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Showing posts from 2015
Each Spring I open my private collection of trees to the public for a free conference which draws hundreds of attendees from across America. The lectures are focused around soil health and how to fix soil, in addition to tree cultivation, and growing nutrient dense food. I invite professionals recognized globally for being the experts on the topic of soil ecology and molecular biology of soil health. 30 years ago when I started the site had terrible soil that was saline, sodic and alkaline clay that's 12 feet deep, the vicious triad of horrible soil. The pH measured as high as 9.2 with a low of 8.5 in the best areas. I was told by my soil science professor in college that it was impossible to fix this type of soil, however today I have one of the highest active carbon levels measured by the USDA NRCS in the United States and I've never added compost, worm castings or the other stuff used to try and build soil. Hundreds of tree species now thriving on the site are labeled for th
Our annual tradition at Trees That Please is to sell living Christmas Trees. Once again we have an outstanding selection of beautiful live nursery grown conifers. Come and see our wide selection while it lasts.

Albuquerque’s Largest Urban Forest Tree Renewal Project

Urban forests are an important part of city ecosystems. They improve air quality, provide shade, increase property values, and improve our quality of life. Urban forests can be described in a variety of ways, including vegetation in local parks, public areas, private land, and in or around communities. The high elevation desert landscape of Albuquerque New Mexico is no exception to this. Silver Hills, one of the oldest neighborhoods in southeast Albuquerque, began their urban forest in the 1920's. The neighborhood includes University Boulevard, Gold, Lead, Coal, and Silver Avenue.  Silver Hills has always been known for its large beautiful shade trees, Siberian Elms, plantings encouraged by Clyde Tingley, chairman of the Old City Commission who lived on Silver Ave. Siberian Elms, or Ulmus pumila, are known for being fast growing and hardy in their youth, but as they grow older they become susceptible to insects and disease, and have a relatively short life span.  By th

Driscoll Salt Control Success Story Update.

Just refreshing this success story.  Since the past few years has proven difficult with the drought and the lack of surface irrigation water causing a buildup of salinity in our croplands of the West.  These two photos reflect the potential to fix salinity problems by using TerraPro , an exclusive product of Soil Secrets .  In one photo the crop is easily seen with yellow and salt stressed foliage while the other photo shows foliage not stressed.  Both fields are side by side at Driscoll's in California, where one field was treated with the TerraPro which contains as an active ingredient humic acids that are bio-identical, supramolecular humic molecules. By: Michael Melendrez   

Latest From IOS

Click the link:  http://treesthatplease.org/stay-informed-with-the-latest-from-ios-internation-oak-society/

Why Hydrogen Peroxide at Planting??

As a response to a question posed by a customer: Why use Hydrogen Peroxide for planting trees? it is worth addressing.  Hi Sharon,   Victor from Trees That Please forwarded to me your email concerning the use of hydrogen peroxide in tree planting.  Your comment about the damage to the soil microbiology is very good.   So why would I suggest using this product?  Here's my answer.  For many years the nursery industry and the landscape construction industry have struggled with tree and shrub plantings that result in call backs, dead trees and added expense and less profit to the company.   The main culprit  was the soil zone of discontinuity caused by the texture and structure difference of the soil inside the planting site with that of the native soil.  This barrier is called the soil interface zone, which causes   water,   oxygen and roots difficulty  crossing.   The garden books teach us to dig and prepare the $100 hole for the $10 tree by mixing all kinds of goodi

Another Success Story

The Soil Secrets company is currently involved in new product development with the company that invented the first synthetic oil called Amsoil and their Natural Fertilizer division called Aggrand.  The following corn production project used by Aggrand and Soil Secrets.   The photo was taken by Bob Geyer, one of our Soil Secrets associates in California.  Bob also represents Aggrand in California for agriculture.  This field was treated the first year using just the Aggrand protocol and the corn silage yield increased  from 24 tons per acre on the sandy areas of the farm and 26 tons per acre on the better soils, jumping to 38 tons per acre.  At the end of the first year the corn stood at 15' 1" while the variety used called Bagglietto is suppose to only grow to 12 1/2 feet.        The second year the field was  treated with TerraPro and the same corn variety was planted using the same Aggrand protocol as the first year.  This time the corn grew to 15 feet 5 inches tall.  A

Here's an article from Western Farm Press on Pistachio's

Here is the article John Miller sent me confirming information on Pistachio blanks occurring at  20 to 30%  state wide in California.  http://westernfarmpress.com/ tree-nuts/rising-some-tough- challenges-california- pistachio-growers-wrap- successful-season     As a reminder of our client in California that we just posted a blog story on his acreage producing an additional 600 pounds of nuts above and beyond his remaining acreage not treated with our protocol.  His trees treated with our TerraPro protocol  averaged less then 5%,  actually 3 - 4.8%  http://www.soilsecretsblog.com/2015/09/good-news-on-another-success-story-that.html   Michael Martin MelĂ©ndrez Managing Member of Soil Secrets LLC   www.soilsecrets.com

Growing Pecan Orchards in Southeastern Arizona

Here's good news from our West Coast Distributor John Miller of Spec International.  He sent me this report with photos yesterday, September 14, 2015.  The farm is located near the New Mexico Arizona State line South of Interstate 10 in the Chihuahuan Desert.  The trees are irrigated with above ground spray heads with water coming from deep irrigation wells.  Soils are typical Southwestern desert dirt with high pH, high salinity and poor structure after its been disturbed.  As a result crops including  tree crops often show signs of salt burn, iron uptake problems (chlorosis) and zinc uptake  problems on pecan trees.  This particular grower is putting in over a thousand acres of new trees each year with some of the acreage treated with our  TerraPro  and  Protein Crumblies  products.  I'm glad he's left some acreage untreated as it gives us the opportunity to compare.  They are also being supplemented nutritionally with a foliar feed using an AgGrand 4-3-3 product wh

crop yield report has come in, reflecting improved soil health on California Pistachio field

Good News on another success story that just came in today.  If you remember our blog story from last January 2015, Don DeBoer had performed some soil compaction testing with his penetrometer on Pistachio orchard land owned by Charlie Gragnani.    http://www.soilsecretsblog.com/2015/01/soil-health-and-changing-soil-compaction.html The results of the testing discovered that the soil compaction had dropped a bunch, from an average of 300 psi coming down to an average of 75 psi.  This is significant because there's a direct cause and effect where water and oxygen can now penetrate the soil when its psi has been reduced.  The reason,  the drop in psi is demonstrating an increase in soil porosity, which also causes an increase in air space in the soil.  This is the single most important thing that can happen to the soil as its health improves! So what's the good news?  The crop has been harvested and evaluated and the grower was able to collect an average of 600 more pounds of nu
What Tools In The Tool Box Do We Have To Build a Healthy Top Soil? I was returning from Las Cruces recently and along Interstate 25 I saw huge piles of compost being deposited by the landscape contractor, which reminded me to write this article. With each year we learn something new and improve upon the old techniques and products we've offered.  In some ways you may find this frustrating because it may require us to stop making some products as they grow obsolete by newer ideas and better products that we can support our claims with good science.  Soil Secrets taps into the National Labs asking for "Deliverables" that will help support our ongoing R & D and help us provide products with the best efficacy possible.   For example, in the arena of Humic Acids, a substance sold by many companies, but previously without the molecular description to substantiate what the potential Mechanisms of Action could be based on the geometry of the molecules, the thermal energy
Michael Martin MelĂ©ndrez  added  4 new photos . These photos and comment came from John Miller, a Soil Secrets Distributor working on a project in Baja Mexico wine production using SS products. "Here are th e latest photos from Mexico. Luis, the farm Manager is very happy and totally amazed at what TerraPro has done for his production. Vines are averaging 8 Kg production per plant and they have 3,333 plants per hectare. Here it is, the middle of August when his vines would show water stress with dry curling leaves from lack of water uptake due to high salts and poor soil structure for moisture retention. He has had nothing but hot sunny days for the last three weeks and the vines are very healthy with a larger crop then normal for a vine that has started it's fourth year of growth." TerraPro is the only bio-identical humic molecular product in the soil ecology industry. Humic molecules that are truly supramolecular can repair and enhance any soil,
There are a few retail nurseries around the country that believe in and promote soil health and Soil Secrets is the industry leader in that venue. My Trees That Please Nursery in Los Lunas is the only Albuquerque market retail nursery that promotes and uses Soil Secrets and we sell a lot of it. Soil Secrets is not only successful on home gardens in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, on farms in Deming and the Mesilla Valley, orchards in California and vineyards in Baja Mexico, its also used on the campus of Texas Tech and lawns in Kansas City Kansas as seen here in before and after photos.

Is California Sucking the Almond Industry Dry?

The following article is about Almond Production in California  and the amount of water needed.  This article is very timely as Soil Secrets Soil Ecology products are being used by California's Almond producers proving to help with the water problem while also helping to produce good crops using less water. Is California Sucking the Almond Industry Dry? By  Jade Scipioni Published July 09, 2015 FOXBusiness Facebook 45   Twitter 17   livefyre 26   Email   Print  (AP Photo/Russel A. Daniels, File) If you don’t live in California, the serious drought—which is now in its fourth painstaking year—may not affect your everyday life. But you are probably eating their almonds. The state produces 80% of the world’s almonds and the industry has been taking the brunt of the water shortage ever since. “Blame game doesn’t help. Yes, it takes about one gallon of water to produce one almond. And, it also takes 1.4 gallons of water to produce two olives. A