Re: Consensus on the "Perfect Pumpkin Soil?"
Marv,
That's a mouth full! Yes I would agree with you, short of importing clay
into your garden such as Shellie Cramer has taken too, the best way to
improve your CEC is by the addition of organic matter in whatever form
available to you locally. Remember though
this is a balancing act, if you raise your organic to an extremely high
level then you can run the risk of attracting disease. As for the actual
nutrient levels I noted, these are general recommendations for general
crops taken from agronomy books. They are Ideal growing conditions across
the board and not set in concrete. Higher levels or lower levels for
specific soil & crops may vary. Here is the problem. Giant Pumpkins have no
agricultural value or commercial value. Except to us! There for there has
been no money spent on any type of scientific research of the subject or
crop. We are it so to speak!
The Guinea pigs of the Giant Pumpkin World. So it is not possible to nail
down any hard scientific data, specific to exact PPM for specific types of
soil for our specific type of crop. My point in closing is that we should
all have a general understanding of our soil, the way it works and what
basic levels should be. Using common sense we can then amend, adding organic
matter, fertilizer etc to bring our specific type of soil up to the proper
"recommended" levels. Let's face it to optimize a top notch seed, even a
Top notch "Silver Bullet Seed", your ground has to be in tip top condition.
Thus the need to test your soil at least once a year. Perhaps Brock's study
comparing various different soil and nutrient levels is a start to your
answer and may shed some further light as to what levels seem to work best?
Chris
================================================================
>Chris:
>
>Let me bring you back to the soil. From what I have been reading here on
the
>thread a CEC or 20 to 40% would be considered pretty good, with 40 being
>better than 20 but 20 being the low range of acceptable. You said that your
>CEC is around 40. Mine right now is 29.
>
>As I understand it, the way to raise your CEC if it is low is either to add
>clay or humus via organic matter to your garden. A level of around 15% clay
>might be pretty good and a level of maybe 20% organic matter might not be
far
>out of the ideal range. The CEC is a function of both and so some sort of
>balance is another thought. Since it would take a lot of clay added to the
>garden to bring the CEC up, would you agree that the best way to do so is
>with the additon of organic material, either cow, horse etc manure or good
>old compost or whatever? Also the organic material adds nutrients to the
soil
>which the clay, of course, does not.
>
>Now for the actual nutrients. You related that an agronomist said a
balanced
>soil would be best. A saturation rate of 65 to 70% calcium, 10 to 15%
>magnesium and 2 to 5% potassium would be considered balanced. These numbers
>could be considered a recommendation for now at least.
>
>The next consideration is how many ppm of Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium
>would be ideal This is one of the last parts of the problem of attaining
"the
>perfect pumpkin soil" considering there is fair agreement that the pH of
the
>soil should be 6.7 to 6.9. Anyway, this ppm discussion is what there is not
a
>lot of data or agreement about. Brock was talking about this a little. What
>are your thoughts and those of others on this final point? The calcium
level
>in your garden was over 6000ppm while it was closer to 2000ppm in Larry
>Checkon's part where he grew the ill-fated 1191.
>
>If you or anyone in the group strongly agree or disagree with any of the
>above I would appreciate hearing about it as I consider you and some of the
>others here are much more knowing than I. What does Pumkinguy have to say?
I
>think he once said that he was either growing in pure sand or pure organic
>matter.
>
>Recall that I started this discussion by asking about the relationship of
>leaf color to nitrogen levels and so here I am trying to bring us to some
>sort of a conclusion as to what the heavy hitters and soil experts in the
>group think is right.
>
>Marv in Altoona
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Pumpkin-growing FAQ: http://www.mallorn.com/lists/pumpkins/search.cgi
>To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
>message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
>
>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing FAQ: http://www.mallorn.com/lists/pumpkins/search.cgi
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
