Rhyce Saroni
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Garden note: Albeit a bit of a long note to follow... Regarding my issues with iron chlorosis... I feel pretty confident about the water being the culprit at this point. I must admit that I was a bit flummoxed by this one. Diagnosis was easy but the forensic part has had me tearing my hair out all week. Convinced it was this, then that, blah blah blah.. Finally settling on water as the culprit. What was so confusing was trying to understand how the water that I'd been using since the move was 'all of a sudden' causing this to happen.
Near as I can tell the 'why now' of the question is because my experience with soil is that most things happen very slowly with regard to changes in the soil's chemistry. By looking at my crops, I came to realize that the plants that had been growing the longest were the only ones exhibiting the iron chlorosis. So I knew that the issue had been festering since the move. Soil was out because it wasn't new and it was happening in two different mixes (super and seedling)... Strain was out too because it happened on more than one. The only common thread that kept coming up was water and time. All involving the earliest starts.
However what confounded that otherwise easy conclusion was that I'd finished off a bunch of crops here that were transported from the old garden. Why weren't they affected? This is what vexed me the most. Finally after three days of pondering I've come up with a plausible answer. I got this hint from an article about chlorosis and possible contributing factors. The most interesting one is that these symptoms are most lilely to occur when the plant is growing vigorously and processing nitrates at an incredible rate. A byproduct of this process is alkaline waste... I finally figured that the 'old' gals were, 1) not here long enough to accumulate a deficiency and 2) not in a growth stage that would cause the issue to arise.
Given these assumptions, it HAS to be the water. What sucks about this is the length of time it'll take to see the improvement... What really matters is that new growth starts coming out green and this appears to be the case but like I said, it takes time.
Another humbling experience which just shows how important time and experience are in this game. If I ever make a major move from one facility to another in the future, I'll be sure to to a comparative water analysis between the two locations.
Regarding the water sources, my well water is highly alkaline at 8.0 pH while my river water is highly acid at 4.0 ph... Why the big difference, most likely because the well is an artisian well and it's water souce is an aquafer that's below bedrock and the river is fed by ground water and decomposing (composting) matter for the most part. I've never met a compost tea that wasn't 4.0... it shoud be. At least I've found living organic compost tea's to be acidic, which I believe is necessary to start the organic symbiotic process going whereby, all things combined, a kaleidoscope of pH conditions will exist... Thus why I've been so cavalier about my water source, never dreaming that a high alkaline environment could be so detrimental. In my crazy brain, I just figured it would be the reverse of the acid rainbow and TLO would handle it... Foolish me... I must have been out smoking a doobie when we covered this topic... lol
I'm too disgusted to take pictures yet... The problem is not pervasive thank goodness... Another good reason to using a rolling crop method... minimize impact of issues like this... I will say that it appears that new emerging growth is now green the way it should be... Oy!
Best of all, we're not skipping a beat and will be dropping a bunch more Sour Grapes this coming Friday...
Meanwhile, we'll install a pump in the river this week so it can be used as desired given good results...
Like always, Farm On! Never stop planting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Until you run out of resources that is...
Near as I can tell the 'why now' of the question is because my experience with soil is that most things happen very slowly with regard to changes in the soil's chemistry. By looking at my crops, I came to realize that the plants that had been growing the longest were the only ones exhibiting the iron chlorosis. So I knew that the issue had been festering since the move. Soil was out because it wasn't new and it was happening in two different mixes (super and seedling)... Strain was out too because it happened on more than one. The only common thread that kept coming up was water and time. All involving the earliest starts.
However what confounded that otherwise easy conclusion was that I'd finished off a bunch of crops here that were transported from the old garden. Why weren't they affected? This is what vexed me the most. Finally after three days of pondering I've come up with a plausible answer. I got this hint from an article about chlorosis and possible contributing factors. The most interesting one is that these symptoms are most lilely to occur when the plant is growing vigorously and processing nitrates at an incredible rate. A byproduct of this process is alkaline waste... I finally figured that the 'old' gals were, 1) not here long enough to accumulate a deficiency and 2) not in a growth stage that would cause the issue to arise.
Given these assumptions, it HAS to be the water. What sucks about this is the length of time it'll take to see the improvement... What really matters is that new growth starts coming out green and this appears to be the case but like I said, it takes time.
Another humbling experience which just shows how important time and experience are in this game. If I ever make a major move from one facility to another in the future, I'll be sure to to a comparative water analysis between the two locations.
Regarding the water sources, my well water is highly alkaline at 8.0 pH while my river water is highly acid at 4.0 ph... Why the big difference, most likely because the well is an artisian well and it's water souce is an aquafer that's below bedrock and the river is fed by ground water and decomposing (composting) matter for the most part. I've never met a compost tea that wasn't 4.0... it shoud be. At least I've found living organic compost tea's to be acidic, which I believe is necessary to start the organic symbiotic process going whereby, all things combined, a kaleidoscope of pH conditions will exist... Thus why I've been so cavalier about my water source, never dreaming that a high alkaline environment could be so detrimental. In my crazy brain, I just figured it would be the reverse of the acid rainbow and TLO would handle it... Foolish me... I must have been out smoking a doobie when we covered this topic... lol
I'm too disgusted to take pictures yet... The problem is not pervasive thank goodness... Another good reason to using a rolling crop method... minimize impact of issues like this... I will say that it appears that new emerging growth is now green the way it should be... Oy!
Best of all, we're not skipping a beat and will be dropping a bunch more Sour Grapes this coming Friday...
Meanwhile, we'll install a pump in the river this week so it can be used as desired given good results...
Like always, Farm On! Never stop planting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Until you run out of resources that is...
