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Bryant RedHawk wrote:
Ran Nawan wrote:Just to expand on the Brix aspect here, the refractometer is often used to measure sugar, but it's function is to measure total dissolved solids. This is what you're measuring when you squeeze the sap from your produce sample. With reference to Dan kittredge, the more blurry the line when viewing the sample through the refractometer, the higher the diversity of dissolved solids.
The number yields the level, the less definitive the line, the more diverse the solids are.
Dan, amongst other soil advocates also pays little attention to soil pH. I know master Redhawk advocates managing soil pH, but it appears this really only applies if your soil is dead. If you have diversity microbes, minerals and moisture, the plants and microbes regulate the pH locally at the root hairs and exchange sites. In the course of a day, the pH might change from 5 to 7 to 9 to 6 multiple times a day.
This isn't to say Redhawk is wrong or doesn't have good results, but emphasis on regulating pH by mineral additions looks to be a losing battle. I don't have all my citations with me, but Dan Kittredge, SFW, Michael astera "An Ideal Soil", and Chris Trump of the KNF lineage all show pH chasing has been a difficult battle for those they consult with.
Plants use exudates to regulate the pH in the vicinity of their roots, which is mostly where it matters most. If you have dirt, then you have to make a pH adjustment, if you have soil with a pH of 6.8 and you want to grow blue berries or other acidic soil lovers, then you have to adjust the pH or the plant will die before it can become established well enough to take care of it's pH requirements (I've done the experiments three times and every time the non- adjusted soil plants died within one month).
Mineral additions are not pH adjustments, they are done for immediate mineral availability for plants, dirt takes some time to become soil unless you are using intensive biological additions (compost teas and extracts), even then it takes several applications of the tea or extract to get the microbiome charged up to the point it can break down the bound minerals, non-bound minerals are the ones plants can make use of. Once you have a good soil biology growing, then you would find no need to check or change pH of the soil. I have stated this in several posts in the past.
Usually I can get a microbiome charged up and working as nature intends within one year or less.
Bacteria are the organisms that use enzymes to break down bound up minerals with they and all the other microorganisms use for nutrients, the left overs are what the plants use.
Where I live, many people are trying to raise pH but the whole area is really in need of acidity instead of alkalinity, they use lime, thinking that will "fix the problem" but gypsum is really what they need to add along with sulfur, if they are dirt farming.
Redhawk
Sheri Menelli wrote:
A bit of background first. I'm in a middle class suburban neighborhood in Southern California. Up until I moved from lawn to a drought tolerant landscape in October, I was the only one without a front lawn.
(Actually I wanted to remove the lawn but until Gov Brown signed something last August I was not allowed to by the Home Owners Association. After Gerry Brown the HOAs could no longer prevent you
from having a brown lawn or for getting rid of grass!)
Darren J Doherty wrote:Thanks Michael,
Fundamentally there is a mis-match in patterning between general contours and Keyline patterns.
Whilst I understand really well the ecological underpinnings to Mark Shepard's work, his application of Keyline is seemingly based on one part his own geometry and another part the obsolete pattern of the 'common' Keyline, which was talked about in the first book on Keyline, 'The Australian Keyline Plan' (1954) and again in a Second Back Row Press version of 'Water for Every Farm' printed in 1981 in which this 'innaccurate idea' was repeated.
So that solved that problem!
Now if you are hell bent on running with contours then the swales or plantings that are planted on that contour will have water that is collected stay put. If there is a gradient on that ditch, mound, swale or whatever other obstruction to overland flow there is then if that gradient is directed to the ridge then water will go there. If you run with contours for every row you will not have equidistance between rows and at a larger scale who is going to seriously mark out the contour for every row. That is why Keyline geometry and its patterns is soooooooooo much better.
The simple elegance of Keyline patterning is that once you mark the Keyline (or next highest contour to the Keyline) of the primary valley and the lower contour on a primary ridge you don't have to worry about the any other contours and so you can shift from the plan that you have now to this. Run parallel to the Keyline/Contour in the valley and above the ridge contour marked.
In short I wouldn't suggest you do what you've suggested and go with the Keyline approach...
Thanks and all the best,
Cheers, Darren
Dave Burton wrote:Just in news! Geoff Lawton has reopened registration for his pdc for 24hours!
Cassie Langstraat wrote:Yay! Here is the link:
Click Here to Register for Geoff Lawton's Online PDC!!!
Dave Burton wrote:I don't know if they are the same caliber, because I have only taken one pdc so far which was with the Permaculture Education Center. The course was great, and I learned a lot. Though, Geoff Lawton is one of the permaculture greats, so I don't think many, if any, courses can compare with his.
The pdc with the P.E.C. is available all year-long, and the course content is continually updated after they receive feedback from each student.
Permaculture Visions is the oldest online pdc course out there, and was supported by Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton in its infancy stage in 1993. Their course is available year-round and is a little more expensive than the one from the PEC.
Then, the cheapest course out there is the one provided by the Open Permaculture School which gives you access to all the content for free, and the only thing that costs money is getting certified. I don't fully understand the dispute going on between the American Permaculture Association and Vladislav Davidson. More can be read at an article here or on FaceBook. The disputes kinda raise goosebumps with me, so pragmatically, their lectures could just be used as a supplement to another course elsewhere.
Oregon State University has a good program from what I have heard.
Zenais Buck wrote:
Ran Nawan wrote:I'm assuming registration is closed at this point?
Yes, It was filled by Saturday the 14th. Hopefully he will do one next year. It is quite good!