Recently I was in an Albuquerque retail nursery where a fertilizer was being sold that stated it was formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest. It contained high levels of iron and sulfur, plus the N, P and K major nutrients.
Do any of the readers care to comment on this type of product? Pros, Cons, etc. I have my take on it, but I'll entertain what you want to say about it.
Michael Martin Meléndrez
Comments
David Petersen
Finally, in cases of typical Southwestern soil chemistry where the pH could range from the mid 7 to 8 or even higher, there's no reason to attempt changing the pH. What's needed is to instigate a healthier biological situation where Nature provides the mutualistic benefits provided by mycorrhizal fungus, who can sequester the mineral elements needed by the host plant, even if the soil has a high pH. Up till now, the nursery industry did not have a solution for home owners who were experiencing chemical occlusion (tying up of nutrients) because of high pH soils, where nutrient elements like iron would become complexed and were not capable of water solubility or oxidation. That's when we see plants starving for something because of failure of plant nutrient uptake! Our proving grounds in Los Lunas, called the Arboretum Tomé is a good example of this process, where the soil pH ranged from 8.3 to 9.2 and was a Saline Sodic Alkaline clay, also called White Death by many in the industry. We focused on fixing the biology and fortifying the soil with a powerful biologic chemical called Supramolecular Humic Acids. The objective of the Humic Acid fortification is to not change the pH, but to provide the many chemical characteristics/benefits that this chemical of nature provides. If I were to check the pH today, and I have, there's little change, however the Sodic and Saline situations has been corrected and the soil now has excellent structure rich in Active Carbon according to recent tests performed by Clarence Chavez, the acting State Soil Scientists for the USDA NRCS in New Mexico. The site now grows a huge genus and species collection of trees from around the world, with many having the reputation of not tolerating high pH soils, yet they grow fine for us.
Michael Martin Meléndrez
"Having the opportunity to grow up on a 7-acre farm where we planted a large variety of crops in a very diverse rotation, with minimal soil disturbance, with crop residues grazed with goats and sheep (our field were also topped dressed with goat and sheep manure); this field never had iron or sulfur applied to them and crop yields were great. Thus, the need for fertilizers formulated for alkaline soils is probably needed for degraded soils (low OM) found in conventionally tilled soils with lack of crop diversity, cover crops, etc. I believe that the issue is primarily a soil health issue, that is lack of mycorrhizal associations with plant roots, tillage that destroys this association and degrades soil aggregates, also lack of cover crops with legumes, etc.
Therefore, the answer is to build soil health, this will restore the biogeochemical nutrient cycle and many other benefits (increased water holding capacity, reduced insect and disease pressures, etc.)."
John Miller
Reclamation specialist
Arizona
I decided to go with Soil Secrets products, Terrapro, Protein Crumblies and the two liquids, Earth Nectar and Earth Ambrosia. These were rich in humic substances, mycorrhizae and microorganisms and contained NO salts. With these inputs, I had one of the best if not THE best garden I've ever had in 39 years of growing, researching and experimenting experience. Flavor especially was OUTSTANDING as well as yield! I had some minor insect damage but nothing the plants couldn't live with. The hot dog chemical fertilizer in this region is ammonium sulfate, very salty! Why add salt to already salt overloaded soils? Reason is conventional agriculture doesn't care about building soil with a healthy Soil Food Web and if they did care, they don't know how.
The high iron, high sulfur, salty NPK fertilizer mentioned above is garbage and contributes to soil destruction, not soil or plant health. That's my two cent's worth.
Thanks!
-Aurora, Staff Biologist