My TP experiment

[roaldgold]

Hi everyone. Its really nice to see a whole forum devoted to TP. I just found out about TP a little while ago and I'm planning some growth experiments on some indoor wheatgrass, radishes and spinach. I found this recipe on the web and was wondering if anyone else had tried it or something similar.

 

Gardening Australia - Fact Sheet: Pete’s Patch

 

The recipe:

Use one third of a standard bucket of pulverised wood charcoal

 

Half a cup of fish emulsion, half a cup of seaweed concentrate and 4 teaspoons of mixed, soluble trace elements all dissolved into 2-3 litres of water in a separate bucket to make a strong, nutrient concentrate.

 

Method:

1 Place the charcoal safely in a strong bag. Moisten a little for safety reasons. Use a hammer or similar implement to crush and pulverise it into a fine dust. Then place the dust into an extra-large bucket. Avoid inhaling the dust – you might wear a protective face mask or respirator.

2 Pour the fertiliser-based nutrient concentrate into the charcoal dust. Leave to soak for 3 days.

3 Then add one third of a bucketful each of dry river (pit) sand and ordinary soil (not clay). Mix together thoroughly.

4 Don’t use a stronger mixture than suggested.

 

I just started soaking my ground charcoal in my nutrient solution (which is 1/2 cup liquid seaweed, 1/2 cup fish emulsion and 4 tablespoons azomite rock dust). I am planning on adding the treated charcoal to a soil-less mix at 1 part charcoal to 2 parts soil. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments on this? Also, I will be taking pictures of my results and posting them on here.

[freeztar]

Welcome to Hypography! :rolleyes:

 

I've never tried the nutrient bath idea, but I've had excellent results mixing 1 part charcoal to 5 parts potting soil. A mixture of 1:2 seems a bit high to me, but I've never tried. Let us know how it goes.

[Michaelangelica]

Welcome bother TPer

 

Part of the Amazonian mix was clay shards.

I have been experimenting with Zeolite as a substitute.

 

Australian available Chars can vary from 7-9 pH.

The more alkaline the more problems I have had.

[roaldgold]

Michaelangelica, when you say Australian Chars are you referring to the recipe that I posted? I never thought about checking the pH but I am certainly going to do that now.

 

I checked out the zeolite and I'm thinking that perlite might do the same thing but I'm not sure. Thanks to you and freeztar for the welcome.

[freeztar]

We're glad to have you onboard! :phones:

 

I highly recommend monitoring pH levels as they can change and will certainly affect growth, for better or worse.

 

I bought a pH meter off ebay for around $10US. It's not perfect, but it gets close enough for my purposes. You might have similar luck.

 

In any case, keep us informed. We are *always* interested to hear from fellow experimenters. :)

[maikeru]

Michaelangelica, when you say Australian Chars are you referring to the recipe that I posted? I never thought about checking the pH but I am certainly going to do that now.

 

I checked out the zeolite and I'm thinking that perlite might do the same thing but I'm not sure. Thanks to you and freeztar for the welcome.

 

As I understand it, zeolite and perlite have quite different properties when used in soils. Zeolites can have high CEC and store and release nutrients like slow-release fertilizer and can take up to about 50-60% of their weight in water (although it varies depending on kind of zeolite). Perlite on the other hand has very low CEC but stores more water and air than zeolite.

[maikeru]

Hi everyone. Its really nice to see a whole forum devoted to TP. I just found out about TP a little while ago and I'm planning some growth experiments on some indoor wheatgrass, radishes and spinach. I found this recipe on the web and was wondering if anyone else had tried it or something similar.

 

Spinach does well in biochar (and so does almost everything else). Watch your little seedlings sprout and grow really, really long rabbit ears.

[roaldgold]

As I understand it, zeolite and perlite have quite different properties when used in soils. Zeolites can have high CEC and store and release nutrients like slow-release fertilizer and can take up to about 50-60% of their weight in water (although it varies depending on kind of zeolite). Perlite on the other hand has very low CEC but stores more water and air than zeolite.

 

Thanks for the info. What about vermiculite? Since I was going to just be adding my biochar to this soilless mix: ( Premier Horticulture – PRO-MIX growing mixes & Peat Moss: The ultimate growing performance ) I was wondering if I would need to add anything else. On that link you can see the contents of the mix. Also, can you see any problems I might have using this stuff with my biochar?

[maikeru]

Thanks for the info. What about vermiculite? Since I was going to just be adding my biochar to this soilless mix: ( Premier Horticulture – PRO-MIX growing mixes & Peat Moss: The ultimate growing performance ) I was wondering if I would need to add anything else. On that link you can see the contents of the mix. Also, can you see any problems I might have using this stuff with my biochar?

 

Vermiculite has high CEC and water-retention properties and should promote the growth of plants very well. It's used in a lot of mixes and to amend soil. But it's drawback is that it tends to degrade after several months to a year to a clay goo, and this can cause a deterioration in soil structure, texture, and porosity. Peat moss is similar, in that it has high CEC, good water-holding abilities, etc. but degrades after a few months. It is superb for sprouting seeds, though. Perlite usually doesn't degrade for years, so that's why it's used often in potting mixes and hydroponics.

[roaldgold]

Hi everyone. I was just buying some spinach seeds to start in my basement and suddenly I remembered how I said I was going to post the results of my TP experiment. I should have posted this 11 months ago when it was done but I kind of forgot about the project as some other stuff came up. Below in the pictures are the two seedling trays I used to grow the spinach. The TP mix #1 is the recipe that I listed at the beginning of this thread. TP mix #2 is alot more complex mix that I kind of got carried away with, its most likely way too hot. As you can see these two trays were side by side. One thing I have realized is that the fluorescent light is much stronger in the middle than it is at the ends, so that's one variable to consider (amongst many, many more). I also have some other ideas about why this turned out like it did but I think this is a long enough post for now. Sorry it took me so long to put these up. I'm starting some more experiments soon and this time I will be around to share the results. I hope to hear from some of you. Peace

[maikeru]

.

[JMJones0424]

What size and type of fluorescent did you use? Was it supplemental lighting (in other words, in the window sill or greenhouse with a fluoro on as well) or was that the primary source of light. It looks like the seedlings were suffering from insufficient light (long and spindly stems).

 

Maybe it's the mix color throwing me off due to variations of biochar concentrations, but it looks like some of the cells have dried out too much. Peat moss heavy mixes should never come close to drying out, as the peat moss doesn't absorb water well once it has dried out.

 

Finally, was the biochar concentration independent of nutrient level, or were the two directly related because you only had the two mixes of biochar/nutrients and varied the portion of biochar/nutrient mix in the cells? An ideal test would have the same nutrient levels in all cells, with only biochar portions being variable. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's possible to do such a test in such a small scale because the biochar seems to require more nutrient loading up front than a standard soilless mix, making equivalent nutrient levels hard to accomplish without a decent N/P/K/S/Ca/Mg test kit.

[roaldgold]

@maikeru: I didn't add any microbes to the plants. If i was going to do this again I would want to test different microbe additives. I was surprised at how many microbe products you can get. What microbes did you use?

 

@JMJones: I used those regular 12 volt bulbs as their only light. This took place in my basement. I didn't know this at the time but the strength of the light is greatly diminished at the ends of the bulbs. If i had known that I would have mixed up the different % so they all got an equal amount of light. As far as the cells being dried out, the higher % definitely retained water better than the lower % and the control. I was fairly diligent in watering the trays, but like you pointed out some would dry out faster than others. The biochar concentration was not independent of the nutrient level. I agree that a small test like this isn't ideal for a true TP experiment. I basically wanted to do a simple test to see if I wanted to add some treated charcoal into sections of my garden. There are ALOT of variables, so many I don't even really like calling this an experiment. One thing I realized later was that I shouldn't of used peat moss. I think that if one is to do a TP experiment they should use actual soil. Plus, I ground my charcoal to almost a powder. I think while mixing the charcoal into the peat moss it probably all settled near the bottom. I can't be sure but that is definitely a possibility.

[JMJones0424]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a 12v fluorescent bulb. Maybe you have different standards where you are. I think you meant 12w, and if so perhaps you were using compact fluorescent bulbs? If you plan to purchase new lighting, I prefer the standard T8 or T12 tube bulbs for starting seedlings rather than CFLs, as the light (and waste heat) is more diffuse and you can place the bulb closer to the seedling without worry of damaging the plants. Flourescent bulbs, especially low wattage bulbs, have very low luminance (not sure if that's the correct term), and the light energy received by the plant decreases as a square of distance from the plant. So, if the bulb is 10cm from the plant, the light intensity is 1/4 what it would be 5cm from the plant.

 

On peat moss, I too don't like to use it in mixes that I want to be very bio-active. However, for starting seedlings, the mild anti-microbial properties of sphagnum peat moss isn't necessarily a bad thing. Especially if the plant is susceptible to damping-off or fusarium wilt, I use a mix of about 2:1 fine sphagnum peat moss to perlite as a seed starter.

 

For use in the garden, if you keep compost piles, an easy way to incorporate biochar into the garden is to add it to your compost piles. The aging process will load the char with nutrients and mediate any high pH. If you haven't already, I think you will find biochar to be a useful addition to your garden.