does this and it's all out of whack, then we're going
19:13
to be growing more weeds and we're not going to be, you know,
19:16
facilitating the right ammonium nitrogen that we need in there
19:19
for the plant. So she says to try and bring
19:21
that back down to what's a 5050. And I hadn't thought about
19:27
managing nitrogen like that before.
19:29
I hadn't even considered, you know, trying to really hone in
19:34
on the different types of nitrogen, understanding where
19:37
like who in the soil, food web and how these things are changed
19:41
from atmospheric nitrogen or change the form of nitrogen.
19:45
It's something that I really struggled to understand at
19:49
first, but starting to wrap my head around.
19:51
It has given me so much clarity with everything else in terms of
19:55
what I do. I want to bring it, if I can,
19:59
into compost, right? Because as you mentioned
20:04
earlier, we've we've heard that compost can cure everything and
20:07
it's the magic bullet for, for organics and.
20:13
I know that yes, we can use that very effectively.
20:16
We can use teas, we can use extracts, we can inoculate with
20:20
compost. We can just bring in so much
20:22
life and fertility. But is there an upper ceiling on
20:28
compost use? Is there too much?
20:30
Is there a way that if we even had a really top quality
20:34
compost, is there a way that we've overdone the compost in a
20:39
in a living Sol system or organics?
20:44
Yeah, absolutely. I want to go back really quickly
20:47
to your comments around nitrogen, though, just to give a
20:51
little different perspective on ammonium versus nitrate.
20:56
Oh, please. Yeah.
20:57
Because, and I haven't, I haven't heard Doctor Ingham's
21:03
stuff in all in quite a while. It's probably, it's been well
21:06
over a decade. So to be fair, I'm a little out
21:08
of touch there. But it is true that certain
21:11
plants prefer a a specific form of nitrogen, whether that's
21:16
ammonium or that's nitrate. However, for a lot of the like
21:19
medical plants for example, that people are growing those, those
21:23
plants tend to prefer their nitrogen in the form of nitrate.
21:25
So we would focus on nitrates and when ammonium gets too high,
21:31
not only does ammonium push pH up, but it also typically is a
21:36
sign of unfinished compost or soil that's going to be too hot
21:42
to plant in temperature wise as that nitrogen is cycling from
21:47
ammonium to nitrite to nitrate. So it's I just want to say it's
21:52
complicated. I don't think people need to get
21:54
too stuck in the weeds as to form of nitrogen.
21:59
If you're especially as an organic grower really there, I
22:03
think the importance is to just make sure that you're hitting
22:08
again, we we only look at nitrates and if we see ammonium
22:11
above a a certain level and that's a very low threshold.
22:14
We know that that's an amount of a nitrogen that's going to cycle
22:18
the nitrates over the next few weeks if soil temperatures are
22:22
high enough. But it also means that we may
22:25
not want to plant into it. Right away, right.
22:28
OK, that makes. A lot careful with that.
22:31
Thank you for clearing that up because yeah, that's I, I mean,
22:34
I, like I said, I'm just what I heard this video, I have to send
22:37
it to you so that you can have a little look.
22:38
But yeah, I just heard it and I thought, oh, that's really
22:41
interesting. I hadn't thought of it like
22:42
that. So to get more context around it
22:45
is really important. So thank you for that.
22:48
Let's do the compost. Yeah.
22:51
OK, I was going to touch on Ryzovia too.
22:55
So, but yeah, we can, we can jump over to compost.
22:58
So yes, you can grow a plant in straight compost.
23:03
Absolutely. It's not optimal though for a
23:06
few reasons. One, because when we talk about
23:10
soil in general or just media for plants, there's really three
23:14
things we're looking at. We're looking at the physical
23:17
properties of it. So does it have good gas
23:19
exchange area to actually support the roots?
23:22
And well, some composts do. In general, I think having
23:28
something with lower organic matter content would would offer
23:34
you a little bit better physical properties.
23:37
And then the biological properties, that's where compost
23:39
really excels. High quality compost is going to
23:43
have good biological properties, so you don't really have to
23:45
worry about that. And then chemical properties.
23:48
So that's the minerals in the soil.
23:50
Those are the three things I look at when I think about how
23:52
do I create a soil or look at the soil.
23:55
And on that side, I think you have to be very careful with
23:59
compost because I've seen composts that are very high in
24:02
potassium, very high in nitrogen, very high in chlorides
24:06
or sodium. And so it may not be optimal in
24:09
that regard. Also, I think people don't
24:13
realize it, but if you are trying to grow to like a
24:17
pharmaceutical standard or even just for your garden, compost is
24:21
probably the most contaminating input that you have into that
24:26
from an organic gardening perspective.
24:28
It's going to be bringing in heavy metals.
24:30
If if they used post consumer waste, like if they collected
24:34
yard waste and made compost out of it, it's it's probably got
24:37
some micro plastics in there from the bags of the that the
24:41
food waste got put into. It's probably got some PFAS, you
24:45
know, those forever chemicals that that take a while to
24:47
breakdown or may not ever breakdown.
24:51
It can contain antibiotics, it can contain certain herbicides
24:55
that may, that don't necessarily break down during the composting
24:58
process. So yes, you can use more
25:01
compost. You can grow in straight
25:03
compost, but I, if I'm creating a living soil, you know, potting
25:07
soil, then I tend to try to limit my compost to around 15%
25:12
of my Total Media. And that's a combination of worm
25:16
castings and compost. And so I and this that's sort of
25:20
my philosophy behind why. So then with your percentage, I
25:27
know you said you use some worm castings and some compost.
25:33
I've generally gone with the sort of that sort of style
25:36
myself as well. Mixed a little bit of compost,
25:38
mixed a little bit of worm castings.
25:40
I've got my aeration component and then I've also got like a
25:45
what we call a base, what I call a base sort of thing where I'm
25:48
using like a peat of some sort. Now, if so, I've heard like for
25:56
example, with compost in like in a raised bed.
26:00
So a lot of people that I that listen to the show grow in
26:03
raised beds. They've got their vegetable
26:05
garden, things like this outside now constantly adding in this
26:10
compost on top that, you know, Charles Dowding, all these
26:15
people, they're saying, you know, you just add a thin layer
26:17
of compost a couple of times every season.
26:20
And it's sort of that's you're adding back in some organic
26:24
matter and adding in your microbes and things like this.
26:26
And, and that's kind of all you need to do.
26:28
But what I've found is that over time, this organic matter seems
26:34
to kind of compress and like really squish down and, and sort
26:39
of become this organic pancake of just organic matter that's
26:45
compressed. Now when we do these things in,
26:49
in grow bags or like indoors, whatever it may be, we can set
26:53
up the aeration so it's throughout the entire medium.
26:57
And I, and I sometimes try and suggest that to people if
26:59
they're setting up beds to try and get some sort of aeration
27:02
throughout the entire medium. And yes, we've got compost that
27:07
has different levels of, you know, things in it.
27:10
It's got sticks and, and all sorts of stuff that's slowly
27:13
breaking down and provide some aeration.
27:15
But eventually it's all going to turn to nothing.
27:18
So have you, my question is, have you seen that first and
27:23
foremost of that, of that gradual compression and sinking
27:27
and and squashing of all the organic matter and then talk to
27:33
me about different ways of aerating and building aeration
27:37
into soil both. Obviously when we create it
27:41
yourself like you have, we've created a product all the way
27:44
through to in ground, trying to make sure there's enough
27:46
aeration in there as well. Yeah, absolutely.
27:52
So you brought up sort of two things here that are happening.
27:56
So when you have compost, it's it's or organic matter and high
28:01
levels, it's slowly breaking down to humus, which is this
28:05
wonderful material. It's very high cation exchange
28:08
capacity. And really all humus is is just
28:12
material organic matter that is virtually indistinguishable,
28:16
unidentifiable under a microscope.
28:19
So I can't tell if, you know, under a microscope that used to
28:23
be a dead raccoon or was an old shoe like you can't tell.
28:27
So that's essentially what humus is.
28:29
And humus has a it's, it's a very stable, has a lot of stable
28:32
properties, typically good fertility.
28:36
And it's something that that is happening.
28:39
But what you're describing, while this is happening, this
28:42
breakdown of organic matter, what you're seeing more of here
28:45
is really just the increase in bulk density.
28:48
So that material, like you said, it's just shrinking, it's
28:50
getting more compressed over time.
28:53
And when that happens, there's less pore space for roots,
28:57
there's less gas exchange happening.
28:59
And so it becomes suboptimal in a lot of ways for plant roots.
29:04
And that's why we add aeration into potting soils or why we add
29:09
sand into garden mixes. It's it's for this for this
29:14
reason typically. And so there's a few ways we can
29:18
deal with it. But I think what you're
29:20
describing is one of the reasons why I don't ascribe to this no
29:26
till philosophy that you hear people talk about, because I
29:30
think soul disturbance is actually really beneficial.
29:34
And there's some there's some philosophical reasons why I
29:38
believe that. And then there's some very
29:39
practical, down to earth, you know, observable reasons.
29:44
So it's kind of an interesting thing if you want to, if you
29:46
want to talk about, I would. Absolutely love to because I
29:50
tend to be somebody who talks about and I've moved away from
29:54
the word no till to minimal till and using tillage as a tool that
30:03
has a specific purpose and will do something very specific for
30:07
us. So rather than just mindlessly
30:11
turning over the soil year after year after year, you're being
30:14
more deliberate about it for a certain result or an instant.
30:17
So I'd, I'd really love to hear your insights on all of this.
30:20
It'd be great. Yeah, I mean, growing up in, you
30:26
know, the late 70s, eighties and and I guess even in the 90s, you
30:32
know, as a kid, I had always heard that like Tilling was bad
30:35
because Tilling created the great Dust Bowl here in the
30:37
United States. It destroyed our topsoil because
30:42
it removed the soil structure. So basically what we did was we
30:48
till the soil. A lot of that, a lot of that
30:51
quality topsoil would just blow away and then we'd apply more
30:55
chemical fertilizers and do it all over again.
30:58
And so we weren't establishing any soil structure.
31:01
And so from that, organic gardener said, hey, you know,
31:04
you need to stop tilling your soil.
31:05
This is destroying the planet. It's we're losing our topsoil
31:10
and it's bad. And, and they were right.
31:12
Now I think where the issue for Meek is that people are miss
31:16
applying this to other methods of gardening because they think
31:21
all soil disturbance then is bad because tilling is bad.
31:24
And, and keep in mind when we're talking about tilling, we're
31:26
taking a tiller. It's very destructive and and
31:30
really damaging the soil itself. But if you were to take, say, a
31:34
broad fork and and disturb a bed, that allows you to get
31:40
oxygen and water and nutrients down into the rhizosphere, that
31:44
area around the roots. It allows you to reduce that
31:47
bulk density that has happened over time and restore the soil
31:51
without completely damaging it. So there are other ways we can
31:56
do this that have potentially a lot of plant benefit.
32:03
And so that's part of that's part of it.
32:06
And then the other reason I and, and keep in mind too, we've even
32:10
agriculturally, we've discovered much more effective and less
32:14
damaging ways of tilling through, you know, different
32:18
mechanical means. So even agriculturally it still
32:21
can make sense in a lot of ways. But for a home gardener, let's
32:26
just say outdoors, I think that, you know, at least once a season
32:34
coming in there and restoring the physical properties of that
32:38
soil can have a lot of benefits. And indoors with people who are
32:43
growing indoors and in beds, for example, as people get, you
32:49
know, so dogmatic about not disturbing their, their soil
32:52
bedded to where they're top dressing, everything.
32:55
I think that that time that we're waiting for everything to
32:58
break down into the soil is just very imprecise, I guess for lack
33:04
of a, a better way of putting it.
33:06
Whereas if I can at the end of a cycle, get a soil test, go in
33:10
there, add exactly the minerals that have been removed, mix them
33:14
in homogeneously into that soil, restore the bulk density where I
33:18
want it, and then plant my next plant.
33:21
The it's gonna do great. The, the soil biology is still
33:24
there. It's very resilient.
33:25
We're not getting any erosion 'cause there's no winds coming
33:29
through and blowing off our topsoil.
33:31
And I think it just has a ton of benefits on the microbial side.
33:37
This is where I think it gets, this is the part that I really
33:40
enjoy and it's is interesting is there's this thing and it's
33:44
called the, I believe it's the disturbance hypothesis.
33:48
I work with a, a gentleman who has a PhD in functional ecology
33:53
and he's the one that introduced me to this concept.
33:56
And basically the concept is that in areas that have the
34:04
right amount of disturbance. So that's not like, you know, if
34:07
we, if we look at that picture of say an old growth forest on
34:12
one end of the, the, you know, with microbes there that Doctor
34:15
Ingham is famous for showing, and you have a really high
34:18
fungal levels. Then you have on the other side
34:19
this, you know, essentially just rock or newly formed soils and
34:24
you have very high levels of bacteria.
34:26
Those intermediate ecological systems, the 1:00 where they're,
34:31
you know, in between there that temperate forest where you have
34:34
a little bit of disturbance but not a lot are the areas where
34:36
biologically we see the greatest diversity.
34:41
Agricultural soils have higher levels of microbial biomass and
34:46
diversity than Prairie land, for example.
34:49
So we we can see the disturbance isn't in and of itself bad and
34:53
we just have to be thoughtful about how we're doing it.
34:56
Hey guys, really quickly jumping in.
34:58
I just want to remind you if you are not subscribed to this show,
35:01
that is the number one thing that you can do to show me your
35:04
support. So if you're finding value from
35:06
this conversation and you're deeply engaged, I would love you
35:09
to hit the follow or subscribe button.
35:11
All right, back to the show. Yeah, I've heard, I'm not sure
35:14
if you're familiar with Graham Sight from Nutritec Solutions
35:20
here in Australia and he talks about this meter called a
35:26
microbiometer and how you can measure the the difference along
35:32
that scale between the fungal to bacterial ratio.
35:35
And that reminds me very much of what you were saying with that
35:39
complete scale of succession from all growth, forest fungal
35:43
dominated to, you know, desert land and bacteria dominated.
35:47
And it seems that a one to one ratio seems to be the sweet spot
35:53
for growing a lot of our agricultural crops and things
35:58
like this and, and in the garden and, and all sorts.
36:02
So having this balance works really well.
36:04
So I've also spoken to a few people where like I've talked
36:10
about this idea of succession of moving, how nature is always
36:13
trying to move it a certain direction.
36:16
But I've been reminded by very clever people that nature
36:20
doesn't really have a direction per SE.
36:22
It's just sort of moving in all sorts of directions and
36:25
complexities and and things like this.
36:27
So to give it that personification or goal
36:31
orientated is, is probably not all that correct.
36:35
But so then I'm, I'm trying to think about if we've got like
36:43
what level of tilling and what are we trying to do in a home
36:47
garden situation? So for example, if I've got a, a
36:49
vegetable bed that is 1 crop and then I pull that whole crop out
36:55
and then start again, I can see benefit in taking maybe the the
37:01
top third and integrating amendments and compost and
37:04
things like this because maybe the, the bottom 2/3 still has a
37:08
lot intact. You say there's a lot of the
37:09
microbial populations are still going to survive that if there's
37:13
root mass left in there. We've still got inoculants in
37:16
those root masses for the mycorrhizal fungi and all of
37:19
this type of thing. So it's going to come back and
37:21
it's going to be OK. But then what about somebody who
37:25
has a more perennial guard and something that is, you know,
37:30
staying put. We've got these fairly big sort
37:33
of shrubs or trees and fruit trees and things like this.
37:35
We can't necessarily go in there and and until that per SE in in
37:41
my idea of that. So how does that differ across
37:46
something that's slightly more difficult to get in there and do
37:49
that in corporation? Yeah.
37:54
I mean, you brought up a lot of great topics here.
37:57
What you're describing are two very different systems too.
38:00
Like if we're talking about as I look out my window here at my
38:04
ornamental yard, like, you know, ornamental plants in my yard,
38:08
I'm going to manage those plants very different than my vegetable
38:12
garden, which is a much more intensive cropping system where
38:18
and keep in mind with all of these systems, we're selecting
38:20
for certain plants to the primary exclusion of almost all
38:24
others. You know, we're calling those
38:26
plants weeds. So you have to think of it as a
38:30
system. Now for my ornamental plants,
38:35
you know, my perennials, let's as, as you call them, I'm going
38:39
to primarily treat those plants through, through mulching,
38:45
through top dressing and things like that because you're right.
38:48
So disturbance there does not make sense.
38:50
Where soil disturbance makes sense is in between cropping
38:54
cycles of high intensive annual crops that we are trying to grow
39:00
as efficiently and, and productively as possible.
39:04
So I mean, the Mother Nature thing is fascinating as you
39:07
brought it up. And that's actually what this
39:09
next podcast is that I'm putting out because you're right,
39:12
mother, Mother Nature is chaotic.
39:15
It doesn't select for anything every.
39:17
It's just everyone's just trying to survive at that point.
39:21
And so if we look at it more from the perspective of survival
39:26
and evolution versus, you know, like you said direction, I think
39:31
we get a much clearer picture of what's happening out in the
39:33
world. So I thought that was good.
39:35
Now fungal to bacteria ratios, I do want to go back to that.
39:39
So sweet, yes. So when we talk about an old
39:42
growth forest, you will have much higher levels of fungus
39:46
versus the amount of bacteria. So that ratio will be much more
39:50
skewed towards fungi, whereas if we look at Prairie lands, for
39:55
example, or grasses, you will see much more higher levels of
40:00
bacteria and very, very small levels of fungus.
40:05
So people thought, OK, well, how do I influence that?
40:08
Right? How do I, cuz let's say I'm
40:10
growing a tomato plant. And so that typically exists in
40:15
a, like you said, a one, maybe a one to one ratio.
40:20
I think that misses the point a little bit.
40:24
And here's here's why. And and then we can talk about
40:27
the microbiometer too, but the fungal to bacteria to ratio in
40:33
soils, like we said, nature's chaotic.
40:35
Well, soil and micro soil microbiology is also chaotic.
40:39
It's this constant prey and predation that's happening.
40:43
This die off the you know, things are insisting and turning
40:47
into dormant cysts for a while. Like all of this stuff is
40:50
happening in the soil all of the time.
40:53
And so the fungal to bacteria ratios are constantly in flux.
41:00
I saw a great, I went to the Soil Scientist Society of
41:03
America meeting probably about 10 years ago now and there was
41:07
someone presenting specifically on fungal to bacteria ratios in
41:11
soils based on hydrology. So how much water was in that?
41:16
So the moisture level of that soil and you saw a massive
41:19
fluctuation every time it rained because if you think about it,
41:23
you add water, the microbes are happy, they reproduce.
41:26
You had bacteria reproduces much faster than fungus and so it's
41:31
always in flux. And so making decisions around a
41:34
snapshot of fungal to bacteria ratios to me really just misses
41:39
the point all together of, of what we're trying to do.
41:42
That's why I like a soil test versus a biological test.
41:46
And there's certain biological tests that maybe make more sense
41:49
than others. But if we talk about the
41:52
microbiometer, microbiometer, I never, I never know how to say
41:57
it. Yeah, it's I think it's
42:02
interesting. But to me, it's not a tool for
42:04
making data-driven decisions about how I'm going to manage my
42:08
garden. Because like we talked about the
42:10
beginning of this conversation, I'm already going to be
42:14
mulching. I'm going to be doing all of the
42:16
different, you know, things that are going to benefit soil
42:19
biology already. So my practices aren't changing
42:22
no matter what that test result says.
42:25
The only time I could really see myself using one of these tests
42:28
and, and Graham and I actually had a discussion about this on a
42:31
consulting call 'cause we were on the same board for a while
42:33
for a company in Australia. Actually, where I could see this
42:40
coming into play is if I had soils that I was looking to
42:43
improve. So let's say I had a field soil
42:46
and I got a soil test and it showed me the the microbiometer
42:51
showed me this level of biological activity.
42:54
I could test it in six months, assuming similar soil
42:58
temperatures and moisture levels and see if we had some
43:01
improvement based on whatever agronomic practice we
43:04
incorporated, whether that was adding compost or mulching or
43:08
soil disturbance or better irrigation or whatever it was.
43:11
So I can see using it around that, but I don't.
43:16
I would much rather have a chemical analysis, which is a
43:19
soil test, and get those minerals to the right levels and
43:24
know that the biology is kind of going to show up and do what it
43:27
needs to do. That makes a lot of sense
43:30
because you are, and I think I heard you say it earlier, like
43:33
if the minerals are there, then you know, if you're following
43:37
all of the organic practices that you are going to be
43:41
promoting the environment for these microbes to be populating
43:45
and to be doing their job. You're not necessarily having to
43:48
focus too much on employing the workforce, so to speak, but
43:53
you're just really focusing on the the chemicals, the minerals,
43:57
the things that are in there that we actually do need for the
44:00
plant health overall. I really like that and I and
44:05
yes, that instance of using it as a starting point to
44:10
understand maybe where your soil is AT and then to have an idea
44:14
of if I want to grow this particular crop, I could
44:17
potentially try and steer it towards this direction more so
44:21
by using certain techniques, whatever that might work.
44:25
But then getting hung up on that and testing it all the time and
44:30
trying to check all these things seems probably one of the more
44:34
irrelevant things compared to some other things we could be
44:37
focusing our time on. Now, the next thing I want to
44:43
bring it back to is that structure that we're talking
44:46
about and, and the telling and trying to maintain structure.
44:51
So in your again, bringing it back to that comparison from
44:58
like a perennial versus a vegetable garden, how will we,
45:05
how are you best trying to maintain the good soil structure
45:10
and good aeration and drainage and all sorts of things in a
45:14
perennial garden when you're not tilling it or touching it,
45:19
you're just top dressing? Is this through the addition of
45:24
amendments that get worked through by microbes, rocks and
45:30
roots, all of these things that are creating aeration and
45:34
pockets in the soil and things like this, Is it to do with
45:38
calcium, magnesium, to make sure we're not going towards too much
45:41
clay or we're not falling the bottom out of it and having too
45:45
much sandy soil? What what's your thinking around
45:48
that on a perennial level with trying to keep soil structure in
45:53
this type of thing long term? Yeah.
45:58
Well, I think it's important to note that perennial plants in
46:01
particular have very different fertility needs and different
46:07
soil structure needs than annual plants.
46:09
And again, this is going to, that's a very generalized
46:12
statement because plants can grow in a wide variety of
46:16
environmental conditions and media and some like some more
46:19
than others. So that being said, for, you
46:25
know, for the majority of perennial plants, as I look
46:27
outside my window, I I just focus on maintaining A mulch
46:32
layer or some sort of plant plant cover, you know, that
46:38
you've heard the thing like nature hates.
46:41
What is it a blank spot or a vacuum, bare soil?
46:46
There we go. I don't know.
46:47
I was blanking on that. So, yeah.
46:48
So if you don't cover the soil or select a plant to cover the
46:52
soil, then what we call weeds or some other plant CCS will come
46:57
in and grow there. But you have to also remember in
47:00
a in a perennial garden, like a tree for example, it's
47:03
constantly growing roots that are also creating soil
47:06
structure. You have other plants, annual
47:09
plants typically coming into that area and growing that are
47:11
creating soil structure too. When they die, you have biology
47:16
that creates soil structure. So I don't worry about it for
47:21
most of the perennial gardens because when I first plant them,
47:23
I'm making sure that the soil has good physical properties.
47:27
And then over time, I mean, they've adapted to handle an
47:31
increase in bulk density. Yeah, definitely.
47:34
I think what you said first and foremost, the fact that these
47:38
plants have a different requirement for nutrients, for
47:43
structure. They can survive and are built
47:45
to survive in some crazy environments.
47:49
And we're not. We've got, you know, if you've
47:53
got a rocky outcrop on a mountain and you've got plants
47:55
that are thriving there, there's nobody coming up there and top
47:59
dressing very much there's nobody coming in and you know,
48:03
telling in beautiful amendments and compost there's they're able
48:06
to survive and they're doing what they need to do.
48:08
So it's very much nuanced in the fact that you should understand
48:12
the types of plants that you're trying to grow.
48:15
And then like we, we've been talking about moving into more
48:19
intensive horticulture where we're trying to grow something
48:22
really specific, but really well and annually and with the most
48:26
nutrient density possible and the the expressions from the
48:30
secondary metabolites. That's when we can really use
48:34
the what I might call natural technologies, the way nature
48:38
does it to then enhance these things or speed up the process
48:42
or, or that kind of thing. I had a question on actually,
48:49
this is relevant too, because it was from your podcast that you
48:51
re shared recently, which I'm going to highly recommend to
48:54
everybody listening to go and check out your new series that
48:57
you're doing of like fundamentals or something.
49:00
I can't remember what you've called it, but the first one was
49:03
on silica silicon and you were talking about rice hulls in this
49:08
particular episode. And I've used rice holes both as
49:14
a a drainage component in a soil mix and I've used it as a mulch
49:19
on top. We also get a lot of bamboo here
49:22
in Australia, which is like we tend to use a lot of the leaves
49:25
and things and break that down and that can be incorporated as
49:29
a mulch for for silica. But in terms of rice holes in
49:32
particular, can you just, can you just talk to me a little bit
49:37
about what you were speaking about in that episode?
49:41
Just to, to reiterate it for our like for, for my audience in
49:47
terms of, and I'll preface this by saying silica is really,
49:52
really helpful for the strength of the plant walls, right?
49:55
The, the immunity and all of these things that you were
49:57
talking about from pests and disease, But there's a
50:01
difference in, in the way it breaks down and the speed in
50:07
which it breaks down the, the availability of the silica at
50:11
the end of the day. Can you talk to me about rice
50:15
holes and that availability and the differences between and why
50:19
some things might be slower or faster than others in breaking
50:23
down in that instance? Because I think that's really
50:25
interesting. And I've been saying to people,
50:28
you should be using rice holes, and I don't want to be pushing
50:32
the wrong thing if that's not quite the right, you know,
50:34
message. So do you mind sharing a little
50:37
bit about the rice holes in that instance in silica?
50:41
Yeah, so that was from an interview with a a silica
50:44
expert, Doctor Wendy Zellner. I highly recommend people check
50:47
out her works. She's phenomenal.
50:49
It's the podcast that I've recorded that I've gone back and
50:52
listened to the most out of all my podcasts.
50:55
There's very few things in the gardening world that's truly
50:58
like, as good as as good as it sounds or like a magic bullet.
51:02
And I think silica is that thing.
51:07
So a few things to know about silica, and keep in mind I'm
51:09
doing this off the cuff. Yeah, so I know I.
51:12
Know it's just from my memory. So.
51:15
Bear bear with me here. Silica has a ton of benefits.
51:18
So heat stress, drought stress mitigates micro toxicities in
51:26
the leaves of micronutrients. It helps with pest resistance,
51:30
pathogen resistance, it creates thicker cellular walls, helps
51:36
reduce uptake of heavy metals like the, the, the list of
51:39
benefits from silica is phenomenal.
51:42
Now, not all silica inputs are the same.
51:45
So there's, there's three main forms as I'm aware of.
51:49
There's crystalline form, which is like quartz.
51:52
So that's silica sand and that I'm going to go from least
51:57
available to most available. So that's the least available
51:59
form that requires weathering and time.
52:01
And so particle size, moisture, microbes will eventually make
52:05
that available. But we don't know the time frame
52:08
of how long that'll take. Every environment's going to be
52:10
different here. We're talking weeks, months,
52:12
years. So if you add basalt or rock
52:15
dust or silica sand, whatever it may be, it, it's probably going
52:21
to eventually breakdown, but it's going to take a long time.
52:25
Crystalline sources also tend to be the most contaminated source
52:29
in my in my experience. So when I add that rock dust,
52:33
I'm not just getting silica. I'm also getting arsenic and
52:37
lead and then probably some good other minerals to you.
52:41
There's probably some potassium and and other things in there,
52:43
but something to keep in mind. So that's the crystalline form.
52:47
Next would be biogenic, which is where rice holes would fall.
52:50
That's things like bamboo and rice holes.
52:52
So plant based sources where the plant takes up that silica, then
52:57
the plant gets harvested or dies and then what's remaining has a
53:02
higher level of silica in it. And then so when you put that
53:05
out into your garden, it breaks down that silica becomes
53:07
available too. So that is going to be a little
53:09
bit more available. Now the issue with biogenic
53:13
sources, specifically rice holes would be heavy metals.
53:19
So rice holes are rice in general is tend to be grown in
53:24
fogs, very low pH environments and that's where and typically
53:30
in soils that can be high in arsenic.
53:31
So I I tend to associate rice holes with a higher prevalence
53:36
of higher levels of arsenic. So you do want to be careful.
53:40
And, and can I just touch on something that she said in that
53:44
podcast as well. Am I right in saying that if the
53:46
plant didn't get or doesn't get the right silica or silicon, I
53:53
think she keeps referring to it in their requirements, then it
53:57
it can take up arsenic because it's so close to it in the
54:00
periodic table and, and it's form.
54:02
Am I right in saying that? I believe so.
54:07
I believe they follow a similar pathway in the plant.
54:11
Same with phosphorus. Yes, well, well, they listeners
54:15
should go and listen to that episode anyway.
54:16
I'll link that one down below so they can listen.
54:19
To it, it's a good one, yeah. So yes, so and it's complicated
54:24
too. There's organic and inorganic
54:26
forms of arsenic and, and Long story short, just it's always
54:33
good with any input that you're adding.
54:35
If you're if you're worried about heavy metals, it's always
54:38
just a good idea or if you're growing a plant that's more
54:41
likely to take up heavy metals, whether that's lettuce or a
54:44
medicinal plant, it's just a good idea to test it or know
54:49
what you're adding from a aeration perspective, I just
54:54
didn't like the way a rice holes aerated my soil because I felt
54:57
like they were broke down too quickly and I ended up with a
55:00
bit of a mucky mess. So if you are going to use it
55:02
for aeration, I'd say less than 10%.
55:05
Now, if you're going to top dress with it outdoors, I find
55:08
they tend to get kind of messy because they'll blow away
55:10
because they're so light. And then indoors, I really like
55:13
to disturb my soil like we talked about.
55:16
So I don't tend to use mulches indoors for, you know, like I
55:22
said, for controlled environment agriculture.
55:24
But that being said, I know people that use rice holes all
55:26
the time. They still grow happy healthy
55:28
plants. It's just a slight different
55:30
philosophical approach. Yeah, cool that that answers my
55:33
question because it was basically like how do you find
55:37
using rice holes, which you've explained because they do
55:39
breakdown and I was initially recommending that as a narration
55:43
component. And then I'm thinking more about
55:45
this compaction overtime that's happening and they do breakdown.
55:49
It's not something like a volcanic rock, a scoria or a
55:52
pumice or something that's gonna stay in there for a long time.
55:56
I also spoke to Matt Briefer from Easy as Organics about
56:00
using perlite because it's something that obviously it's
56:04
it's, it's so widely abundant, it's beautiful and light to be
56:08
able to ship everywhere. But what I found, and I don't
56:12
know when you found this as well as it tends to float to the top
56:15
when I'm watering a lot and it tends to sort of come up in
56:19
there. So just playing around with
56:21
those different ones in potting mixes obviously is something
56:25
that you've done the countless, countless experiments on.
56:28
But what are you, maybe you could answer this for me, what
56:34
aeration is in your soil mix? And then what aeration would you
56:39
use if shipping and sending and wait and all of this wasn't
56:43
necessarily a part of it? Yeah, and I want to finish the
56:49
silica conversation too 'cause there's a few more things.
56:52
Sorry, I'm jumping all over the. Place No, no, no, it's good,
56:54
it's good. I just don't want to forget to
56:55
come back to it 'cause there's some I want to talk about
56:58
diatomaceous earth and I want to talk about amorphous forms, that
57:01
third form of silica. But, but, but talking about the
57:05
physical structure and for aeration, there's a lot of
57:09
things you can use ranging from like lava rock.
57:12
I think you guys call that Scoria I.
57:13
Think that's exactly right, yeah.
57:16
Which can contain heavy metals like anything mined from the
57:18
earth in general. I know I keep coming back to
57:20
heavy metals, but. It's no, it's so important.
57:22
Cognizant of there's there's perlite and there's pumice.
57:28
Those are the other two there's vermiculite.
57:31
I know in Australia you guys just don't have access to
57:34
pumice, whereas where I live I literally live within a couple
57:38
100 miles of a few different pumice mines so.
57:41
Wow. We use pumice in our soil.
57:44
It's actually cheaper for us to use pumice than perlite because
57:46
it doesn't have to be killed and dried the same way awesome as
57:49
perlite does. So yeah, I I don't like pumice
57:53
for the same perlite, sorry. For the same reasons you don't.
57:56
It floats to the surface. It tends to crumble and
57:59
breakdown over time. There's it is so light and it's
58:04
easy to ship. There's not a lot of great
58:06
aeration options out there I feel like, besides the ones
58:11
we've already mentioned, but I think that could potentially be
58:14
a good option too. It's a great option.
58:16
It's just so heavy when if. You're trying to move them so
58:20
it's all right in a raised bed or, you know, if you trying to
58:23
incorporate it into the ground a bit.
58:25
But yeah, in a in a container it man, it makes it so heavy.
58:30
But let's let's finish that amorphous silica.
58:34
One more thought on the aeration.
58:36
Though would just be wood substrates, we're seeing more
58:39
research around those as options.
58:40
And specifically biochar is another thing that people could
58:44
look into as depending on the particle size as a good option
58:48
for aeration in soils too. So I just want to throw those
58:51
out there, OK? Getting back to.
58:53
Silica though, so we already talked about crystalline and
58:56
biogenic forms. The last one would be amorphous
58:59
forms of silica, and I believe that stuff like potassium
59:03
silicate would be an example of that, which is here in the
59:06
United States, it's also called Eggsil 16 H is the brand that
59:10
we're able to get a powder of. We can mix it with water, make
59:13
our own concentrated version of potassium silicate that's more
59:17
readily available to the plant. It's very affordable and it's
59:21
something we can just water in to get into the plant faster.
59:27
Around silica, a couple other sources that are good.
59:29
Diatomaceous earth is another source, will last tonight, which
59:33
is calcium silicate. Again, I don't think it's
59:37
terribly available in Australia either, but that's another good
59:42
one for folks too, as a way of getting good silica levels.
59:46
And Doctor Nicole Goche, who I had, she's a pathologist out of
59:50
the University of Kentucky. I had her on the podcast.
59:53
She did a study and they saw a 70% reduction in powdery mildew
59:57
by adding in. Diatomaceous earth into the
1:00:02
cyanic. So that broke down into a form
1:00:05
that was really available for the plant too.
1:00:07
So we can, there's a lot of different silica options.
1:00:11
We can definitely get diatomaceous earth here readily.
1:00:13
Available. So I think that's probably one
1:00:16
of the easy ones for people to look at in terms of just
1:00:20
something that's probably quite available or something that's
1:00:24
easy to add in apart from being a little dusty.
1:00:28
But look, mate, I'm cognizant of of time.
1:00:31
I've got one last question I'd like to ask you if I tend to
1:00:35
find myself asking this. Because it's really it's.
1:00:37
A really interesting way to end, but with all of the amazing
1:00:42
things that you've got going. On mate what?
1:00:44
Is currently top of mind for you at the moment.
1:00:48
What's interesting you in terms of like when you go home and you
1:00:52
might do a little bit of research or you're just, you
1:00:54
know, when you're driving in the car and the, the cogs are
1:00:58
ticking in the brain. What's something that's new and
1:01:00
exciting to you at the moment, that's top of mind and a bit
1:01:03
fresh that you're thinking about?
1:01:08
You know, I think we, we kind of covered it in this podcast.
1:01:11
So because right now I'm working on a on a podcast about bio
1:01:16
mimicry and about the soil food web and, you know, cognitive
1:01:21
biases. So this what we talked about
1:01:24
today really was what I've been thinking about.
1:01:26
Awesome. Beyond that, what I've been
1:01:30
thinking about is I just ran a trial at my house with under
1:01:35
canopy lighting and I got a like three times the yield out of out
1:01:41
of the bed using under canopy lighting.
1:01:44
Now I don't think that is is a going to be a replicable number,
1:01:51
but I would expect at least 20% more out of that under canopy
1:01:56
lit bed. And so I do think I, I do think
1:02:00
there is something to it and everyone I've talked to that's
1:02:03
brand under canopy lighting has also had a similar experience
1:02:05
because it allows us to get more light to to a highlight plant
1:02:09
that wants more light. So that's something that I think
1:02:13
is really interesting. What's I've been looking at that
1:02:17
sorry just quickly on. That.
1:02:19
Are. The lights on the side down
1:02:22
underneath the canopy? Or are they on the bottom facing
1:02:25
up? They're literally on the bottom
1:02:28
facing up. No way.
1:02:29
They're lighting the underside of the leaves and what they're
1:02:34
what the research is finding is that you can, so you can only
1:02:41
get the plant so much red light within that red spectrum before
1:02:44
you get photo bleaching. That's where the the flower
1:02:49
turns totally white on top you just you, the chlorophyll gets
1:02:53
bleached out and that's unsightly.
1:02:56
And so it makes for a lower quality sell of a product.
1:03:00
But if we give the majority of that red light, because red
1:03:03
light's more efficient, it produces less heat, we can, we
1:03:06
can make red diodes a lot cheaper too.
1:03:11
So we can be more energy sustainable.
1:03:13
And we give that red light from below you're, you're and you
1:03:17
stay below a certain threshold of total red light to the plant.
1:03:20
You're able to grow more plant biomass, higher quality, more
1:03:25
consistent flowers throughout the entire canopy rather than
1:03:29
just your top canopy getting good light and getting high
1:03:31
quality flower, you're able to get it throughout the canopy.
1:03:36
And so you end up with more consistency, you end up with
1:03:38
higher yields cause research has shown that 1% more light equals
1:03:43
about 1% more yield with a highlight plant.
1:03:47
So I think, yeah, I think that's something that we're going to
1:03:50
see more and more of moving forward.
1:03:52
I'm already seeing a lot of people running under canopy
1:03:55
lights. So and and that to me.
1:03:58
Kind of is more of a if you're using the red lights more so
1:04:02
underneath that's more mimicking the sunrise, sunset, low sun
1:04:08
angle, the ability for it to go. Around the plant.
1:04:14
When it's outside as opposed to a flat light canopy and then
1:04:17
having some more, that's what it makes me think of First off the
1:04:21
top of my head. But I'm sure there's a lot of
1:04:23
new ones to that. That to me, and this is sort of
1:04:27
what? We were talking about right,
1:04:28
Like you're like, how does this plant perform in nature?
1:04:32
How do I apply this mindset? Whereas I would try and say
1:04:36
like, I don't care what happens in nature, what is the day to
1:04:41
show me? Like if this plant grows better
1:04:44
by, you know, by giving light on, because you're right, none
1:04:47
of this is natural. If I'm growing in my grow room,
1:04:50
none of it is natural. And I've heard people talking
1:04:52
about like mimicking what happens in the sun and all these
1:04:55
things. But at the end of the day, if
1:04:56
I'm getting better, you know, yields or better secondary
1:05:02
metabolite production, better odor, flavor, you know what,
1:05:06
whatever from this combination of light it, it doesn't really
1:05:11
matter what would have happened outdoors in sunlight.
1:05:18
I think there's ways we can. We can.
1:05:19
Apply. Bio mimicry in the sense of
1:05:23
like, I can say that I know that when I heavily prune my plant,
1:05:30
we could say that that's very similar to what happens in
1:05:33
nature with herbivory where insects and bugs are always
1:05:37
coming flying by and they're going to munch on your plant.
1:05:39
And that stimulates, you know, a certain pathway in the plant,
1:05:43
the systemic acquired resistance.
1:05:44
So that stimulates the plant to create certain compounds to help
1:05:49
protect itself. And some of those are secondary
1:05:51
metabolites. So we can kind of come up with
1:05:55
with a storyline that fits for how certain things that we do
1:05:59
indoors or in horticulture may have commonalities with what
1:06:06
happens in nature. But I'm not intentionally
1:06:10
creating a flood or an earthquake or a fire or, you
1:06:14
know, I'm not allowing bugs to pest to eat my plants on
1:06:18
purpose. So there's just, I don't know.
1:06:22
And that to me was my cognitive bias was like, how do I get out
1:06:25
of this idea? Like what would nature do or
1:06:26
what happens in nature? But really look at it from like,
1:06:29
what's optimal for my plant? What's the limiting factor of
1:06:33
growth for that plant? And again, that's something I'm
1:06:36
all, that's probably the thing I think about the most is like
1:06:38
every time I go into a new grow space as a consultant or as a
1:06:42
grower, what do I think is the limiting potential of this
1:06:45
plant? Is it fertility?
1:06:47
Is it their irrigation? Is it their lighting?
1:06:49
Is it something in the environment?
1:06:51
Is it the genetics that they're running that you know, that
1:06:53
could be it too. So that's where I always start.
1:06:56
And usually it's not just one thing.
1:06:58
Usually we're slowly ticking off a few different things until we
1:07:02
eventually get to the point where we're like, OK, this is
1:07:05
running pretty smoothly Now we just turn some really small
1:07:08
dials. But if, if you're a grower who's
1:07:11
using, you know, 20 different products in your, in your
1:07:15
garden, it's really, really hard to know which of those is
1:07:19
actually beneficial. So I always, I mean, our company
1:07:22
name is Kiss Organics, which stands for keep it simple.
1:07:25
Like I always like to get a baseline of very few inputs.
1:07:30
And then you start adding things to see if you get, if you get
1:07:34
the response you want. But I think as a gardener,
1:07:36
people just see, you know, so and so Johnny had a great
1:07:39
response, you know, grew amazing plants and this is what he did.
1:07:42
So I got to do all those same things, which is another sort of
1:07:46
cognitive bias or approach that I think we need to move away
1:07:48
from as, as growers too. So mate, that's perfect.
1:07:53
I'm very excited for this. Podcast to come out then because
1:07:55
I feel like I could use a lot of this help with myself and my own
1:07:59
biases. I'm very excited for it and I do
1:08:03
highly recommend everyone goes and checks out that series
1:08:06
because it's been fundamental for me.
1:08:08
So I really appreciate you putting that out and I
1:08:10
appreciate your time today, mate.
1:08:11
Thank you so much. Hey, this was a lot of fun.
1:08:14
I appreciate you giving me. The opportunity to come on here
1:08:16
and chat with you. Thanks.
1:08:35
gentlemen. How knowledgeable?
1:08:37
Is TAD. And again, I apologize for
1:08:40
jumping all over the place with my questions, but my brain is
1:08:44
still firing on all cylinders. Somebody like Tad's ability and
1:08:49
experience with soil and soil practices, trying to grow
1:08:53
certain different plants and different environments.
1:08:57
When you get access to somebody like that and you want to ask
1:09:01
all of those burning questions, all of these sort of things come
1:09:04
out. But as I've mentioned and as we
1:09:06
spoke about in the podcast, TAD has a podcast as well.
1:09:09
The Science and Cultivation of cannabis, I believe is the name
1:09:15
of it. But I've just said it's Kiss
1:09:17
Organics, Tad's podcast. And I just say it's that.
1:09:20
But I will link that in the description below because there
1:09:23
are so many incredible episodes that TAD is now re sharing.
1:09:27
As I mentioned in this one, the one about Silica, he's sharing
1:09:31
all of these key podcasts from his time doing these
1:09:35
conversations and chats and going back through those gives
1:09:40
you such a fundamental understanding of all of these
1:09:42
things. Now, there's so much complexity
1:09:45
to it, so there's a lot to learn, but if you go back and
1:09:48
you re listen to these things, all of the different information
1:09:51
will hit at different times. And there's certain times where
1:09:54
I've heard something and it's just gone in one ear and out the
1:09:56
other, whereas I'll then listen to it when I'm thinking about
1:10:01
these topics or it's the right timing.
1:10:03
And that topic seems to land so much more with me.
1:10:06
So please go and check out those links in the comments below.
1:10:09
You'll find all of Tad's links that you can go and follow him
1:10:13
and find out. He's got a big conference coming
1:10:15
up in August if you're in the US.
1:10:17
So go and see if you can go and visit.
1:10:20
That would be something I'd love to get over to do, but as we
1:10:24
know, getting over to the US is very challenging from here in
1:10:27
Australia. So if you want to see me over
1:10:30
there, you can support me by following this podcast and
1:10:33
sharing it around. You can help me to do what I do
1:10:36
and to be able to continue to do this and share all of this
1:10:39
wonderful information. So follow the podcast, drop a
1:10:42
comment or a review to show me how much you enjoyed it and
1:10:48
apart from that, I'm excited to see you again next week.
1:10:51
We'll see you on the very next episode.
1:10:53
So take care, enjoy your gardens and bye for now.