Calcium Lockout - Potassium Overdose

Reap911 · Jul 28, 2022

Hi Guys,

I hope that you are all doing really well and your crops are thriving.

So I wanted to get some assistance with an issue I had, this is my 2nd run with Living Soil and I am still learning as go. So I have recently introduced Potassium Sulfate and it seems like I might have overdid it slightly. I did a bit of research and found that this has a direct impact on the uptake of other nutrients, in my case, Calcium.

I originally thought the issue was caused by feeding too much calcium and that preventing the uptake of potassium. After giving the plants a potassium rich foliar, the situation deteriorated so I went back to the drawing board and through testing the soil and other observations I made, alongside research it seems like I had Calcium lockout due to the overabundance of Potassium. What a run around its been.

I have attached some pics of the plants problems I had. I really just need some help in fixing this issue.

I have used Water Soluble Calcium at 1 part to 1000 as a foliar and flushed the soils till there was a bit of run off, maybe 20%. This has stalled the deterioration I was noticing on the leaves as they seem to have stabilized now because it was getting quite bad.

I have top dressed with dolomite lime (4tbls to 5gallon pots) and plan on just feeding the plants water for the next few days. They are on day 29 of flower.

So a few questions:
1. Does flushing soil have the same impact as Coco/Perlite? Is there something I need to be aware of here?
2. Can I just treat calcium as a foliar for the next few days? Maybe a light spray every 2nd or 3rd day?
3. Any additional tricks I could add to my approach to ensure that I fix the problem? Will feeding the soil with Calcium help?
4. Recommended dosage of Potassium Sulfate? Can I just use this as a top dress rather than diluting it in water?

Thanks.

green_machine_two9er · Jul 28, 2022

You cannot flush living soil

i Wouldn’t recommend foliar feeding anything, nor does that look to much like a calcium def to me either

Tips or tricks. Make your living soils containers in 10g or larger. Work on feeding the soil and not the plant with organics. For example: toodressing with raw amendments or organic dry fertilizer as well as malted barley powder(fungal food and earth worm castings pre flower is usually vital.

ive only heard the kiss organic guy talk about about potassium sulfate. Never used it so can’t help ya on dosages.

it’s hard to stop thinking in terms of “ traditional feeding” when you start living soils.
You have to develop a trust in nature and not think in terms of plants needs now…. But in terms of the whole cycle and how to develop the microherd in containers to keep up with making nutrients available fast enough for plant growth. Good luck !

Rurumo · Jul 28, 2022

Sorry you are having problems, but it's very difficult to "chase" deficiencies/lockouts in living soil. Typically, if potassium is locking out calcium, adding a whole bunch of calcium and magnesium (dolomite) is only going to make the problem worse. I agree with what Green Machine said, next time follow a proven recipe like Cootz mix exactly, and use as large a pot/bed as possible. Good luck to you, this is a learning process, especially organics!

Reap911 · Jul 28, 2022

Thanks for the feedback.

Seems like you have given me some advice but you have not really helped me deal with the issue?

I have done quite a fair amount of research and from what I have learnt, feeding nutrients into living soil systems is a pretty standard practice. All the write ups talk about only using organic materials but that seems to be a complete misunderstanding. The breakdown of organic materials is an essential part of the process, I agree but supplementing the soils with ferments, tea's and amino acids - alongside essential bacteria's and fungi are still part of the feeding system.

Nutrients extracted through natural means, cold pressing and fermentations can seriously improve the quality of the living organisms in the soil so I do not 100% agree with only using dry materials. If you can, with the right approach, create effective biomass through the usage of these additives, you take away the metabolic requirements of the plant and end up with exceptional growth.

Reap911 · Jul 28, 2022

Rurumo said:
Sorry you are having problems, but it's very difficult to "chase" deficiencies/lockouts in living soil. Typically, if potassium is locking out calcium, adding a whole bunch of calcium and magnesium (dolomite) is only going to make the problem worse. I agree with what Green Machine said, next time follow a proven recipe like Cootz mix exactly, and use as large a pot/bed as possible. Good luck to you, this is a learning process, especially organics!

Why will it make the problem worse?

youraveragehorticulturist · Jul 28, 2022

I agree that maybe you don't have a calcium problem. I see the spots that you're seeing, but it's totally possible that that is just some burning from the potassium. I would NOT use the calcium spray. Give things a few days and see how it looks. Anyway, you're nearing the mid point of flowering where your plants use less calcium anyway, so what ever you do, be careful.

You can top dress Potassium Sulfate, but it's pretty strong. You'll only need like 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of pot size. But save that stuff for the end! Use that stuff for a couple weeks when your buds start to swell up. Like week 6 or 7.

Reap911 · Jul 28, 2022

youraveragehorticulturist said:
I agree that maybe you don't have a calcium problem. I see the spots that you're seeing, but it's totally possible that that is just some burning from the potassium. I would NOT use the calcium spray. Give things a few days and see how it looks. Anyway, you're nearing the mid point of flowering where your plants use less calcium anyway, so what ever you do, be careful.

You can top dress Potassium Sulfate, but it's pretty strong. You'll only need like 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of pot size. But save that stuff for the end! Use that stuff for a couple weeks when your buds start to swell up. Like week 6 or 7.

Bro, thank you so much. That's exactly what I needed.

I have moved over to just watering for now and I am hoping the plants will balance out from there. The soil is really rich with life so I know it will balance out, I think I just needed a bit of reassurance to what I though is going to be the solution.

ComfortCreator · Jul 28, 2022

I grow organic only and the issue has been identified above. You want to DO something and by feeling that way you are trying things and making it more complicated without knowing the problem for sure.

Regardless of living soil or not, rule #1 is to properly understand how they grow.

That takes a bunch of runs, so you need advice. To get GOOD advice, you have to provide enough info for others to diagnose it. You may think doing A or B is causing your issue, and it may be something you havent considered.

I would back up, start again and explain the general info of your grow and ask for help that way. Not what you just tried or added. What soil did you build? What did you change after round 1? When do you water? Do you feed too?

Living soil, well designed, is beautifully easy to manage once you get used to it. Dont try stuff...get help and do one thing that gets you back on track.

Your desire is excellent, your effort is excellent, you need a steadier hand though and trust the plants and soil to do well with less help.

Hiero1 · Jul 28, 2022

Follow the link The Growig system on the bottom of the buildasoil website. No more questions.

Reap911 · Jul 29, 2022

ComfortCreator said:
I grow organic only and the issue has been identified above. You want to DO something and by feeling that way you are trying things and making it more complicated without knowing the problem for sure.

Regardless of living soil or not, rule #1 is to properly understand how they grow.

That takes a bunch of runs, so you need advice. To get GOOD advice, you have to provide enough info for others to diagnose it. You may think doing A or B is causing your issue, and it may be something you havent considered.

I would back up, start again and explain the general info of your grow and ask for help that way. Not what you just tried or added. What soil did you build? What did you change after round 1? When do you water? Do you feed too?

Living soil, well designed, is beautifully easy to manage once you get used to it. Dont try stuff...get help and do one thing that gets you back on track.

Your desire is excellent, your effort is excellent, you need a steadier hand though and trust the plants and soil to do well with less help.

Thank you very much for you kind words.

So to answer your question:

1. My soil is built from using a ratio of 1/3 of the following components:
a. A combination of Mushroom Compost Rich Soil (70% compost % 30% sand) and Worm Castings (60/40)
b. A combination of Rice Hulls (80%) and Perlite (20%) - I am moving over to Pumice, its just pricey where I stay.
c. Sorghum Peat Moss

I add:
a. Organic material such as Bloodmeal, Kelp, Alfalfa, Bat Guano, Soft Rock Phosphate and Bone Meal. The amounts vary based on the pots I use.
b. Red Wigglers and White Springtails mites. There are little red mites that have appeared in my worm bin that do a similar job to the springtails in assisting in the breakdown of organic material.

2. After the first batch I did, I rebuild the soil to the above components. I then added about 8% bio-char that I activated over a total of 3-4 weeks using various nutrient rich materials. I have inoculated my soil with two different types of IMO 4 (indigenous microbes that I harvested locally) as well as specific types of Bacillus, Mycorrhizae and Trichoderma.

3. I water a total of 3-5% of my soil volume everyday. Or double that every 2nd day. Growing in 4gall pots at the moment. I am looking at moving to raised beds as soon as I can afford to do the change. I have been overfeeding various nutrient solutions and I have realized this now. I use a combination of ferments that I have made such as Bamboo Shoot, Kelp etc. I also have a wonderful cold pressed kelp solution that I have started using alongside certain amino acids that come in packs high in Nitrogen for veg and Potassium and Phosphate in flower. I feed the plants with calcium, humic and fulvic acid. They will get a dose of these once in a 10 day window. I am going to extend this to a 14 day window now and just ensure I have more watering than nutrients. I use spring water that I get from a local spring. I feed the plants a tea roughly once in a 21 day cycle and top dress every 3 weeks using the same original organic material that I add to the soil. The potassium sulfate is a new additive and I can see that I am overusing it at the wrong time. I do certain foliar sprays as well. This is where I think a big chunk of my problem is being created. I am going to refine this and only use certain sprays if I face a deficiency and stick to adding to the soil. I create a foliar spray with something that is called Oriental Herb Nutrient that I made that is extremely beneficial for the plants to build up resistances. I am also getting into using Aloe Vera foliar sprays as I have seen quite a bit of positive comments on it.

Reap911 · Jul 29, 2022

Hiero1 said:
Follow the link The Growig system on the bottom of the buildasoil website. No more questions.

Thanks for the post. I will check it out.

Honestly, the "no more questions" remark is a little limiting in my opinion. Even the guys at the top of their field are always challenging their standard operating procedures. This is essential in the learning process. You are more than welcome to take a dogmatic view on cultivation but I think that is going to limit the potential you are able to realize in these plants.

Even the best make grave mistakes so I would be careful putting all my eggs in one basket. People I have met have sworn by synthetic based nutrients for years being the ideal approach to cultivation. That was one of the biggest lies I have ever been told.

PadawanWarrior · Jul 29, 2022

Reap911 said:
Hi Guys,

I hope that you are all doing really well and your crops are thriving.

So I wanted to get some assistance with an issue I had, this is my 2nd run with Living Soil and I am still learning as go. So I have recently introduced Potassium Sulfate and it seems like I might have overdid it slightly. I did a bit of research and found that this has a direct impact on the uptake of other nutrients, in my case, Calcium.

I originally thought the issue was caused by feeding too much calcium and that preventing the uptake of potassium. After giving the plants a potassium rich foliar, the situation deteriorated so I went back to the drawing board and through testing the soil and other observations I made, alongside research it seems like I had Calcium lockout due to the overabundance of Potassium. What a run around its been.

I have attached some pics of the plants problems I had. I really just need some help in fixing this issue.

I have used Water Soluble Calcium at 1 part to 1000 as a foliar and flushed the soils till there was a bit of run off, maybe 20%. This has stalled the deterioration I was noticing on the leaves as they seem to have stabilized now because it was getting quite bad.

I have top dressed with dolomite lime (4tbls to 5gallon pots) and plan on just feeding the plants water for the next few days. They are on day 29 of flower.

So a few questions:
1. Does flushing soil have the same impact as Coco/Perlite? Is there something I need to be aware of here?
2. Can I just treat calcium as a foliar for the next few days? Maybe a light spray every 2nd or 3rd day?
3. Any additional tricks I could add to my approach to ensure that I fix the problem? Will feeding the soil with Calcium help?
4. Recommended dosage of Potassium Sulfate? Can I just use this as a top dress rather than diluting it in water?

Thanks.

Just my thoughts after reading this stuff.

1. Not the same impact as coco and salts. But some stuff is easier to flush out of organic soil.
2&3. I wouldn't add Ca.
4. I'd chill on that stuff. It probably helped cause the issue. And if you diluted it into a soluble liquid it's gonna work way faster and burn or cause lockouts way easier.

My guess is K locking out all kinds of stuff. It looks like P deficiency too. So I'd give plain water or flush a little even though it's organic soil. But that's me.

PadawanWarrior · Jul 29, 2022

Reap911 said:
Thank you very much for you kind words.

So to answer your question:

1. My soil is built from using a ratio of 1/3 of the following components:
a. A combination of Mushroom Compost Rich Soil (70% compost % 30% sand) and Worm Castings (60/40)
b. A combination of Rice Hulls (80%) and Perlite (20%) - I am moving over to Pumice, its just pricey where I stay.
c. Sorghum Peat Moss

I add:
a. Organic material such as Bloodmeal, Kelp, Alfalfa, Bat Guano, Soft Rock Phosphate and Bone Meal. The amounts vary based on the pots I use.
b. Red Wigglers and White Springtails mites. There are little red mites that have appeared in my worm bin that do a similar job to the springtails in assisting in the breakdown of organic material.

2. After the first batch I did, I rebuild the soil to the above components. I then added about 8% bio-char that I activated over a total of 3-4 weeks using various nutrient rich materials. I have inoculated my soil with two different types of IMO 4 (indigenous microbes that I harvested locally) as well as specific types of Bacillus, Mycorrhizae and Trichoderma.

3. I water a total of 3-5% of my soil volume everyday. Or double that every 2nd day. Growing in 4gall pots at the moment. I am looking at moving to raised beds as soon as I can afford to do the change. I have been overfeeding various nutrient solutions and I have realized this now. I use a combination of ferments that I have made such as Bamboo Shoot, Kelp etc. I also have a wonderful cold pressed kelp solution that I have started using alongside certain amino acids that come in packs high in Nitrogen for veg and Potassium and Phosphate in flower. I feed the plants with calcium, humic and fulvic acid. They will get a dose of these once in a 10 day window. I am going to extend this to a 14 day window now and just ensure I have more watering than nutrients. I use spring water that I get from a local spring. I feed the plants a tea roughly once in a 21 day cycle and top dress every 3 weeks using the same original organic material that I add to the soil. The potassium sulfate is a new additive and I can see that I am overusing it at the wrong time. I do certain foliar sprays as well. This is where I think a big chunk of my problem is being created. I am going to refine this and only use certain sprays if I face a deficiency and stick to adding to the soil. I create a foliar spray with something that is called Oriental Herb Nutrient that I made that is extremely beneficial for the plants to build up resistances. I am also getting into using Aloe Vera foliar sprays as I have seen quite a bit of positive comments on it.

I like your mix, but I'd use a lower percentage of rice hulls since they break down pretty fast in active soil. I prefer pumice too, but it's heavier and can be more expensive.

Careful with the bloodmeal since it's probably the hottest amendment you listed.

And those red mites are probably hypoaspis miles. They're great decomposers and love fungus gnats.

Hollatchaboy · Jul 29, 2022

Reap911 said:
Thanks for the feedback.

Seems like you have given me some advice but you have not really helped me deal with the issue?

I have done quite a fair amount of research and from what I have learnt, feeding nutrients into living soil systems is a pretty standard practice. All the write ups talk about only using organic materials but that seems to be a complete misunderstanding. The breakdown of organic materials is an essential part of the process, I agree but supplementing the soils with ferments, tea's and amino acids - alongside essential bacteria's and fungi are still part of the feeding system.

Nutrients extracted through natural means, cold pressing and fermentations can seriously improve the quality of the living organisms in the soil so I do not 100% agree with only using dry materials. If you can, with the right approach, create effective biomass through the usage of these additives, you take away the metabolic requirements of the plant and end up with exceptional growth.

Only using dry amendments, ewc, compost.

ComfortCreator · Jul 29, 2022

Reap911 said:
Thank you very much for you kind words.

So to answer your question:

1. My soil is built from using a ratio of 1/3 of the following components:
a. A combination of Mushroom Compost Rich Soil (70% compost % 30% sand) and Worm Castings (60/40)
b. A combination of Rice Hulls (80%) and Perlite (20%) - I am moving over to Pumice, its just pricey where I stay.
c. Sorghum Peat Moss

I add:
a. Organic material such as Bloodmeal, Kelp, Alfalfa, Bat Guano, Soft Rock Phosphate and Bone Meal. The amounts vary based on the pots I use.
b. Red Wigglers and White Springtails mites. There are little red mites that have appeared in my worm bin that do a similar job to the springtails in assisting in the breakdown of organic material.

2. After the first batch I did, I rebuild the soil to the above components. I then added about 8% bio-char that I activated over a total of 3-4 weeks using various nutrient rich materials. I have inoculated my soil with two different types of IMO 4 (indigenous microbes that I harvested locally) as well as specific types of Bacillus, Mycorrhizae and Trichoderma.

3. I water a total of 3-5% of my soil volume everyday. Or double that every 2nd day. Growing in 4gall pots at the moment. I am looking at moving to raised beds as soon as I can afford to do the change. I have been overfeeding various nutrient solutions and I have realized this now. I use a combination of ferments that I have made such as Bamboo Shoot, Kelp etc. I also have a wonderful cold pressed kelp solution that I have started using alongside certain amino acids that come in packs high in Nitrogen for veg and Potassium and Phosphate in flower. I feed the plants with calcium, humic and fulvic acid. They will get a dose of these once in a 10 day window. I am going to extend this to a 14 day window now and just ensure I have more watering than nutrients. I use spring water that I get from a local spring. I feed the plants a tea roughly once in a 21 day cycle and top dress every 3 weeks using the same original organic material that I add to the soil. The potassium sulfate is a new additive and I can see that I am overusing it at the wrong time. I do certain foliar sprays as well. This is where I think a big chunk of my problem is being created. I am going to refine this and only use certain sprays if I face a deficiency and stick to adding to the soil. I create a foliar spray with something that is called Oriental Herb Nutrient that I made that is extremely beneficial for the plants to build up resistances. I am also getting into using Aloe Vera foliar sprays as I have seen quite a bit of positive comments on it.

You sound a bit like me you learned a lot fast and want to be good at this right away. You will find some comments you like, some you don't, understandable. Sometimes the dude who seems nuts though has an insight that can really help...dont feel you have to react to posts you dont like.

Let's focus for a moment on #4.

Start with watering...why every day or every other day? I think this is part of the issue but let's discuss and everybody of course can comment. What leads you to water daily in living soil? How do you decide to water each day or every other day?

youraveragehorticulturist · Jul 29, 2022

It looks like you're using the right amendments.

Hollatchaboy · Jul 29, 2022

ComfortCreator said:
You sound a bit like me you learned a lot fast and want to be good at this right away. You will find some comments you like, some you don't, understandable. Sometimes the dude who seems nuts though has an insight that can really help...dont feel you have to react to posts you dont like.

Let's focus for a moment on #4.

Start with watering...why every day or every other day? I think this is part of the issue but let's discuss and everybody of course can comment. What leads you to water daily in living soil? How do you decide to water each day or every other day?

Not to try to confuse the op, but my sip is constantly moist, and I add a lil water to my regular potted plants daily, just to keep the ewc and amendments moist.

Reap911 · Jul 29, 2022

PadawanWarrior said:
I like your mix, but I'd use a lower percentage of rice hulls since they break down pretty fast in active soil. I prefer pumice too, but it's heavier and can be more expensive.

Careful with the bloodmeal since it's probably the hottest amendment you listed.

And those red mites are probably hypoaspis miles. They're great decomposers and love fungus gnats.
View attachment 5171321

Bro you are the real MVP!

I have been wondering what these little critters are. That makes so much sense because I had fungus gnats and I adjusted my watering but these little guys just started to flourish suddenly.

Reap911 · Jul 29, 2022

ComfortCreator said:
You sound a bit like me you learned a lot fast and want to be good at this right away. You will find some comments you like, some you don't, understandable. Sometimes the dude who seems nuts though has an insight that can really help...dont feel you have to react to posts you dont like.

Let's focus for a moment on #4.

Start with watering...why every day or every other day? I think this is part of the issue but let's discuss and everybody of course can comment. What leads you to water daily in living soil? How do you decide to water each day or every other day?

Firstly, thank you so much for your advice, I hear exactly what you are you are saying and I guess that I was under a bit of pressure when I got the original response. I came here for hope of a solution and just as much as I appreciate feedback, it felt a bit unconstructive.

You are right, I found the right people that told me what I believe to be a much better way than anything I have heard of or come across before. I have been cultivating for years but using synthetics. I only moved over to living soils about 4 or so months ago.

I am just mirroring an approach to cultivation that I learnt through listening to podcasts. The recommendation was 1-2l per day for a 10gall pot. So I worked with watering 5% of the volume of the pot each day. After some note taking I realized that, depending on plants size and stage of life, that a fixed approach is not ideal. In flower I aim for 2.5% each day or 5% each other day. I have not dived into the watering sciences as yet as I am still getting through the soil food web. The watering approach is just based on recommendations from guys who strike me as very insightful in this field of work.

Reap911 · Jul 29, 2022

Hollatchaboy said:
View attachment 5171335

Only using dry amendments, ewc, compost.

Looks amaze balls.

I know that you can get extremely good results using only dry amendments. Maybe I missed represented my point a bit but I have taken in some good points around using ferments and other organic materials to enhance the biomass of the soil. My ability to recall the exact sciences behind all of this is a bit tough as I am pretty new to a lot of the molecular jargon, I dropped Biology at school for a reason but I have grasped the idea that you can make nutrients even more readily available through a combination of both raw materials and their corresponding ferments/extracts.

So I use the simple Korean Natural Farming approaches to create liquid extracts of the raw materials I add to the soil and that is about as much as I add other than one or two recommended materials which have now landed me with this issue but yeah I feel like I blended approach will give me really good results.

Calcium Lockout - Potassium Overdose

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