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  • From: "John Keslick" <treeman214@comcast.net>
  • To: "gardenwriters-on-gardening" <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [gwl-g] soil pH
  • Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 06:38:25 -0400

 
 
Essential Elements  -  Note there is 1-4 sections below.
1 - With respect, the USFS uses the word fertilize which is a word that represents 17 elements which trees and connections such as fungi, require from the soil, yet only apply 1 of the 17?  While extracting a major source of many of these, the store house for nutrients and essential elements, i.e., the CWD or LWD (lARGE WOODY DEBRIS).  The Law of the Minimum needs to be considered.  There are 17 chemical elements essential for healthy growth of trees:  The first 3 come from water and air.  They are often written in short from as CHO.  The other - 14 - come from the soil.  CHO makes up he carbohydrates that carry and supply energy.  The energy comes from the sun.  Elements are not tree food.  Bags of fertilizer is not plant food.  When we fertilize we are not providing food.  We are adding elements that are essential for life. That is all we are doing.  (See NEW TREE BIOLOGY DICTIONARY, SHIGO, 1986 pg 45)

Essential Elements - 2
- "The biggies are N+P+K; Nitrogen + Phosphorus + Potassium; Calcium; Sulfur; Magnesium; They are required for life in higher amounts.  Then we go to the group called micro-elements--please do not call them miner, they are not miner.  They are required in very very low amounts.  Copper, Chlorine, Boron, Nickel, Molybdenum, Zinc, Iron, Manganese.  You should know just a little about what each does.  Just to be on the safe side.  There is a few plants that we think may be able to use some others. They are rare in the Southern USA - Selenium, Silicon and Cobalt.  Some of the above are required by the fungi and not so much by the tree.
Essential Elements-3
 - Minute amounts of microelements can cause big changes in the ways fungi grow.  When trees are fertilized heavily the fungi may not interact with the non-woody roots to form mycorrhizae.  Before elements can be absorbed by roots, they must be in the form of ions that are soluble in water. This is good news and bad news because soluble ions can also be leached from the soil.  (See A TOUCH OF CHEMISTRY, SHIGO, 1996) 
 
(Also see TROUBLES IN THE RHIZOSPHERE, SHIGO, 1996)
Essential Elements-4  -
Elements are too often mistakenly called “nutrients”.  To make this clear, please allow me to share this with you.  Essential elements.  Look at your chart of Atomic Properties of elements.  (Not the Atomic Properties of nutrients)  That’s where you will find your elements.  Look at mycorrhizae.  Is it fungus or is it tree?  YES, mycorrhizae is a composite structure made up of root and fungus tissues.  But if you have the fungus and no tree, do you have mycorrhizae?  NO, you do not have the composite structure made up of root and fungus tissues.  You only have fungus.
If you have a bag of fungi to place on the soil, to establish mycorrhizae, do you have mycorrhizae in the bag?  NO
Take a lichen,  is it algae or fungus?  YES  (People do not like these kinds of answers)
But if you have a bag of algae, do you have lichens.  NO
If you have a nutrient, is it an element or energy?  YES
If you have a bag of elements do you have a nutrient? NO
Do you have a bag of food? NO
You say oh, word games?
With respect: Consider poor Joe who liked alcohol. Drank methanol rather than ethanol. He then quickly learned, as his brain got burned.  That words, are important after all.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: [gwl-g] soil pH

Making some progress; thanks Lon and northern Jeff,
Lon, while I will check the literature, isn't it fair to assume if fungi
can do something to the soil in the forest, they can do the same thing
in the home landscape if the conditions and resources were the same?
<<<Jeff, you talk about the nutrient exchange in some cases taking the pH
up.  Isn't much of that nutrient exchange performed by mycorrhizal
fungi?>>
 
First, the fungi only bring nutrients to the plant roots. They still have to get into the root (passive, active methods of transport etc). Mychorrhizal fungi are great at bringing water and phosphorus to the rizoshpere. The actual exchange takes place when nematodes and protozoa eat the fungi and bacteria and poop out the excess nitrogen etc.
 
 
<< Therefore, if the root zone has a healthy population of root
fungi, the plant is in a better position to influence the pH in its root
zone than a plant with a small or inadequate population of root fungi? >>>
 
With fewer fungi there is less nutrient cycling going on as per the nematode, protozoa eating.  Less food, fewer critters
 

<<<Also Jeff - if some exchanges move the pH up, are there exchanges that
move the pH down? as in Lon' example of the forest fungi making alkaline
soil more acidic? >>
 
Oh yeah, anions are released when certain nutrients, mostly those in solution are adsorbed by roots.
 
<<I feel that there is a very important idea coming out of this
discussion. >>>
 
Don't discount the role of the bacteria and fungi in first buffering and eventually adjusting pH: The slime of bacteria (the same slime you feel in your mouth in the morning) has an alkaline pH and the organic acids released by fungi as they decay.  These organisms, incidentally, are attracted to the root zone by the exudates released by the plant itself. So, in a large sense, it is the plant that sets the pH....
 
Two other things and may be more than others want to know so we can take this off list, Jeff. First, compost has its own pH. Many gardeners think all compost has similar pH. Not so. You can make composts dominated by fungi and composts dominated by bacteria and they have different pHs.  Plants that are in the ground a long time prefer fungally dominated soils.
 
Second, putting compost on the soil around plants vs. putting mulches around plants needs to be examined. There are those who believe the energy used to make compost is somewhat wasted and that putting material down as mulch instead of in the compost pile results in much less carbon being "wasted." I use green mulches around annuals and vegetables and bulbs because these favor bacterial domination. I use brown mulches around trees, shrubs and perennials because this encourages fungal domination in the soil, 
 
Again, lots of this is short-hand and grossly simplified. Again, I am happy to take this off list.  However, I am a big believer that gardeners need to get out of the "Art" business and get with the "Science" of gardening. My readers here in Alaska sure seem to appreciate learning the science behind what they do.
 
Cheers,
 
Jeff Alaska


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