Thombo Corley

Chris Clinton wrote:

Thombo Corley wrote:
Have you tried growin any apples yet?

I've got lots of different interests, and am always at risk of having too many irons in the fire.  

I understand this and it's something I'm always trying to manage. Learning about soil and doing experiments is my favorite hobby, though. I'm familiar with skillcult we've been buyin seeds and scions from him for a few years now. We've had mixed success with apples too which is why I'm always asking southern growers about their experience. We've had as many losses as successes but the successes we do have are still really cool and valuable to me. The good thing about planting seedlings every single year is after a few you should be expecting new flowers every year from now on. Which is where we're at now. And the thought of trying new fruit is what keeps me going. Even if some of our survivors make less than ideal apples I'll still be stoked to have vigorous full sized trees for other needs, like future breeding and feeding livestock/wildlife. And trying to manage the encouragement of wildlife vs. them taking the crops is something I'm always considering. Barncats have a place on the homestead.

Happy to hear you say we need not worry about crushing because it's a hunch I've had from the beginning and I've only crushed for specific needs a time or two.

I've got two vessels of top down burned biochar mixed with an entire hunting lodges worth of teal carcasses, what should I expect to see when I dig into them? I don't have plans for it other than to leave it for a couple years and see what it turns into. And then consider it's application.

Also wanted to say thanks for being enthusiastic about biochar. Between you and Skillcult I've learned a lot and it's only encouraged me to use it more and do more experiments. If you're ever in East Texas give me a shout, I can send you home with some fruit trees. I've been wantin to meet ya for a while and I intend to get out to one of your workshops one day.

And using old grills for a kiln is actually genius, they're a southern staple, every other yard has one.

Looks like you've got some cool projects going on. I've done a couple trench burns that turned out really well. Both spots I dug them in are way more fertile than other spots in my yard.

I did some growin up in Atlanta your backyard looks like a lot of the backyards around there, reminds me of my brothers old spot in East Atlanta. Small pond projects are really cool and I'm fond of our amphibian friends. My kin just moved into a new house outside of ATL and I was encouraging him to implement a couple vernal ponds in the wooded area of his property to encourage more diversity. Keep us posted.

Have you tried growin any apples yet?

John Suavecito wrote:Sounds good, Thombo.
It's interesting to note that the bacteria species in the soil change, just like they do in our gut microbiome.  Some of the same bateria are present in both.   I assume that at some point, some really awesome geeky scientists will be giving us advice about what processes can increase the types of bacteria in our soil that will then help us be more resilient in our guts.  We can cultivate our gardens for our own specific health, just as they do for advice about antioxidants and phytochemicals.

I would be careful about salt, as it is used in sauerkraut to shut down bacteria, which may not be helpful in biochar.  

I would also be careful about how much molasses to put in, as too much can overwhelm the mix.

John S
PDX OR

I always aim for the low end when it comes to the ingredients. This current biochar soak is helpin me go through bags of minerals I bought 5 years ago because I never use them in liberal amounts. I used to hesitate to mix minerals/salt with microbes/bacteria/fungi but I read or saw someone who made me re-think that approach a while back. Salt must not have shut down too much, because there's a clear reaction happening in the char but I'm not as high IQ as some on here, so I couldn't tell you what it is... but it's bubblin.

Do you apply minerals or anything else when you put the charged char in the ground or does that sound like overkill (or overlife??)? In the Spring I put charcoal in planting holes and sprinkled them with rock dust and had results that made me think it was helping my annual plants along, nothing extravagant though. I still think one of the most important qualities is its ability to hold water in Southern grow zones. I strongly believe it's the reason my seedling peach, pear, and mulberry are all growing at an alarming rate. Red mulberry got so tall those hurricane winds snapped it in half a couple months ago but it's fully recovered and you can't even tell it's missing 30% of the tree that was there in May. As always, thanks for the response.

"In the study, biochar was applied at rates of 0%, 0.5%, and 1.5% to soil planted with spinach. The researchers observed that biochar application at 1.5% significantly increased the abundance of bacterial communities responsible for growth and nutrient uptake, such as Firmicutes (42.25%), Bacteroidetes (10.46%), and Gemmatimonadetes (125.75%), compared to the control under elevated CO2 conditions. Interestingly, the abundance of Proteobacteria decreased by 9.18% under the same conditions. This shift in bacterial community structure suggests that biochar creates a favorable environment for beneficial bacteria, which in turn enhances nutrient availability and uptake by plants."

These are the articles that make me wanna use more of it than I already do. Can't imagine a dusting of biochar at 1.5% would significantly do anything in a soil substrate, but alas, "science" proves what most biochar enthusiasts already speculate. Thanks for the link. I always geek out about biochar when I'm about to incorporate more into my grow areas.

I've got a 5 gallon bucket of top-down burned charcoal sitting on my carport "charging" at the moment. It's currently inundated with a number of biologicals. Microbes, bacteria, humic acid, molasses, kelp, azomite, aged urea, comfrey leaves, coffee grounds and real salt. Topped off with rainwater.

What do you think, John? Sound like I'm covering most bases? I'm gonna finally setup a few side by side comparisons of plant starts using biochar this Fall.

Ben Zumeta wrote:I use pine branches and needles as mulch a lot. It seems to work well. It will add carbon (the base of organic matter) more than any other nutrient. It does not seem to acidify the soil (the living trees do that with root exudates).

I could've saved myself some $ and labor by figuring this out 10 years ago. Most internet search engines would lead you to believe the opposite (last time I looked). The region I reside in is called "The Pineywoods" and it's abundant. The oldest, most worn down pines here are phenomenal for mulch or hugel. I've made charcoal out of them as well. There was a huge pine stump on our fence row I was grabbing bits of wood from for a few years that was harboring all kinds of critters, including the biggest scorpion ever seen on our property. I went all in this year after I deduced I'd actually been misled, and mulched some beds with close to 100% pine straw. The few beds I planted in this year are all doing great. Thanks for contributing to bringing awareness that pine straw mulch ain't gonna turn your garden into an acidic wasteland. On the contrary the soil beneath a pine canopy underneath the last 2-3 years of accumulated pine straw, is some of the darkest most fertile looking soil I've seen around here and its full of worms. Compare that to the clay soil in parts of my yard I'd break a shovel in if I tried to penetrate it. And the rock hard clay and fertile pine forest I'm comparing are maybe 50 yards apart. The answers are often right in front of us.

The fluffiest, crumbliest, most broken down pine gets added to my controlled compost and turns into humus relatively quickly.

Norm Burch wrote:Went to our camp and found only one branch had leave and small peaches. All other branches are pliable but have zero growth. East Texas zone 8b. Planted in March of 2023, had good growth before winter and all branches were healthy. It is an Elberte peach, Branch is lowest on left side in the photo. Any suggestions?

Top of that tree is likely dead. A couple of mine looked like that and I gave them some time to wake up but nothing happened. I just cut the dead part off the top of a seedling peach a couple hours ago, so it can make a new leader. That soil looks familiar... I would've extended that mulch ring a couple more feet out from the tree and dropped the forest floor on it.

Christopher Weeks wrote:
1) I do nothing like sterilizing the seeds I save. I want all the endophytes laid down by the plant to remain on the seed coat.

Yes! Sterilizing seeds has got to be one of the worst things you could ever do if the aim is encourage life. It starts with the seed.

I love conversations about microbes and can't imagine I'd be the grower I currently am without them. I wish I would've been in the process of considering bacteria and microbes when I started growing 10 years ago. Last year was a VERY dry year and I suffered lots of losses but the remaining trees, I believe, are alive because I put an emphasis on microbes. I did an experiment where I soaked a few seeds in microbes and those were some of the only plants that survived our heat and drought, I just ate my lone pink banana squash a few weeks ago, and I'm convinced I wouldn't have had it, had I not soaked it before planting.

There are microbe packs you can buy online and I've tried a couple but your best bet would be making your own. I have a compost bucket that I control that I never empty out that has been in use for 6 or 7 years. The only thing I put in this barrel is the good stuff I want to feed my plants with. (Oak bark, eggshell, leaves, yarrow, food scraps, bones, guts, clean grass, charcoal.) Worms have come in and made it a casting mix. The bottom few inches of the barrel is more like a clay than 'compost' that you can shape into a ball because it's malleable and doesn't look like most compost that might as well just be mulch. I've never looked at my compost under a microscope but my hunch tells me it's full of the good stuff. I also have a wood pile that I top off with more rotting wood every year and in the early Spring I'll push it a few feet on one side with the tractor and scoop the bottom couple of inches into the bucket. I can't describe how DARK the earth looks under this pile, and if we all had that type of soil around our trees we'd all be better off. The bottom of that wood pile is 100% wood compost, broken down, and it's the base of all of my soil mixes. I can't imagine how full of life it is compared to something you might see in a bag at a box store that is void of microbes or fungi.

I spent my evening yesterday collecting from my wood pile and my compost to inoculate the hole I dug for a plum sucker my uncle gave me. Our soil is absolute trash in some parts of our yard, but I noticed where I dumped wood chips two years ago that there was a mat of mycelium, I plugged my plum straight into this web... but not before I dropped a golf ball sized chunk of my best compost (bacterial, fungal, microbial bomb) right in the bottom of the hole and back filled with the black soil from underneath my wood pile. I can't imagine not using this practice when planting trees because it would just mean certain death for anything I planted. At least that's been my experience here and now I'm on the path to growing BIG fruit trees, not dead ones.

I think it was John "ghostman" Kempf (advancing eco ag) that said your best return of investment for microbes would be putting it in the furrow when planting. Just means as soon as your seed germs it's gonna have that microbial hitter to pull from. And I think Dan Kittredge has a video clip on YT titled something like "making your own soil inoculants". And if you have time listen to what both of them have to say they'll have you understanding microbes much quicker than I ever could. And Dr. James White. And Jeff Lowenfels.

Pete Podurgiel wrote:I took some advice and planted chives around my fruit trees .....can't say that I regret it.

I did the same a few years ago when I started putting trees in the ground and I wish my trees were as consistent and as vigorous as the garlic chives. That is usually my first recommendation when someone wants a companion to an apple. I rarely touch the chives around my trees because I have allium planted all over my yard. The pollinators here love the flowers that the chives make and I'm saving seed every year to make new plants to give away. Chives supposedly help with apple scab, too, but I've never really seen it here so maybe it's working?

Other plants I've used and have had success with are:
-green onion (can be harvested multiple times a year for the tops)
-garlic
-crimson clover (bees swarm to these flowers when in bloom)
-day lily
-oregano (I've been splitting a 5 year old oregano by root division for a couple years and one of the best things I did for one of my crabapples last Spring is put one of those transplants by the crab seedling and let it hang over a log (half charred) about a couple feet away from the trunk and by seasons end it was touching the apple and providing another cover on top of the mulch... it's ground cover, attracts pollinators when it flowers, medicine, something to dehydrate and process every year that stores well, it's one of my favorite herbs and it does great here in East Texas)
-yarrow (pretty vigorous spreader, I see more beneficial insects on these flowers than just about every other flower I've put in the ground. I'd be more confident about this thriving and surviving HERE than any of the other plants mentioned, hard to kill)

All of these plants I mentioned are in/around deep mulch. I might aim for the annuals that will vigorously self-seed like crimson clover that create that natural ground cover as they grow, flower, then decompose. I have a hairy vetch patch around one of my pear trees that died last year (RIP PEAR) that I'm fond of that did what I just mentioned. The seeds already have the cover to germinate if you just let the plants die and run their course. If you just wanted perennials you didn't have to think about just make a ring of day lily or daffodil around the trees. If you wanted fruit production try a black berry, I've had success with the thornless varieties from AR. Some good suggestions already in this thread and please don't crucify me for not mentioning comfrey, it didn't thrive here compared to the plants I've mentioned.

Sort of off topic, but another suggestion to benefit your apples would be to dump the forest around them, and I don't mean a bag of mulch from a box store. I mean go to the woods and get a wide array of organic material and surround your trees with it, at least several inches deep. The more diversity in the materials the better. I lost a lot of trees last year and the ones that survived have a highly biological zone around them. When I started learning about how plants actually absorb nutrients (Dr. James White/rhizophagy) it only affirmed why my surviving trees are still alive. We should be farming microbes and bacteria, mulching, planting a diversity of plants, and any addition of charcoal (biochar or whatever) has only helped my trees. There should always be a living root in the ground around your trees, and around here one that isn't rhizomatic grass. The worst thing you can do for a young apple tree (in my humble opinion) is put it on an island with just grass.

If I was seeking to do research on some good companions I might look up Stefan "tree tree-o" Sobkowiak, he has videos on companions in his orchard (he's way up north so some things don't align with how we grow here but the principles of it are what matter and while you're on his page he might convince you to NOT use plastic in your orchard. Or Michael Phillips, may he rest in peace and his holistic approach to orcharding live on forever.

Hey John,

Good question. I'm always reading your posts and wanted to say thanks for the dialogue about biochar you keep with everyone on here.

I guess I'd say my end goal is to add more good biology to the soil. There are parts of my yard that are rock hard clay, other parts aren't as bad. But I've noticed that the addition of biochar seems to help everything I give it to, it just sometimes takes a year or at least that's what it seems like. I'm just assuming that it's robbing nutrients at first if it's not "charged".

I've been wanting to ask you (and I'm sorry if you've gone over this before) if you noticed the biggest difference the year AFTER your biochar application? It seems to me after playing with biochar the last handful of years that it takes a year to settle in or however you want to say it. I'm admittedly bad at charging but have also heard some people don't charge at all, I just like to let mine sit for a while and maybe get rained on a couple of times, or run some through the compost. Like you, I'm putting it around all of my plants and trees. I don't make huge amounts at a time, I just put my fire out a little early when it's almost done burning and I'll come back a couple days later and sort through it. I'll even take a half charred log and drop it around the tree on top of the mulch. I did one of my seedling crabapples like that and it's one of my few survivors from last year. I wish I had more to play with, but I think even a small addition to a planting hole or a little bit in the drip line of a tree makes a difference in what the tree can take up from the soil around it.

I've got alliums planted all over my yard and the biggest, brightest green onions I have are directly beside a trench I dug two years ago and did a burn in. I don't think it's a coincidence as I'm assuming that plant (and the others around it, garlic chive, crimson clover, hairy vetch) is getting the most it can out of my soil. I'm also adamant about adding leaf mold, leaf debris around everything. That way the charcoal is getting charged every time water washes mulch into the soil beneath it. I've had good success with this and can't imagine not doing it going forward. We have summer with no rains here and I've got to assume that the charcoal is holding onto to some good things that would other wise not be there, or just get washed away with a rain. Thanks again for your time.