Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Test

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Test
  • Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:14:39 -0800

Lynda wrote:


Drought areas don't have much to do with alkaline vs. acidic. We're in what would be called a permanent drought area and the soil is very acid.


I think this is just an error in logic. Leaching eventually causes acidity, but the lack of it does not necessarily cause alkalinity. You can readily observe in a limestone cavern how the ground water has been leaching calcium from the surface and redepositing it deep underground. OTOH, in the desert, and in my greenhouse, alkalinity builds up because alkaline metals are applied in the irrigation water, but there's never enough water to rinse them away, or they just rinse into a dry creek and downhill to some other spot in the desert (or the low spots in the greenhouse, where the white is).

The sources of stable alkalinity as the column I and II metals: sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. For instance, many areas in Europe have a thick layer of limestone from ancient deposits of seashells. The volcanic regions that you and I live in don't have that. Unfortunately that's why our area isn't going to become the next France, agriculturally. So that's a second way that a soil becomes acidic, simply by being born without any of these metals to start with.

Bill
S. Oregon coast






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page