Re: Fall clean up: bare ground or leaves?
- Subject: Re: Fall clean up: bare ground or leaves?
- From: M*@aol.com
- Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 02:45:14 EDT
In a message dated 10/3/2003 11:52:50 PM Central Daylight Time,
justme@prairieinet.net writes:
> Thanks Paul for setting the record straight! I learn something here all
> the time!
>
> Donna
>
What type of Oak trees do you have? Its a large group of trees and some have
very thick almost leather like leaves that take a long time to break down
(live oaks)?
Around here we have white and red oaks and the leaves will rot away in single
year, and now that we have alien worms, the oak leaves are all gone by the
end of June.
The leaves make a nice soil with the mid ribs and veins persisting for a few
years.
My soils are slightly alkaline and have been oak-elm forest since the end of
the glacier period.
Most soils have a thin organic component over a mineral base and its the
minerals and the way they have weathered that effect pH. If your soil was all Oak
leaves or evergreen needles then you might have a pH problem, What ever the
trees take out of the ground leaves the ground the opposite. And once the trees
return that material to the soil after decomposing, the soils should return
its normal balance. But if you concentrate the leaves and wood in one location
you can effect the soil, more acid in one location and more basic were the
trees absorbed the acid ions from.
This is the same for organic material in the soil, and its nutritional value.
Organics do not make the soils have more nutrients except were they are
concentrated in one location and at the expense of making some other area
nutritionally poorer. They do a great job of improving soil texture.
Paul
Paul
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