I was just admiring my fall/winter garden of mustard greens, turnips, collards, radishes, and of course cover crops of crimson clover mixed with oats and wheat from whole grain seed cattle/horse feeds that I used for this winter's no-till beds. I just had my soil formally tested last month, and most of my beds on my 3 acre farm have a native soil pH near 6.5 to 6.8 now.
I started a few new no-till beds by just putting 1-2" of fresh horse manure/sawdust on top of lawn soil, then a layer of 2 sheets of newspapers, then 2-3" of good rich horse manure/sawdust/leaves based compost on top of that. Since this compost has a pH ranging from 5.8 to 6.9, I sprinkled a hand full of dolomitic limestone on each little compost mound in the beds. Then I sprinkled my seeds of mustard greens, or collards, etc. on top of that. Then I watered it all it with a diluted fishy aerated compost tea over all the layers of this no-till bed. The total area of all these new beds are about 3' by 20' in size.
I read recently from a couple articles in several "Acres USA" magazine issues, as well as the books "The Biological Farmer" and "Eco-Farm", how some sustainable farmers are using liming products or other natural or mineral calcium sources, even in near neutral native pH soils, just for the extra calcium and/or magnesium benefits, needed for making other micronutrients more available in soils, plus it's effect on increasing photosynthesis in the crops.
Since both good aerobic compost and good fungal ACT, have a balancing and buffering effect via microbes on local soil pH near the rhizosphere, I think a slight sprinkle of limestone is not a bad idea, for use in planting holes, in no-till beds, for heavy feeders like corn or melons, even in pH balanced soils.
Is this a correct assumption?
Also on the subject of liming. I'm gotten conflicting and varying advice of the use of liming agents in soils from non-organic county extension agents and farmers.
Some say that it takes 1-2 months for powdered or pulverized dolomitic limestone to chemical react in soil. Since I'm a no-till gardener, I disagree with that timing for my soil conditions.
Since compost adds humus, and adds billions of aerobic microbes to the soil, humus acts like a soil magnet to local soluble nutrients near the rhizosphere for crops. Plus aerobic microbial activity can also have a local effect on soil pH, as well as the increase availability of Ca and Mg from dolomitic limestone in the rhizosphere.
I believe because I'm using tons of compost on my no-till beds on my farm, plus frequently drenching most of these beds with rich ACT recipes, the timing of the chemical reactions of limestone in the soil is greatly increased. I'm thinking about 1-2 weeks at least, not 1-2 months as the experts suggest.
What do you think?
_________________ The entire Kingdom of God can be totally explained as an Organic Garden (Mark 4:26)
William Cureton
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