Can liquid clay sediment be used as a plant feed?

Can liquid clay sediment be used as a plant feed?

Here is my story- I have about 50 meters of food producing beds in NZ soil with a reasonable amount of clay which I reinvent as cob walls around my garden beds, and also feed through the compost system.

Yeah, waste not, want not.

Now, next to the garden tap I have two tubs of clay soaking in water for use in mudpie making.....sorry, cob wall building.

Over time a certain amount of the clay dissolves into the water which turns into a creamy milky soup.

About a week ago I started adding some of this soup to the weekly watering and feeding regimen along with the regular seaweed and comfrey tea.

It seems like it would work. Clay is made up of dense, plastic arrays of insoluble mineral rich stuff. (hazy chemistry).....
After dissolving in water, wouldn't we have fine particles of soluble stuff that would be available to plants if watered into the beds?

But, if this is the case, then why isn't everyone (with clay) doing it?

I lookethed on the Internet of All Things, finding very little. There was this one company working in the desert (high sand situation) with something that sounds like a simple (very expensive) clay liquid feed-

" This innovation, called Liquid NanoClay (LNC), is created when irrigation water and clay are mixed. The mixing is carried out on site and the LNC is spread onto sandy soil using traditional irrigation systems such as sprinklers or water wagons. The individual clay flakes bind to the surface of the sand particles with a Van der Waals binding, and the mix percolates the ground down to root depth (normally 30-60 cm). This significantly increases the ability of the soil to retain water and nutrients and host plant-boosting fungi, creating conditions for fertile land..one application can last for 5 years and reduce the quantity of water used by up to 65%. "

We now have issues with summer drought in NZ where the weather patterns have changed, and cloud formations look strange and unlikely..... So I am wondering if my liquid clay plant feed might not be an answer to remineralising my soil, and protecting plants during our man made drought summers.

What do you think? Hugshugs from NZ where we have late spring and a little rain today which the small green children and I are deeply glad about. Especially the new watermelon transplants.

I wonder what kinds of minerals liquid clay furnishes?

If you are seeing a significant difference in plant growth over just using water then maybe you are on to something.

Not everyone has clay to do this experiment though.

Can liquid clay sediment be used as a plant feed?

I guess so.

Janette Raven wrote:It seems like it would work. Clay is made up of dense, plastic arrays of insoluble mineral rich stuff. (hazy chemistry).....

Love where your brain is going with this! Let me clear up the chemistry/physics a bit =)

So! Clay, Sand, and Silt are all 'the same' in that they are made of insoluble minerals: Primarily quartz, zircon, garnet, monazite (a source of rare-earth minerals), and rutile (titanium dioxide)
You may have noticed that none of these minerals match our lists of 'what plants crave.'
Insoluble means they don't dissolve in water. So, plants have absolutely no way to suck them up & use them.
The only textbook difference between Clay, Silt, and Sand is particle size.

Clay particles are smaller than 0.002 mm in diameter. Some clay particles are so small that ordinary microscopes can't even see them clearly!
Silt particles are from 0.002 to 0.05 mm in diameter.
Sand ranges from 0.05 to 2.0 mm.

Most soils contain a mixture of sand, silt, and clay in different proportions - along with organic fragments & living organisms.
The size of soil particles, and the ratio of those particle sizes is important. The amount of open space between the particles influences how easily water moves through a soil, and how much water (and nutrients) the soil will hold.

If a soil is overwhelmingly clay, with very little of the other particle sizes, and not enough organics, the soil will be very slow to take in water - and very slow to lose it.
Clay has the highest ability to retain water, AND retain nutrients that is suspended in the water. It expands when in contact with water, and shrinks when it dries out. Compared to sand particles, which are generally roughly round, clay particles are thin, flat, and covered with tiny plates.

But - Overwhelmingly clay soil ALSO has the problem that all the tiny particles pack together extremely tightly and fill in any air gaps as soon as water can move it around. Since plants need air reaching their roots to survive (and waterlogged roots leads to rot), pure clay is very hard for most plants to grow in. The clay suffocates it.
Since clay takes in water so slowly, a clay-heavy soil is more prone to flash floods - the water will slide along the top instead of soaking in.

Bigger, coarse particles like sand will pack together more loosely to create little geometries in the particles in a way that still allows airflow and water to flow through it.

If a soil is overwhelmingly Sand, without enough of the other particle sizes or organic material, the water and air flows through TOO fast and the sandy soil quickly dries out - shriveling up & killing the microbes that need humid environments to live & move around, and killing the plants as they have no water or nutrients that they can reach.

Silt has many of the same problems as Clay - because it is so fine, it become a smooth mud with water, and easily washes away.

"Loam" is a mixture of clay, sand, and silt - along with 2-5% humus.  
Soil that is 30% clay, 50% sand, and 20% silt is a "sandy clay loam"

"Humus" is compost. Compost is Humus. Same thing, different words. 'Compost' is generally deliberately manmade while Humus is formed where decaying things naturally fall & gather - like around trees, in ditches, and around a forest floor. Both are just decomposed organic materials.

Agricultural soils are usually 2% organic material  by weight, while in a forest the soil is usually upward of 5%+ - along with a thick layer of humus blanketing the surface where plant matter, dead animals, insects, and manure are decaying year after year. That humus gets mixed downward into the soil by burrowing animals, insects and microorganisms.
Alongside clay, that organic humus can also hold onto water like a sponge, and it's MADE of nutrients.

The humus is broken down.... and broken down... and broken down... until all that's left is small molecular chains, which get broken down into even smaller molecules, and digested and turned into other molecules by mycorrhizae and protozoa, and THOSE molecules are the ones that plant roots can suck up as nutrients and use to create energy.
So, the humus/compost seems to 'disappear' after a while because it ends up being broken down to its base molecules, and turned into plant tissues.

Plants use SOME silica, from the quartz content found in sand/silt/clay. Plants also use the calcium from limestone. Sulphur can also be used by plants.
There's also Mycorrhiza which can chew up the sand & clay & silt into bio-available states, but that happens very slowly.

Aside from those, most inorganic (mineral) soil amendments are not used as plant food - they're used to change the soil structure, to change how water/nutrients are held inside the matrix of the soil, or to alter the pH.

So, why would your suspended fine-clay-in-water help your plants?

1) Your soil is very loose/sandy and doesn't have enough organic material in it - so adding clay is helping your soil retain water & hold onto nutrients, to keep feeding/watering from the soil longer after your initial delivery of it.
2) Your clay has leftover nutritious organic molecules suspended between the clay particles, or a soluble inorganic mineral like calcium or sulphur, and by soaking it in water, you're pulling those nutrients into the water and delivering them to your plants.

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In New Zealand specifically, y'all have trouble with soil fertility, and the makeup of your soil particulates is often very specific to your little niche on the island. Harsh storms and landslides have stripped a lot of the topsoil off, which means the removal of ancient humus & all the molecular nutrients that went with it.

The coniferous forests create a layer just under the humus called 'Podzol' - basically, the acidity of the needle-based humus dissolves the clay minerals entirely, creating a band of sandy-textured soil that is entirely infertile, lacking in most plant nutrients, with poor water retention. (Because the sand doesn't hang on to any of it, the nutrients just drain away.) - usually with an iron-rich band of soil right below it, which is similarly poor in nutrients, and deceptively humus-rich loam right at the surface.

Podzol bands on New Zealand is usually due to the coniferous forests. Kauri pine, and Rimu often create podzolized soils. Areas with deciduous trees like false beech, tawa, and taraire will have very high fertility in comparison, because their decomposing leaves are not as acidic, and so do not leech at the soil so harshly to make that sandy 'dead' band.
High-acid soils can also be difficult for young plant roots to grow in.
If you live near a coast, you could also be getting salt deposits in your soil from blown-in seawater, from storms or just from strong winds. The salty water can be carried as a mist on the wind.

Areas with natural limestone deposits in the subsoil also don't have the problem with acidity as much, because the lime will raise the pH and neutralize the acid.

There are some studies going on with deep-soil remediation in New Zealand and Australia: basically, digging up the soil to a depth of 2-3 feet, and custom-mixing the soil to be friendly to agriculture, using things like crushed shells, sulfur, sand, clay, compost, manure, kelp, etc.

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Thanks for coming to my TED talk lol

I agree with the above post that clay water would probably help exceedingly sandy soils, but water with your native clay will not add anything lacking for the plants already in it that soil. I doubt it would hurt though, and maybe using it as a compost tea base would help to get those minerals biologically available. On the other hand, I have heard of clay sprays being used as a physical and chemosensor/aromatic barrier for insect and pathogen control (I believe one brand is “Surround”. So You might try that clay water as a insect control on fruiting plants.

Someone recently posted an old adage -- "Clay on sand is money in hand."

I'm watching this thread closely, since I'm gardening on sand and I seem to have some nutrient deficiencies. And I have access to good road clay. Perhaps a clay slurry in a pail, with an electric drill and paint mixer, to settle out any silt? Hmm.

Wow, TOKO AAKSTER and BEN ZUMETA, I am so impressed with the extremely knowledgeable inputs on this question. Thank you all so much for the time and effort you have put into it. I like the idea of spraying fruit bearing trees with clay particles suspended in water. At the very least, there is nothing to loose. I am having an issue with whitefly on citrus, and Austraian guava moth attacking feijoa , guava and citrus trees during the fruiting season. The latter are particularly pesky because NZ does not have any natural defenses against these newcomers, and the industry is only looking toward for-profit chemical controls.

I think I will continue t experiment and observe, in terms of adding the water suspended clay to my liquid feed- regimen.
Clay is silica rich...this may, or may not be a way of moving the silica into a soil zone where it may have a beneficial effect.
Overall, I am impressed with how quickly clay seems to move toward loam when broken up and allowed to play with organic matter, which in my case is largely seagrass and woodchip.
I have only been doing this on any scale for a year though, so it is early days.
Thank you again everyone for your valued inputs.

Ben Zumeta wrote:I agree with the above post that clay water would probably help exceedingly sandy soils, but water with your native clay will not add anything lacking for the plants already in it that soil. I doubt it would hurt though, and maybe using it as a compost tea base would help to get those minerals biologically available. On the other hand, I have heard of clay sprays being used as a physical and chemosensor/aromatic barrier for insect and pathogen control (I believe one brand is “Surround”. So You might try that clay water as a insect control on fruiting plants.

I agree with Ben, about the clay sprays for fruit.

I might be wrong, but my guess is that the clay water mix for sandy soil would form a sort of crust to help minimize evaporation. Over numerous applications it might eventually get mixed into the sand and build a loam structure.