Hi Bob! Regarding increasing nutrient density, Stephen, from Alberta Urban Garden, participated in this field trial and sent crops to a professional lab for analysis. The results showed that rock dust did not increase nutrient density of crops => czcams.com/video/B64NywRTPck/video.html
Do you have a mineral analysis for the variety of rock dust you added? Would like to see the composition. Obviously there are a lot of different rock dusts available.. To say "i added rock dust.. didn't work" is meaningless. Plus you added worm castings to both, so you really evaluated the combination of rockdust, which is generally alkalinizing, with worm castings, against the control(which is obviously a well developed rich soil) and the biochar+castings. It's not surprising that adding LOTs of an alkalinizing substrate to an organic acid rich soil would immobilize a lot of those nutrients and decrease yields..
I've been gardening with rock dust and observing about 5 years now, and here is my take. It really works wonderfully when nitrogen availability is adequate throughout the growing cycle. Dark glittering greens and the taste is truly strikingly rich and sweet. However, when the nitrogen level in the soil gets low, which is very common in many gardens (especially mine), the added rock dust can hinder plant growth and health by having a condition where the increased density and reduced porosity of the soil work against the ever-weakening soil life conditions. Very typically, the plant uses up all the available nitrogen that it can get at, which is also shared with the soil life. The soil life is significantly reduced because of this. Soil life has a difficult time thriving under low-nitrogen conditions. It is made even more difficult in combination with a denser rock dust infused soil. So, I think you can picture rock dust as having an amplifying effect depending on nitrogen availability, for better or for worse. On my rooftop city garden, I've generally had significant nitrogen challenges arise with my containerized beds, non-manure compost, and excessive winter/spring rainfall.
microbial life is the only way all the insoluble nutrients in rock dust can become soluble.... i would like to know what kind of rock dust he used in this experiment .....lots of different kinds of rocks out there .....hahahahaha......nitrogen gas stored below ground is amazing ....imagine what incredible CEC soil could do heheheh ........dude didnt load that biochar with enough nitrogen ......and thats the best place for the rock dust........preferably micronized basalt with paramagnetic properties and some gypsum for the sulfur and either ammonia or urea or better yet amino nitrogen and mix the two up to preload the biochar or zeolite.....1/2 lb growers secret soy nitrogen to 2 lbs of micronized basalt .....inoculate this with something like rootwise and then lets see this guy do his test
i think what we need are systems which release nitrogen when plant requires this without runoff i suppose healthy soils will hold on to nitrogen more than unhealthy soils but not sure.
From what I've read, one of the primary advantages to biochar is that it is a very stable form of carbon that is not easily exhausted, unlike more labile sources like compost. A better test of biochar might be to see how treated soil compares with untreated soil over several years without bringing in outside biomass (i.e. chop-and-drop gardening or less frequent applications of compost made from only on-site materials).
I really love the fact that you talk about peer reviewed studies and scientific results. Especially in this day and age when the cost of everything is so high. You just saved me a lot of trouble. I kept reading that biochar was so effective, but your video has shown me to keep doing what I’m doing, making compost and adding it at least once a year to my beds. Thank you for all that you do to help us gardeners.
You have your finger on the pulse of what we want to know. You are extremely thorough and a brilliant presenter. I am so grateful for what you do. Thank you so much
I'm pretty sure I basically "wasted" well over $1000 the first 3 years I gardened buying products and bagged soils. Love seeing these trials Bc it confirms that I don't need to keep buying anything. I've got a worm farm and a big compost bin in my chicken's area and they keep it turned. I planted 30 comfrey plants after seeing your videos on comfrey to mulch with and compost with. The only thing I am going to bring on to my property now are free clean fall leaves and wood chips. It seems every other thing is reusable.
i wouldnt automatically say its wasted.. if you were buying quality organic inputs there are too many nuances for a field trial like this to draw conclusions from, which is exactly what OYR is saying right now as i type this
A lot of people have to believe that if Home Depot has it on the shelf, then someone with our best interests and with THE knowledge ok'd it going to market. I bought scotts turf builder and dumped it on brand new kentucky bluegrass seed, then doused it with miracle grow, thinking I was nailing it right on target, and I was adding badly made compost, so I had a real edge on everyone. Till my first youtube video, when I found out I am a sheep. We do that. Now we have a point of reference to begin with, and its more than a lot of people will face. This is tye end of the story... for most people. Glad to see you here!🇨🇦👊🏻👨🏻🏭✨💖🙏🍁♻️🍁 I now own a lawncare company, organic if possible, but whatever I have do do to please a customer, you know. I am learning JADAM liquid fertilsers, and starting to look into making a compost tea bubbler soon. My lawn has biochar with about 20 inputs in it, all organic, and my worms are snakes! Lol
I have sometimes bought bagged garden products, but mostly I make compost with free leaves from my recycling center, kitchen waste mown grass, and whatever else I have available. After several years, all you really need to add is compost. This channel is great For gardening on a budget.
Thanks for your tests. I'm still going to make Biochar, mostly from blackberry canes. My clay field needs it, I have water issues with shallow well, and I need charcoal to absorb the herbicide my neighbor sprays. Husband died from being the major chemical sprayer on their farm from a young age. Biochar people have maintained that it makes the best advances on damaged or poor soil so your test is valid for you, but not for the millions of acres in the world that are constantly eroding. Happy gardening!!
Thank you so much for sharing this information, Patrick! I'm sure it took a lot of effort to record and track those yields. I find all of your videos to be helpful and informative, and you've inspired me with many ideas to try in my own garden.
You have saved me a lot of money and time with your channel, everyone else seems to be peddling something(growingyourgreens pushing rockdust and compost tea and migardener pushing "organic fertilizer"). I could see biochar being a benefit if your starting with subpar soil(not your black gold) but adding expensive sand to soil doesn't seem to make sense when you really step back and think about it. Thanks again for all your great work! Keep it up, it is appreciated!
Very interesting results! Helps to show that all you need is a good soil from free organic soil amendments. However the tomato yield results for 2016 were quite interesting! I better get on with a version in the UK!
Thanks, Huw! There were only 2 tomato plants in each group. Though the plants were assigned randomly, the biochar group had the luck of the draw with the 2 best plants. I'm pretty sure Stephen had lower tomato yields in his biochar group. It would be great if you did a UK trial!
I originally thought I would need rock dust and biochar. But lately I have been studying Dr Elaine Ingham's work on soil biology. She grew crops on land in Australia that had been in the 28th year of a drought. Amazing woman.
She's right that soil biology is the key to making ample nutrients in the soil available to plants. She goes as far to say all soils have enough of the elements needed by plants and just need to be made available by soil biology.
OYR Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening what about things like magnesium and selenium , where we are seeing there is immense lacking of these in our food and maps showing areas in the world where the soil is deficient in these? Are you saying it’s in the soil just not accessible??? These are imperative to good health , so I’m keen to know why you are saying this opposite to a long known issue?
@@peacelilly5074 I have since changed my views. See Dr Arden Andersen. He says volcanic rock dust is paramagnetic and makes your plats mature more quickly. Paramagnetic just means they attract energy. Let the soil biology including the worms eat the rock dust. They will produce amino acid chelated minerals easily absorbed by your plants. So we still need Dr Ingham's contributions. Magnesium is the core of chlorophyll. Selenium is in the earth more in some areas than others.
The problem was you did not feed the micro-organisms in the worm castings, so they would have significantly vanished, you basically put mainly charcoal in your soil. had you added a cuppla pounds/kilos of sugar, the micro-organisms would have hugely multiplied, so being able to significantly transform your soil, using their safe habitats in the Biochar grains as bases. You did not, imho, use Biochar, neither Enlivened biochar nor even Activated biochar, and your results suggest exactly that. Pity you had such poor advice as to what is really Biochar. I have a vegetable garden. when I start a new bed, I have been mixing in lime, - as I am in a high rainfall area, and a certified "organic' compost mixture, as the field was a horse paddock, and being basalt soil, although old, get a good crop, first time, then declining. Compost is not much good, my farm being sub-tropical, it diappears in 1 to 3 weeks, mulch a bit longer, leaving interesting new weed problems.. OK so limped along, applied bio-dynamic 500 prep a time or two got some good crops and always something to eat out there, enter my new wife, an old peasant farmer from Thailand, in the meantime I had learnt a fair bit about Biochar, got a pyramid flame cap kiln, had a worm farm, rrotary hoe etc. So, she wanted to earn money, I mixed up my patent enlivened biochar, worm castings, local horsy poo for bulk, bits of organic matter from the garden as best I could, (to supply the local micro-organisms and fungi) sugar, (to feed them and what is in the worm castings) any minerals our local soil is low in (eg Borax, almost all high rainfall soil is deficient in borax, - it is after all water soluble, you wonder why so many people have calcium retention problems?) a slurp of seweed mixture, some pee, - mainly worm pee, and rotary hoe it in. By then she has planted 4 *20 metre beds, - my old ones, prepared as normal, and after that the Biochar beds, - all weeding by hand with a knife, no artifical or poisonous anything, mainly worm wee to fertilise. In typical Thai style, every square metre of soil instantly replanted when harvested, all weeds and plant residues removed and burnt, earning a couple of hundred bucks a week, - organic sales company calling around every week to pick up their vegies, but then, some things just not growing so well, tried cowshit, - bit of increase, more wee, - likewise, money dropped somewhat, - up to about 10 * 20 metre beds at that time, finally the penny dropped for her, stubborn old bitch, only the non-biochar beds could not continually crop. Now she wants every bed Biochar, money is up to nearly 400/week, have 3 worm farms, the soil is so responsive, the 4 foot nothing one woman/tractor is happy. Certainly not as rigorously conducted a survey as with yours Patrick, although the rigour of real life was strongly there. :)
I think that your composted leafs already added all the nutrients that the rock dust is trying to provide.I have noticed that the Biochar when added to the compost pile does perpetuate its growth.I inoculate mine in a fermented conditioner like a liquid Bokashi slurry.It is nice because once started you can keep adding solids to the mix and take them out when the bucket is full and add them to your compost.The compost is very dark brown and rich once it is aged.Once this is broken down i feed this to my worms and they love it as a nesting material.I think you are right you already have very rich soil.I think if you use a control group that is a difficult soil like the soil i have here in las vegas you will see the difference.
I agree that biochar can be very effective with poor soil. I'm not convinced that rock dust is helpful, though. Trace minerals aren't deficient in most soils, and compost alone can usually provide them when they are deficient. Minerals in compost will be available to plants much sooner. Minerals in rock dust may take many years to become plant available.
I took on a garden which hadn't been fed or taken care of in many years. I found that chicken poo and rock dust helped. Before putting either into the soil, I couldn't just plant something in the ground as the soil was just too poor. We've put rock dust and compost down for 19 years and are just beginning to get very good yields on our fruit trees and bushes. Quail poo and the hay from the shed is now going down to form hay beds I can sow into as we are heading for colder and shorter seasons. Bags of coffee grinds from the local hospital have also gone down for nitrogen.
What I found with natural products like rock dust, greensand, etc is it can take 3-5 yrs to see big changes in improved growth but then it lasts for 10+ years. I did mine along with green cropping - I think you need a good cross measure of different organic methods. You can’t expect to just dump rock dust etc and expect that to work by itself. Also - I have never used for increased yield but for taste profiles I found much improved with it. In fact I hadn’t seen anything on increased yields with rock dust - just that minerals can help with taste.nnIt is the same as with pure water i.e. all minerals removed being flat and not as flavorful as remineralized water. This is why most RO systems include a remineralized cartridges. In certain parts of the country there is what the old timers called sweet water - it is minerals - maybe limestone - that gives that great tasting water. Whether rock dust helps big time or not depends on where you live and if the soil as been depleted such as farms that are continually farmed and are likely depleted if growing crops that pull lots of minerals and then developed into subdivisions. I have done the wood chip - no till and also found the taste profile on tomatoes, and melons in particular improved with the addition of minerals bit again - it takes a few years. I like the organic approved rock dusts, greensand, and azomite. On rock dusts I like to get as many different sources as possible. If you have a relatively small garden and you travel a lot both in your state and outside - take a couple 5 gallon buckets with lids with you - make a short visit to the local rock yard and bring home rock dust. It can make up for minerals not present in your local rock due to different types of rocks. This I haven’t tested because I don’t travel much but it would be worthwhile to see the difference each year of adding rock dust (ground up pulverized local rocks) from different states.
Thanks for doing this! Interesting that beets and Swiss chard had different results between the two years since they are the same species. I think that your climate and amount of rainfall might make biochar less productive than it could be in a warmer, drier climate. I do appreciate your citizen science work as it helps us figure out what might work in our garden.
Still, I have to admire the genius of the rock dust industry, from a marketing perspective. Think of it, somebody actually convinced the public to buy bags of worthless rocks!
Seriously? $100!!?? An Oregon Department of Agriculture study found that most of these products don't even contain the microbes that they claim to contain. One of the mycorrhizal amendments was nothing but colored water. I'm planning on reviewing the study in a future video.
Bio char in my desert environment definitely helps with water retention and inoculating beneficial microbes into the soil. I charged it using the compost tea method. I totally agree with the rock dust results. It's not necessary for gardening at all. I feed my worms leaves, and do it up big time, with the worms. I make my own fish hydrolysate and Lacto Bacillus Serum. I ferment plants and fruit as well. Fermented tinctures and everything. You may like Korean Natural Farming. Not sure if you've come across the method, but I love it. Thanks for
This is an excellent video and I like how you don't claim anything but rather just show your experiences and results in great detail, very honest. As others have said it seems your beds have everything they need so the additions didn't help, I am surprised however that the rock dust was actually detrimental and wonder why. Perhaps it added soil density and changed how much air the roots were getting? Or, maybe it just offset the natural balance that was spot on before it's addition. Funny story about assumptions, I started gardening in my yard 6 years ago and the first thing I did was build up raised beds and filled them with topsoil, vermiculite and peat moss from the local nursery. My plants did ok but I guess I didn't have a control. A few years into gardening I decided just for the hell of it to plant some lettuce, beans and other crops I didn't have room for in my beds just in some of the native clay soil that was turned over and guess what... they THRIVED! In fact, compared to my great mixture in my beds the native soil actually grew many things much better to my surprise. Looking forward to new videos, love your approach.
Thanks so much for your feedback! I'm also curious why the rock dust group did so poorly, but unfortunately don't have a good answer. Perhaps it had a negative impact on soil structure or soil life or created a nutrient imbalance. I'm not too surprised you had better results growing in your native soil. Clay can be hard to work with, but it holds nutrients very well. Vermiculite and peat don't add any nutrients to speak of, so if the top soil wasn't very good there might have been deficiencies in the raised bed soil mix.
In the future I'm going to just mix the native soil with some things to lighten it up, compost mostly and go from there. Raised beds were a necessity in my yard actually because it flooded during heavy rains so getting the garden up a few inches saved it from that. I often wish I lived in a neighborhood of other gardeners, would love to trade produce if say someone grew this better than me and vice versa. I have fantastic peppers but greens for me, not as good.
You might also try just adding organic matter on top and letting earthworms and other soil organisms mix the material up for you. This is basically what we do with our shallow raised beds.
Good suggestion and that's actually my plan this year for the existing beds. Spread a layer of compost then mulch with some leaves to keep the weeds down and hold moisture. I was thinking and reading more about soil and raised beds and came up with some ideas why some people may benefit so much from rock dust and others not at all. Just think about what many people put in their raised beds, many especially if they read Mel's books will fill their beds completely with organic compost and maybe some peat or vermiculite but their beds will contain by definition absolutely NO soil! I actually went on a reading spree to see what soil is and how it's formed and essentially soil takes thousands, even millions of years to form and it's just broken down rock from what resides under your feet and the action takes place from freezing, thawing, erosion, acid producing lichens etc. So getting back to rock dust, isn't it really the same thing as soil minus any organic material that's mixed in it? When I built my raised beds I didn't do so because I wanted to but I actually did it because my yard would flood during heavy rains and my first year of gardening was a disaster after it got flooded one too many times. When I built my beds I really didn't know much at all about what to put in them so I bought "topsoil" from my local nursery and to that added peat moss, vermiculite and other organic matter. When the organic matter breaks down every year my beds look low but I guess the actual topsoil I put in there, well that doesn't break down and remains. So getting back to the original point of why rock dust may work for some and not others may be as simple as the fact many raised beds have no soil and from what I've read a combination of 60 percent soil to about 30 percent compost and the rest humus or vermiculite is ideal for gardening compared to just compost or just soil. Putting in rock dust for those people may simply be doing the same thing as throwing a bit of native soil back in with all that compost. I'd also imagine what kind of rock your rock dust came from would also make a huge difference in it's effectiveness. John Kohler has a quite popular gardening channel and I know he's a huge fan of rock dust, perhaps his soil (I believe he lives in a desert like area) is hugely deficient in minerals compared to our native soils. This year I'm expanding the garden and since I"m not sure if I want fruit trees or a bigger garden rather than building more beds I'm going to try mounding up my native clay soil and then adding a bunch of compost to break it up and let in some air.
You're right. I'd fill deep raised beds with quality soil and compost (and maybe something to improve drainage). The soil would contain plenty of rock dust. I'd like to see a couple things from channels promoting rock dust: 1) a soil test demonstrating an actual trace mineral deficiency; and 2) a controlled test comparing crops raised in rock dust amended soil versus a control. Until then, I remain skeptical about the need for rock dust and whether it's responsible for positive outcomes in the garden.
The best way to add trace minerals to your garden is to first take vitamins that contain trace minerals, then collect your urine in a bucket. Dilute the urine with water, the more dilute the better. Then water your soil with the urine mixture which now contains water soluble vitamins and minerals.
Hey Patrick, great information. It just goes to show that "progress" has it's place but sometimes the old ways are the tried and true ways. Good compost and manure...our ancestors knew what they were doing...
Thanks! Yeah, gardening is one area where you probably don't need to follow all the latest "advancements", especially when they're driven by marketing. Even so, biochar is good stuff in some situations.
Old ways? A couple thousand years? That's what Biochar has under it's belt. I agree about old ways, but people find something ignored for centuries and it's the new best thing. Regenerative Agriculture has been around in indigenous people forever practically. I love that it is being publicized because I grew up on a farm where plow was king. Destructive little bugger. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater! Ha ha!! Thanks, everyone, for gardening!!
I never believe rock dust is great from beginning, but skeptical about biochar. Thank you for sharing this result. Seem like having a bit biochar is better than rock dust. Still, these can't beat old fashion way of compost goodness.
Glad to find this video even if it’s a few years old. I live in a sandy area near the Gulf Coast, with lots of rain and naturally acidic soil, so I’m trying to figure out the best way to replenish minerals in the garden. I already incorporate lots of compost, but I think I’ve decided that Rock Dust is not an alternative. I’ll probably just stick with lime for calcium and magnesium in addition to compost and fertilizer.
I work at a grow supply store and we sell basalt rock dust. It's a by-product of the mining industry. I can't help but think about the Giants Causeway. It's formed from basalt millions of years ago and has been exposed to the elements for longer than humans have roamed the earth. It hasn't dissolved. The edges haven't worn off. I'd say that basalt is very insoluble in water.
Good vid, Patrick. All of my beds are made of Angus bull compost with cardboard and limbs up to 6" as a base. The only thing I put on it is pre-emergent to kill weed seeds. I don't add anything else. The texture and overall composition seems to be perfect. I can dig anywhere with my hand trowel with little effort. I like that. I don't believe in tilling up the soil anymore. I'd rather build on top of it. Most of my raised beds don't even had solid sides!.lol I just shore up the sides now and then. I have 30 chickens and in the spring I plan to clean out the coop for the garden as well. The greenhouse is still rocking the greens here. And my bok choi has made a comeback as if the cabbage worms never were. I am going to try winter-sowing after Christmas. Its worth a shot anyway. Stay warm!
OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening Yes, I use wood chip mulch as well. Im not totally organic. I just like using the pre-emergent on newly lain dirt BC the weed seeds are horrendous. One dose in the onset is enough to keep weeds at bad all summer, as long as I don't turn any of it up.
I've never used biochar but without any scientific study I have the same opinion of Rock dust I used it for a couple of years and couldn't see any improvement. Keep looking over your shoulder those garden centres are going to be after you. LOL
Very informative and well thought out! Wonderful presentation as usual. Thank you so much for going to the trouble and for explaining why these results would vary from someone else's that, say lives in the desert. I have a yard/several beds full of clay and sand so your hard work has been beneficial to me and anyone else with similar beds. I'll be sure to continue to make and add compost. Thanks again!
Thank you for this work, but I would note that soil already has a high WHC and adding rock dust at this huge amount is going to really kill the WHC. You have effectively driven the soil anaerobic = more bacteria less beneficial fungi = less yield. I used to add Rockdust to veges grown in pots and trays in potting mix...It worked very well. Then in my exuberance I overdid it and killed my potting mix permanently (just like your trial) and I was using very high AFP medias ie. a media with reasonably high air in the first place. I found rockdust helped but only at 1 to 3% by volume in already very open airy mixes. Australian university trials supported pretty much my observation. All rockdusts are not the same also! Rockdust only contributes certain elements and it is very slow, so you need a very good aerobic food web in the soil to support it. I found rock dust increased leaf size in peat, vermiculite growing mixes, side by side comparison, using balanced hydroponic nutrient. The rock dust amendment held more water. No surprises Shirlock...smaller particles means high WHC. In that peat environment it helped by adding alkaline components as rockdust pushes alkali. Might I take a wild guess and say your bed limiting factor was likely N as Biochar is full of everything else you could need. Worm castings are great, but only add so much Nitrogen, which unbalanced soils quickly volatilize. Also your climate might be the key limiting factor also, no matter how good your growing media. Like putting a Ferrari motor on a push bike. Similar Biochar will only add so much air to the mix and tend to make the media more alkali . I have done similar trials by adding perlite and vermiculite to a broad range of composted organic media mixes. and found that a media with 53%WHC in both large raised beds and mid size containers (9 to 20 litres) 2 to 5 gallons and 25% AFP is about perfect averaged over all seasons...and certainly maximises yields of most plants, so long as the nutrients are all there. You still have to feed this with a very well balanced nutrient generally liquid fertilizer, if not you cannot realise the benefits. Most beans like 45% WHC which was the peak value for yields. In Australia at the -33.3 degree latitude where I live the media quality and nutrient uptake balance is often the key limiting factor as we have abundant sun and near perfect growing weather for much of the year for a broad range of vegetables. I am in little doubt that biochar or perlite added to soil with the right amendments and focus on getting pH, organic matter and soil conductivity right, would out-yield most plain soils. One must remember that adding anything means you displace something else. So when you add one thing you need to also add its compliment eg. add coir ie. lots of K but the price is (Mg,Ca,Fe draw down) so also add perlite and vermiculite so elementally one helps to balance the other. The net gain of both is more balanced nutrition with higher WHC with higher AFP and good mineralogy too., but none of these have much nutrition and those it has are fairly slow as all are fairly inert. So now you focus on getting the nitrogen source right and you are well on your way to growing a great crop as you now have means to build a happy fungi environment. But all three have displaced soil, so you have depleted not only soil Nitrogen, so more work is required to put it back and also balance up everything, before you even look at all the other macro and micro elements you may need to balance for heavy feeders to have a feast and realise the amplified potential of the media itself. I hope this goes some distance to clarifying why others find rockdust and biochar work well. None is the complete answer, but merely a means to contribute to good media/nutrition synergy. Regard Rod.
Patrick, I think you might have over applied the rock dust! I'm not sure why you would do a rock dust trial when I think you did a soil test a few years ago that showed your soil was good! I don't know what rock dust you used or what the application rate is for what you used, but I think 16# in 16sq.ft is a bit much!! Here is the application rate for azomite .How to apply AzomiteApplication rate for 1 Quart of Micronized Azomite:Mix 2.5 tbsp. per 1 gallon of water per 40 sq. ft. and water lawn, garden, beds, trees and shrubs.When transplanting, use 1 tsp. per 2 inch plant diameter.Application rate for 1 quart Prilled Azomite:Prior to planting: sprinkle in bed (at 3 tsp. per 10 sq. ft.) and water.Vegetables and flowers: 2 tsp. per 10 sq. ft. add to hole when planting or sprinkle in garden bed then water.Turfs and lawns: 1tsp. per 10 sq. ft.Trees: 3 tsp. per 10 sq. ft. around the base of a tree, or 1 qt. per 1000 sq. ft. (use the canopy of the tree to determine square footage).Application rate for 1 Liter of Prilled Azomite:For commercial and agricultural application rates, use 44 lb./acre or 1lb./1,000 sq. ft. For vegetable or fruit production, double the amount of Azomite. For extremely depleted soil or heavy feeding crops, triple application rates. Anyway keep up the good work and keep the vids coming. Tom
You're right, Tom. The application rate was over the top. We conducted these trials, in part, in response to recommendations being made on CZcams and being followed by many in the CZcams gardening community. As such, I specifically followed the recommendations of a popular CZcams gardener who promotes rock dust. I used a brand he recommends. I followed his application rate and I followed his application procedure. Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same trial and we reported all the results. Our results supported none of the claims regarding yield, flavor, brix readings, and nutrient density.
Interesting trial. I'm a farmer myself from Ireland. Don't know much about these commercially available "rockdusts" in North America though. But I tried out an experiment myself on a few acres when I was ploughing and reseeding permanent pasture. I was wondering what type of rockdust to go with. But anyway I googled the quarries in Ireland and by chance there was a quarry in the my county that had the type of rockdust i wanted for pasture on my soil. So I contacted the quarry and got the dust delivered (mafic dolerite) and spread it on the soil and tilled it in at 3t/ac. I also spread 3t/ac of calcite lime as the soil is acidic. By my own visual reports are that the grass is darker in areas with heavier rates of dolerite in the field. I went with dolerite as I reckoned it would be a good alrounder for the soil and I would have a hungry soil. But even in the lorry loads there would be a difference between some loads. With some loads being brighter with more quartz in the rock. From experience with lime down the years rockdust can take nitrogen from the plant as the soil microbes break down the different elements. By taking N from the plant I mean the microbes get the soil nitrogen first and the plant roots just have no access to nitrogen. For my own grassland I've seen this nitrogen become available again in August when the microbes die with a big flush of grass. But anyway there's a big difference in rockdusts and even loads from the same quarry and too much of one element can lock up or release another. Magnesium lime for instance releases locked up potassium in the soil. This can bring it's own problems for dairy farmers as well as benefits. But anyway soil test. Know what your plant requires and watch your soil pH.
I bought into the rock dust hype too. Made no difference in my garden either. Since then I have searched for good field trials for both rock dust and Epsom salts. Once you get passed the anecdotal reports, good field tests are hard to find, and inconclusive at best. Nothing beats a good soil test. Thanks for the frank report!
When charging biochar he should've added kelp fertilizer for trace minerals, I make a compost tea and brew that for 12-24 hours before adding my charcoal. I start with jump start fertilizer, insect frass, kelp, fish fertilizer and worm castings. Goal is not too feed my plants at all.
Thanks Patrick, I was teetering on the idea of adding bio char , nope not going with that expense. I will stick to making compost by the tons. And all the ingredients are free, except my time , fuel , handling and hauling............Ken&Beverly
Hi Ken and Beverly! Yeah, if you have access to enough organic matter, biochar probably isn't necessary. Like biochar, organic matter increases the nutrient and water holding capacity of soil.
It's said Nile fertilize the land after each flooding! One of my subscribed channel urges to use rock-dust every year or alternate and another one shows good effects of silt on an Arizona location. I am totally agreed if you have enough nutrients in the soil then don't worry about it. I personally have the experience mixing one part of river sand by 2 parts of pure cow manure and it's still going strong since 1993, the only thing was amended to that part of garden was manure, ash from wood-stove (occasional) and small batch of chicken manure. I think I will prefer sodium reduced ocean water or salt and sea weed instead of rock dust. We used the sand and manure only once to creat new soil over saline effected area around 2 ft high around 700 sq ft of yard.
I'm glad to hear you've had success using (hopefully free?) local resources! Before considering investing in trace mineral amendments, I encourage people to test for deficiencies. From what I've seen on YT, none of the channels advocating rock dust have ever shared soil test results demonstrating an actual need for a trace mineral amendment in their garden.
OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening We had to pay, it was very cheap back in 1993. Following the advise from IMNJOrganics, I have a few bags of fall leaves and dedicating a patch for growing fenugreek (nitrogen fixing) and pearl millet for organic matter.
Find a maple tree of you can. Pile up the leaves in the fall. Use lawn mower over them twice. Bag them up loosely, pour in a quart of water and let them sit all winter. Mix with soil in the spring. You just added free minerals! lol Comfrey is excellent for minerals too.
Update: Leaves seemed to help but didn't have enough of them composted to make a fair determination. I chopped up a whopping 80 bags of leaves and it still was not enough. Leaves also take a while to rot too. I also used biochar (home made). Too early to tell with that too because it can take 2-3 years to see any benefits. This year I am going to try a little Azomite (not the same as the lame rock dust) since I generally plant the same things over and over. I plan on adding in some Polyacrylamide (organic version - water crystals - made from corn starch I think) for better water retention and more uniform soil moisture. Takes too much time watering anymore and too much water. I am not looking for extreme production, just reasonable production plus a little extra. Not going to pay $40 for a soil test for just ONE spot in the garden as the garden does not have a homogeneous soil mix. Last year, out of 50 tomato plants, they produced about 400 tomatoes. Not very many for that many plants. And over 200 were destroyed by insects and vermin. I even tried air pruning laundry baskets and they too didn't produce much.
I added rock dust to my cavendish banana plant in 2013 and in the 2014 to 2015 winter it survived -20 to -30 C temperatures in my car and growth resumed in the spring. It was the July heat in my car that killed the banana. Secondly rock dust is a slow release soil additive and speed of release depends on particle size and how well the rock dust is blended into the soil. In 2017 I applied rock dust to my mom's plants by way of blending fine grinded rock dust with water and I filled a watering can and watered her garden and planters and later in the summer the results were obvious. So don't be so quick to dismiss rock dust as being useless. In my view it is an important part of an overall strategy of building up the soil with minerals and organic matter.
I'm by no means a rock dust supporter but could it be that you used too much? One pound/sq ft is way more than my bag calls for. Less is always more when it comes to plant nutrition.
I agree that the application rate was over the top. However, it's the rate recommended by 2 leading advocates of rock dust. One wrote a book on using rock dust to remineralize the earth and the other is the leading promoter of rock dust on CZcams.
I would think at the recommended rate of 1 pound per 10 sq/ft it wouldn't hurt but would probably only help if the land were void of the minerals it was supposedly supplying. Either way I wish I would have seen your video last week before I ordered my own bag. I'll be doing my own side-by-side and doubt it will help. Keep up the great work!
I'm very curious to know how your experiment turns out. Please let me know. Stephen from Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same rock dust field trial I did and had very similar results - much lower yields from the rock dust bed. He also sent plant tissue to a professional lab and found that the plants grown in rock dust amended soil did not contain more minerals than those in the control group.
Yeah i saw his test too and wondered about the application rate. In regards to nutrient density, plants use the essential elements that they need and more-or-less leave the rest in the soil. I would think the only time nutrient density could be affected is when there is a large imbalance in the soil causing uptake issues which would negatively affect mineral content in said fruit. Maybe not and only yield would be negatively affected? I also saw another test on youtube comparing flavor. Rock dust again didn't do so well though I'm not sure about his application rate. Have you ever tested kelp meal as a soil amendment? I have not but at least that has a beneficial NPK for our plants.
Thanks Patrick for great info. I maybe new in gardening but I remember back in my country we never added any other stuff to the soil except for backyard compost ..and yielded yummy and great veggies and fruits... Oscar didn't like rock dust and biochar either.
too many variables and competing additives and placements with regard to the sun and limited crop types and length in time, to come to much conclusion overall. The tomatoes seemed to like the biochar. Thank you for getting people to think about it. Maybe it depends on the crop and variety as to what they like. Different plants like different soils and other conditions.
Thanks for the video !!!!! Came at a good time for me. I was very seriously planning on buying some Azomite and Biochar for my garden, but very seriously considering not buying any now. I use mushroom compost on my garden and already have pretty good results. Thanks again !!!!!
Thanks for the test. My intuition told me that rock dust wasn't worth it. No studies anywhere but all kinds of people saying the flavor is better, etc. Nothing measurable.
Very helpful. I will still be using biochar because I don't have enough compost. The carbon in biochar should break down slower, so reduce the need for compost over many years. Rock dust never made much sense to me. It is mostly adding calcium, which increases soil pH. I suspect that's a reason for the reduced yields you observe. The trace minerals in rock dust are so low in concentration it's better to get those minerals from compost. I think rock dust can make sense in a soilless potting mix to which you would be adding calcium anyways to prevent deficiencies in the plant.
As Grayhand pointed out in the first year commentary, the experiment was flawed in the very first step. The control group already had fantastic mineral rich soil, so it only makes sense that adding anything wouldn't help, it could only hurt or have no effect. (see commentary from the 1st year video for details). I would like to see the experiment starting with a control of mineral-depleted soil.
You would need to do a soil test first to find out how much to amend with. You dont add salt to a half cooked dish someone else prepared that you havent tasted yet. Hope that makes sense. Application was way over the top for a depleted soil let alone for one you dont know what it needs. Rock dust takes years to become soluble. Would love to see this happen over 10 years whole monitoring what's going on in your soil and in the food. Bless
Ya looks like you got some good results there. 2 years unless something was fundamentally different about the beds in the beginning looks like you have very good evidence there on why not to use them. :) Thanks for sharing!
You're welcome! I was most surprised by the rock dust results, because the rock dust and control beds are literally right next to each other and were filled with exactly the same soil mix (before adding rock dust to the rock dust bed).
Ya I was quite amazed with the rock dust results. Do you have a theory why the rock dust slow production. I really have no clue as to why it did this and I can't even say it was a short term effect as the 2nd year it was the same. Just goes to show how careful you have to be amending your soil. Any thoughts as to how you will repair the soil or is this something that will git fixed by adding more compost. Or will you have the soil retested and go from there? Thanks :)
It's very hard to say. Stephen from Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same trial and had similar results, so it doesn't seem likely that it was a fluke. I don't plan to do anything special to repair the soil. It's just a 4' x 4' bed and my guess is that things will come back into balance eventually.
Thanks for a great video. I think the conclusion people should take away is that you should know WHY one is doing things in one's garden. If one's soil is good and not lacking in nutrients, as your is, adding nutrients is actually detrimental to performance. Nutrients are NOT a more is better issue (I would argue that nothing is a more is better issue). One wants the CORRECT amount of nutrients for one's specific circumstances. No one think *more* pH is always better. Consider it that way. If your soil was lacking a nutrient, I am pretty sure that adding it (through rock dust, if it has it) would be beneficial. Or better yet, finding a way to acquire it through bio means (deep root nutrient accumulators for example).
You're right about the deep roots thing. This is the role player by trees, they retreive minerals in deep soils and fertilize the top soil via falling leaves in case of deciduous trees, some other forests get fertilized via forest fires.
Nice field trial Patrick. I ditched rock dust a couple of years ago too. The bio-char is something I am looking at though for my aquaponics system. If I go with using autopots they recommend using it. Chuck
A soil test between the control test bed and the the biochar test bed may be the difference in closure for this trial , the control bed may or may not have had more compost added per square metre than the bio char bed which may contribute to slightly higher yields , a soil test will double check this in organic matter results If bio char isn’t pre charged correctly with nutrients before use it will act like a sponge and take up any nutrients in its surroundings and actually store them rendering the surrounding soil with lesser available nutrients, again a soil test will give a clearer picture Great trial thou , I really enjoyed the journey
I was very optimistic when I amended part of my backyard garden with rock dust a few years ago. Now my worst performing part of my garden was that very same area. Perhaps coincidence, but perhaps not.
You, Stephen, and I have all had the same experience with rock dust. The peppers I grew in the rock dust bed in 2014 even had blossom end rot, which is something we never see in the rest of the garden.
Před 6 lety
It must put the balance out of whack. All of a sudden the system is changed by addition of new elements that the microbes are not accustomed to.
Thanks for sharing the results Patrick, I hope it opens a few peoples eyes. Now the question is how to get the Rock dust out of your garden to get it to perform as well as the Control . LOL :-)
Fascinating. Azomite is 66% SiO2, which is biologically inert like ground glass and sand. It's about 11% aluminum, which also appears to be more or less inert and irrelevant biologically. Azomite reports loss on ignition of about 6% (gas like CO2). That leaves less than 20% of the Azomite volume as being even potentially biologically active. Given that over 80% of the rock dust is inert, I am at a loss to understand the striking reduction in production. That result is most interesting. What's your best theory? I'm curious. Good work!
Thanks, Bret! I wonder if such a large application of rock dust would make the soil less biologically active and, therefore, less fertile? The percentage of biologically active material in the control and biochar beds would have been much higher.
Great job on keeping track! I wonder if PH was raised too high from the rock dust, and if composting with it would make it more plant friendly? I wish more CZcamsrs would mic themselves as you seem to do, very well produced audio!
Thanks, Justin! I didn't test the pH, but Stephen from Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same trial and had the soil professionally tested. The rock dust didn't significantly alter pH. He also had much lower yields in the rock dust group.
Aha! Thanks for the response, quick at that. What about brix and/or flavor or pest resistance? I'm guessing that there were no conclusive results that favor the rock dust amendment pertaining to quality of produce?
Stephen also sent plant tissues to a lab for analysis and found that rock dust did not increase nutrient density. My brix test of tomatoes found no difference in brix. Taste test results were mixed and inconclusive. I thought rock dust greens tasted slightly better, but 2 friends, my wife, and I judged control tomatoes to be better tasting than rock dust tomatoes.
A lot of effort Patrick.Appreciated.I wonder if the vegetables themselves were higher in nutrient value.Or do they just take what's in the soil?Oscar is such a cute.Bet he grrrs at the dogs.
Thanks! I think Oscar thinks he is a dog sometimes 😸. I didn't test the nutrient content of the veggies but Stephen Legaree (Alberta Urban Garden) did and he found no differences.
After seeing the results, I'm thinking that it should not be looked at overall production, but on a plant by plant basis. It seems that Tomatoes really like biochar. My take away from this is that Biochar can help increase the yield of tomatoes. It seems to be a mixed bag with other types of veggies, though.
Great videos. I'm just using homemade compost in a trash bin and the occasional splash of urine. But then again I'm poor and can't afford fancy dust… so my plants will have to make the most of what I have to offer. Cheers :)
Biochar didn't do as well across the board, but I thought the data was solidly pro-biochar for a lot of the crops. It would make sense to me to have some biochar beds and some regular, rather than just dismissing biochar completely.
Good info. Thanks. BTW, I once had a cat that loved to wrestle like that. I always kept a spray bottle of Isopropyl handy for the inevitable scratches.
when we put in our new beds a few years ago, we used rock dust and had such a hard time growing in our new beds. I don't understand why, but in some instances it really does seem to INHIBIT better growth. Been trying to focus on compost now to balance out. To think we wasted money, time and back pain to add it in, lol. thanks again Patrick. videos like this are why I keep coming back. excellent job.
Nope, but I'm really kicking up the compost and worm castings, as well as planting cover crops so I hope that helps. Some reason I always have the hardest time with seeds germinating outside. It's so odd. That I can't think would have to do with soil fertility though, as that should be within the seed itself. Do you have any ideas? Seeds such as everything from brassicas, raddishes, other greens etc. Many of the others I start in flats or indoors so it's harder to say on those. They sprout just fine. Another possibility, is the seeds rot. We can be quite wet.
It sounds like excess moisture could be a problem with seed germination outside. Do the plants germinate and die or not germinate at all? If they start but then die, damping off might be the problem. This is made worse by excess moisture and high levels of organic matter.
It really depends on the crop requirements and starting soil, on whether rock dust or biochar are needed. Did you test the soil composition prior? If so, you may have over amended already rich soil. If using potting soil and you want to reuse each season, adding rock dust and biochar will renew spent soil. Adding these amendments to already rich soil is completely unnecessary, unless you have a very high demand crop or very dense plots. I have had alot of success with azomite in native desert soils that are baked by the sun yearly. If weeds already naturally flourish in your garden, adding amendments is unneeded imo. Weeds are one of the best indicators and will tell you how healthy your native soil and garden soil already is. Thank you for this video, very informative and a great experiment!
I think this trial proves that in already adequate soil neither biochar nor rock dust produce immediate results, and rock dust - for reasons that are unclear - may even inhibit production. I'm not sure I would go further than that, but an interesting video nevertheless. Ten year results would be interesting. So would trials in poor soil.
Excellent video my friend. I also found the control consistently had higher yields but the small sample size could be to blame for biochar. I suspect the biochar over the long run would even out with the control as the soil provides the same functions. Rock dust however concerns me as it was so much lower for both of us. As always more research is required :)
Thanks, Stephen! I'd love to see more peer reviewed research on rock dust, but based on our collective results and soil tests, I'm convinced that it's not needed in our gardens.
Like you mentioned in the later part of your video I think these things have little effect on good soil but help improve poor soil. In my poor clay and purchased compost soil I did a side by side with and without rock dust on 2 beds that I grew lettuce and peppers in. While I didn't see any huge variance in lettuce crops, the rock dust amended bed plants survived a frost while the others didn't. Also my pepper plants looked stronger and produced longer. With all those Autumn leaves you have to add minerals to the soil I'm not surprised you didn't get any benefits from the rock dust I will be making a little homegrown biochar to add to my beds and compost in very small quantities, just to aid in improving my soil further. It's a long way from what you are growing in yet - maybe in a year or 2. :) Thanks for doing these tests and showing these products are not some kind of "magic bullet"
It's funny. I was out in the garden the other day, and even after all these years, the rock dust bed is still lagging the other beds right next to it. The tomatoes in the bed are doing very poorly. They're fine everywhere else in the garden.
someone really needs to do this sort of trial using cutting propagated plants so they're actually all the same... I've seen this much variability within a pack of seeds.
really appreciate the time and effort put into the research. While some bio and chemical tests definitely are best done in a lab, I wouldn't undervalue citizen science too much, after all a lot of the first scientists were citizens. That being said, I can't wait for more people to conduct their own rigorous experiments in their backyards.
for the rock dust to have faster results it has to first be processed by anaerobic bacteria ( that creates biofertilizer) than it is easier plants to take it in.. and make the food more nutrisious but no necessarily have bigger yield or faster growth rock dust just add trace mineral to the food
there are many types of rock dust. you need to differentiate the kind of rock the dust came from. you also need to do a mineral analysis prior to the amendment so you can choose the correct dust. also rock dust is a type 2 nutrient. it is not totally biologically unavailable and it is not water soluble. so neither a 1 or a 3. it requires assistance of microbes to make it plant available. the plants will not promote the microbes that make these minerals available if there is no lack of already plant available minerals. you also need to take the long term approach as the microbes need time to establish and get to work.
Azomite isn't Rock Dust, its a crustaceous clay, and it's to be used in tandem with said biochar used for surface area enough for ample cat-ion exchange.
First time I've heard of 'charging' char... typical term is 'innoculating', i.e., soaking in a liquid for some time....urine, compost tea, etc. That's why it is beneficial for soils that need steady moisture and nutrients. If your soil is already is already full of compost, all nutrients, and never tends to dry out... of course, biochar wouldn't have much impact. It was discovered in tropical areas where any biomass disappears in weeks.... hence the value of biochar. This is a fair test of it's use for your soil.... but doesn't say much about other climates or conditions.
I agree that biochar can be very helpful in poor soils. "Charging biochar" is a very common term. I googled both terms. "Charging biochar" had 347,000 results, "inoculating biochar" had 63,800 results.
Though the beds are near to each other, it is important to consider the differences in watering and exposure to sun. I assume that the first factor is the same for all, because it is easily controlled, but how is the difference in sunlight between the patches?
Very true. Rain is responsible for most of the watering, but I took care to water the beds similarly when hand watering. The beds were chosen because they get the same amount of sun.
Common, the Chard growth differential between the control and experimental beds has obvious issues, if that was taken out the biochar would have comprehensively beaten the control 2016. Also, there's plenty of field trials showing how biochar can significantly increase yields in certain crops. One thing I can see is tomatoes seem to do well with biochar my guess being biochar is invariably activated with nitrogen.
I agree that research has shown that biochar can increase crop yields. However, our soil is already rich in organic matter, has a high cation exchange capacity, holds water well, has nutrient surpluses, and has a well established soil food web. I wouldn't expect it to have as much of an impact in our garden as it would in poor soil. When nutrients are already in surplus, more nutrients won't help and might even create imbalances that prevent absorption. Given the small sample size of 2 tomato plants per group in 2016, I'm mo more inclined to attribute the higher tomato yield to biochar than I am to blame it for the lower Swiss chard yield. Instead, I looked at total yields for a variety of crops over 2 years to assess the impact of biochar in my garden.
The great thing about biochar vs compost (which is of course a godsend), is that biochar will not volitalize. Nitrogen from rotting plant matter and roots will volitalize carbon from the soil. Compost has to be added every year. Biochar need only be added once. They are both necessary imo, but biochar can improve the subsoil and really bank the carbon in the soil better than anything else. Biochar, buryed wood, compost and mulch is super.
Good effort,although it might be slightly out of context. Firstly,various crops thrive in the climatic conditions they are accustomed to,rock dust & bio-char may be best suited for varieties that you did not experiment with,owing to their unavailability in your region. Secondly,it's possible that you did not adequately 'mix' either with complementary ingredients.
Thanks. Per your conclusions, I'd just add that everything I've learned in recent years from other OG/beyond OG & no-till growers is that the microbial life .. creates, to use that word... nutrients. Converts, increases, and increases plant health which in turns does even more. The main things then, are to use a broadfork if your soil is compacted, esp. if you've a real hard pan, and to use compost & mulches plenty heavily ( not so much mulch by the plant stems that they rot, for many types of plants. Potatoes r always fine of course, that i know of ). It may take a few years to see the desired results if you test the veg for trace mineral content or something ( if i can, I'll do this. Getting on land again finally this yr. ).
Thanks Patrick & Oscar for another year in gardening.I understand the logic of the perceived need of amendments,because of soil degradation from erosion,lack of rotation in crops,and plants taking from the soil nutrients without replenishment from compost.What surprised me that in some cases it was detrimental to productivity by the introduction of amendments of rock dust or Biochar. I have enjoyed over the couple of years that I've followed your Y.T. uploads.👍I appreciate the information you have sent, looking forward to seeing more next year!😊
There's considerable evidence for the utility of Biochar. More importantly it doesn't need to be added to the soil year after year, and reduces the need to fertilize. Your study should have experimented with varying fertilizer quantities/frequencies in the different plots, and using different amounts of Biochar. Finally, your test-plot layout is not random- and the organized manner you laid out plots in means the different plots may have received different amounts of light, rain, etc. The best authorities on the effectiveness of soil amendments are agricultural departments at universities- and most of their work supports the utility of Biochar- though like you noticed it is less effective in already-fertile soils...
I'm trying bio char this spring and find this interesting. I'm in Ohio and have clay base soil so I don't have a lack of moisture and perhaps like your experience it's not for my clay base soil. I'll test Thanks
Yield may be one thing but how about nutritional values???
Hi Bob! Regarding increasing nutrient density, Stephen, from Alberta Urban Garden, participated in this field trial and sent crops to a professional lab for analysis. The results showed that rock dust did not increase nutrient density of crops => czcams.com/video/B64NywRTPck/video.html
Do you have a mineral analysis for the variety of rock dust you added? Would like to see the composition. Obviously there are a lot of different rock dusts available.. To say "i added rock dust.. didn't work" is meaningless. Plus you added worm castings to both, so you really evaluated the combination of rockdust, which is generally alkalinizing, with worm castings, against the control(which is obviously a well developed rich soil) and the biochar+castings. It's not surprising that adding LOTs of an alkalinizing substrate to an organic acid rich soil would immobilize a lot of those nutrients and decrease yields..
@@CZcamsTM432 Alkalinizing? Worm castings should be balanced they are compost after all... And worms don't like alkalinity either..
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I thought we needed to give the rockdust time to become bioavailable especially if worms live in it for a while... speaking as a novice here...
I've been gardening with rock dust and observing about 5 years now, and here is my take. It really works wonderfully when nitrogen availability is adequate throughout the growing cycle. Dark glittering greens and the taste is truly strikingly rich and sweet. However, when the nitrogen level in the soil gets low, which is very common in many gardens (especially mine), the added rock dust can hinder plant growth and health by having a condition where the increased density and reduced porosity of the soil work against the ever-weakening soil life conditions. Very typically, the plant uses up all the available nitrogen that it can get at, which is also shared with the soil life. The soil life is significantly reduced because of this. Soil life has a difficult time thriving under low-nitrogen conditions. It is made even more difficult in combination with a denser rock dust infused soil.
So, I think you can picture rock dust as having an amplifying effect depending on nitrogen availability, for better or for worse. On my rooftop city garden, I've generally had significant nitrogen challenges arise with my containerized beds, non-manure compost, and excessive winter/spring rainfall.
microbial life is the only way all the insoluble nutrients in rock dust can become soluble.... i would like to know what kind of rock dust he used in this experiment .....lots of different kinds of rocks out there .....hahahahaha......nitrogen gas stored below ground is amazing ....imagine what incredible CEC soil could do heheheh ........dude didnt load that biochar with enough nitrogen ......and thats the best place for the rock dust........preferably micronized basalt with paramagnetic properties and some gypsum for the sulfur and either ammonia or urea or better yet amino nitrogen and mix the two up to preload the biochar or zeolite.....1/2 lb growers secret soy nitrogen to 2 lbs of micronized basalt .....inoculate this with something like rootwise and then lets see this guy do his test
i think what we need are systems which release nitrogen when plant requires this without runoff i suppose healthy soils will hold on to nitrogen more than unhealthy soils but not sure.
From what I've read, one of the primary advantages to biochar is that it is a very stable form of carbon that is not easily exhausted, unlike more labile sources like compost. A better test of biochar might be to see how treated soil compares with untreated soil over several years without bringing in outside biomass (i.e. chop-and-drop gardening or less frequent applications of compost made from only on-site materials).
I really love the fact that you talk about peer reviewed studies and scientific results. Especially in this day and age when the cost of everything is so high. You just saved me a lot of trouble. I kept reading that biochar was so effective, but your video has shown me to keep doing what I’m doing, making compost and adding it at least once a year to my beds. Thank you for all that you do to help us gardeners.
You have your finger on the pulse of what we want to know. You are extremely thorough and a brilliant presenter. I am so grateful for what you do. Thank you so much
Thanks so much for your kind words, Antoinette!
I'm pretty sure I basically "wasted" well over $1000 the first 3 years I gardened buying products and bagged soils. Love seeing these trials Bc it confirms that I don't need to keep buying anything. I've got a worm farm and a big compost bin in my chicken's area and they keep it turned. I planted 30 comfrey plants after seeing your videos on comfrey to mulch with and compost with. The only thing I am going to bring on to my property now are free clean fall leaves and wood chips. It seems every other thing is reusable.
Thanks! With all of those great free resources at your disposal, you won't need to spend much at all on improving your soil.
Look at back to eden gardening, it doesn't cost anything. Wood chips with Paul Gautschi
i wouldnt automatically say its wasted.. if you were buying quality organic inputs there are too many nuances for a field trial like this to draw conclusions from, which is exactly what OYR is saying right now as i type this
A lot of people have to believe that if Home Depot has it on the shelf, then someone with our best interests and with THE knowledge ok'd it going to market. I bought scotts turf builder and dumped it on brand new kentucky bluegrass seed, then doused it with miracle grow, thinking I was nailing it right on target, and I was adding badly made compost, so I had a real edge on everyone. Till my first youtube video, when I found out I am a sheep. We do that. Now we have a point of reference to begin with, and its more than a lot of people will face. This is tye end of the story... for most people.
Glad to see you here!🇨🇦👊🏻👨🏻🏭✨💖🙏🍁♻️🍁 I now own a lawncare company, organic if possible, but whatever I have do do to please a customer, you know. I am learning JADAM liquid fertilsers, and starting to look into making a compost tea bubbler soon. My lawn has biochar with about 20 inputs in it, all organic, and my worms are snakes! Lol
I have sometimes bought bagged garden products, but mostly I make compost with free leaves from my recycling center, kitchen waste mown grass, and whatever else I have available. After several years, all you really need to add is compost. This channel is great For gardening on a budget.
Bless You,, straight to the point. I watched fairies, elves and clowns then I finally found you.
Thanks for your tests. I'm still going to make Biochar, mostly from blackberry canes. My clay field needs it, I have water issues with shallow well, and I need charcoal to absorb the herbicide my neighbor sprays. Husband died from being the major chemical sprayer on their farm from a young age. Biochar people have maintained that it makes the best advances on damaged or poor soil so your test is valid for you, but not for the millions of acres in the world that are constantly eroding. Happy gardening!!
Thank you so much for sharing this information, Patrick! I'm sure it took a lot of effort to record and track those yields. I find all of your videos to be helpful and informative, and you've inspired me with many ideas to try in my own garden.
You're welcome, Ken! Thanks for the encouraging feedback!
You have saved me a lot of money and time with your channel, everyone else seems to be peddling something(growingyourgreens pushing rockdust and compost tea and migardener pushing "organic fertilizer"). I could see biochar being a benefit if your starting with subpar soil(not your black gold) but adding expensive sand to soil doesn't seem to make sense when you really step back and think about it. Thanks again for all your great work! Keep it up, it is appreciated!
You're welcome, Paul! I'm glad I helped save you money.
Very interesting results! Helps to show that all you need is a good soil from free organic soil amendments. However the tomato yield results for 2016 were quite interesting! I better get on with a version in the UK!
Thanks, Huw! There were only 2 tomato plants in each group. Though the plants were assigned randomly, the biochar group had the luck of the draw with the 2 best plants. I'm pretty sure Stephen had lower tomato yields in his biochar group. It would be great if you did a UK trial!
I originally thought I would need rock dust and biochar. But lately I have been studying Dr Elaine Ingham's work on soil biology. She grew crops on land in Australia that had been in the 28th year of a drought. Amazing woman.
She's right that soil biology is the key to making ample nutrients in the soil available to plants. She goes as far to say all soils have enough of the elements needed by plants and just need to be made available by soil biology.
OYR Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening what about things like magnesium and selenium , where we are seeing there is immense lacking of these in our food and maps showing areas in the world where the soil is deficient in these? Are you saying it’s in the soil just not accessible??? These are imperative to good health , so I’m keen to know why you are saying this opposite to a long known issue?
@@peacelilly5074 I have since changed my views. See Dr Arden Andersen. He says volcanic rock dust is paramagnetic and makes your plats mature more quickly. Paramagnetic just means they attract energy.
Let the soil biology including the worms eat the rock dust. They will produce amino acid chelated minerals easily absorbed by your plants. So we still need Dr Ingham's contributions.
Magnesium is the core of chlorophyll. Selenium is in the earth more in some areas than others.
Thanks Patrick. This is exactly what I expected. Compost is the answer. Have a great day.
Thanks, Bob!
The problem was you did not feed the micro-organisms in the worm castings, so they would have significantly vanished, you basically put mainly charcoal in your soil.
had you added a cuppla pounds/kilos of sugar, the micro-organisms would have hugely multiplied, so being able to significantly transform your soil, using their safe habitats in the Biochar grains as bases.
You did not, imho, use Biochar, neither Enlivened biochar nor even Activated biochar, and your results suggest exactly that.
Pity you had such poor advice as to what is really Biochar.
I have a vegetable garden. when I start a new bed, I have been mixing in lime, - as I am in a high rainfall area, and a certified "organic' compost mixture, as the field was a horse paddock, and being basalt soil, although old, get a good crop, first time, then declining.
Compost is not much good, my farm being sub-tropical, it diappears in 1 to 3 weeks, mulch a bit longer, leaving interesting new weed problems.. OK so limped along, applied bio-dynamic 500 prep a time or two got some good crops and always something to eat out there, enter my new wife, an old peasant farmer from Thailand, in the meantime I had learnt a fair bit about Biochar, got a pyramid flame cap kiln, had a worm farm, rrotary hoe etc.
So, she wanted to earn money, I mixed up my patent enlivened biochar, worm castings, local horsy poo for bulk, bits of organic matter from the garden as best I could, (to supply the local micro-organisms and fungi) sugar, (to feed them and what is in the worm castings) any minerals our local soil is low in (eg Borax, almost all high rainfall soil is deficient in borax, - it is after all water soluble, you wonder why so many people have calcium retention problems?) a slurp of seweed mixture, some pee, - mainly worm pee, and rotary hoe it in.
By then she has planted 4 *20 metre beds, - my old ones, prepared as normal, and after that the Biochar beds, - all weeding by hand with a knife, no artifical or poisonous anything, mainly worm wee to fertilise.
In typical Thai style, every square metre of soil instantly replanted when harvested, all weeds and plant residues removed and burnt, earning a couple of hundred bucks a week, - organic sales company calling around every week to pick up their vegies, but then, some things just not growing so well, tried cowshit, - bit of increase, more wee, - likewise, money dropped somewhat, - up to about 10 * 20 metre beds at that time, finally the penny dropped for her, stubborn old bitch, only the non-biochar beds could not continually crop.
Now she wants every bed Biochar, money is up to nearly 400/week, have 3 worm farms, the soil is so responsive, the 4 foot nothing one woman/tractor is happy.
Certainly not as rigorously conducted a survey as with yours Patrick, although the rigour of real life was strongly there. :)
@@MrGeoffThomas ....your wife sounds amazing!...please speak nicely about her!…
I think that your composted leafs already added all the nutrients that the rock dust is trying to provide.I have noticed that the Biochar when added to the compost pile does perpetuate its growth.I inoculate mine in a fermented conditioner like a liquid Bokashi slurry.It is nice because once started you can keep adding solids to the mix and take them out when the bucket is full and add them to your compost.The compost is very dark brown and rich once it is aged.Once this is broken down i feed this to my worms and they love it as a nesting material.I think you are right you already have very rich soil.I think if you use a control group that is a difficult soil like the soil i have here in las vegas you will see the difference.
I agree that biochar can be very effective with poor soil. I'm not convinced that rock dust is helpful, though. Trace minerals aren't deficient in most soils, and compost alone can usually provide them when they are deficient. Minerals in compost will be available to plants much sooner. Minerals in rock dust may take many years to become plant available.
Very interesting the nose dive in yields.
We have found the rock dust incredible with our fruit trees. I wish I could say why!
calcium
Thanks for you and similar people like you on CZcams, I have spent way less on my Garden this year and enjoyed a better yield.
That's so great to hear, Sunil! Thanks for letting me know.
I took on a garden which hadn't been fed or taken care of in many years. I found that chicken poo and rock dust helped. Before putting either into the soil, I couldn't just plant something in the ground as the soil was just too poor. We've put rock dust and compost down for 19 years and are just beginning to get very good yields on our fruit trees and bushes. Quail poo and the hay from the shed is now going down to form hay beds I can sow into as we are heading for colder and shorter seasons. Bags of coffee grinds from the local hospital have also gone down for nitrogen.
very, VERY interesting.....I've watched you years and know how structured and thorough you are....trust your results...thank you.
My pleasure, Dan!
What I found with natural products like rock dust, greensand, etc is it can take 3-5 yrs to see big changes in improved growth but then it lasts for 10+ years. I did mine along with green cropping - I think you need a good cross measure of different organic methods. You can’t expect to just dump rock dust etc and expect that to work by itself. Also - I have never used for increased yield but for taste profiles I found much improved with it. In fact I hadn’t seen anything on increased yields with rock dust - just that minerals can help with taste.nnIt is the same as with pure water i.e. all minerals removed being flat and not as flavorful as remineralized water. This is why most RO systems include a remineralized cartridges. In certain parts of the country there is what the old timers called sweet water - it is minerals - maybe limestone - that gives that great tasting water. Whether rock dust helps big time or not depends on where you live and if the soil as been depleted such as farms that are continually farmed and are likely depleted if growing crops that pull lots of minerals and then developed into subdivisions. I have done the wood chip - no till and also found the taste profile on tomatoes, and melons in particular improved with the addition of minerals bit again - it takes a few years. I like the organic approved rock dusts, greensand, and azomite. On rock dusts I like to get as many different sources as possible. If you have a relatively small garden and you travel a lot both in your state and outside - take a couple 5 gallon buckets with lids with you - make a short visit to the local rock yard and bring home rock dust. It can make up for minerals not present in your local rock due to different types of rocks. This I haven’t tested because I don’t travel much but it would be worthwhile to see the difference each year of adding rock dust (ground up pulverized local rocks) from different states.
Thanks for doing this! Interesting that beets and Swiss chard had different results between the two years since they are the same species. I think that your climate and amount of rainfall might make biochar less productive than it could be in a warmer, drier climate. I do appreciate your citizen science work as it helps us figure out what might work in our garden.
Still, I have to admire the genius of the rock dust industry, from a marketing perspective. Think of it, somebody actually convinced the public to buy bags of worthless rocks!
lol
😵
Seriously? $100!!?? An Oregon Department of Agriculture study found that most of these products don't even contain the microbes that they claim to contain. One of the mycorrhizal amendments was nothing but colored water. I'm planning on reviewing the study in a future video.
And John Kohler is in cahoots with them !!
suDz yeah, he is crazy about rock dust. lmao
Bio char in my desert environment definitely helps with water retention and inoculating beneficial microbes into the soil. I charged it using the compost tea method. I totally agree with the rock dust results. It's not necessary for gardening at all.
I feed my worms leaves, and do it up big time, with the worms. I
make my own fish hydrolysate and Lacto Bacillus Serum. I ferment plants and fruit as well. Fermented tinctures and everything. You may like Korean Natural Farming. Not sure if you've come across the method, but I love it.
Thanks for
Yes, biochar should definitely help in sandy desert soil.
I love your dedication to the scientific method and statistics you used.
This is an excellent video and I like how you don't claim anything but rather just show your experiences and results in great detail, very honest. As others have said it seems your beds have everything they need so the additions didn't help, I am surprised however that the rock dust was actually detrimental and wonder why. Perhaps it added soil density and changed how much air the roots were getting? Or, maybe it just offset the natural balance that was spot on before it's addition. Funny story about assumptions, I started gardening in my yard 6 years ago and the first thing I did was build up raised beds and filled them with topsoil, vermiculite and peat moss from the local nursery. My plants did ok but I guess I didn't have a control. A few years into gardening I decided just for the hell of it to plant some lettuce, beans and other crops I didn't have room for in my beds just in some of the native clay soil that was turned over and guess what... they THRIVED! In fact, compared to my great mixture in my beds the native soil actually grew many things much better to my surprise. Looking forward to new videos, love your approach.
Thanks so much for your feedback! I'm also curious why the rock dust group did so poorly, but unfortunately don't have a good answer. Perhaps it had a negative impact on soil structure or soil life or created a nutrient imbalance. I'm not too surprised you had better results growing in your native soil. Clay can be hard to work with, but it holds nutrients very well. Vermiculite and peat don't add any nutrients to speak of, so if the top soil wasn't very good there might have been deficiencies in the raised bed soil mix.
In the future I'm going to just mix the native soil with some things to lighten it up, compost mostly and go from there. Raised beds were a necessity in my yard actually because it flooded during heavy rains so getting the garden up a few inches saved it from that. I often wish I lived in a neighborhood of other gardeners, would love to trade produce if say someone grew this better than me and vice versa. I have fantastic peppers but greens for me, not as good.
You might also try just adding organic matter on top and letting earthworms and other soil organisms mix the material up for you. This is basically what we do with our shallow raised beds.
Good suggestion and that's actually my plan this year for the existing beds. Spread a layer of compost then mulch with some leaves to keep the weeds down and hold moisture. I was thinking and reading more about soil and raised beds and came up with some ideas why some people may benefit so much from rock dust and others not at all. Just think about what many people put in their raised beds, many especially if they read Mel's books will fill their beds completely with organic compost and maybe some peat or vermiculite but their beds will contain by definition absolutely NO soil! I actually went on a reading spree to see what soil is and how it's formed and essentially soil takes thousands, even millions of years to form and it's just broken down rock from what resides under your feet and the action takes place from freezing, thawing, erosion, acid producing lichens etc. So getting back to rock dust, isn't it really the same thing as soil minus any organic material that's mixed in it? When I built my raised beds I didn't do so because I wanted to but I actually did it because my yard would flood during heavy rains and my first year of gardening was a disaster after it got flooded one too many times. When I built my beds I really didn't know much at all about what to put in them so I bought "topsoil" from my local nursery and to that added peat moss, vermiculite and other organic matter. When the organic matter breaks down every year my beds look low but I guess the actual topsoil I put in there, well that doesn't break down and remains. So getting back to the original point of why rock dust may work for some and not others may be as simple as the fact many raised beds have no soil and from what I've read a combination of 60 percent soil to about 30 percent compost and the rest humus or vermiculite is ideal for gardening compared to just compost or just soil. Putting in rock dust for those people may simply be doing the same thing as throwing a bit of native soil back in with all that compost. I'd also imagine what kind of rock your rock dust came from would also make a huge difference in it's effectiveness. John Kohler has a quite popular gardening channel and I know he's a huge fan of rock dust, perhaps his soil (I believe he lives in a desert like area) is hugely deficient in minerals compared to our native soils. This year I'm expanding the garden and since I"m not sure if I want fruit trees or a bigger garden rather than building more beds I'm going to try mounding up my native clay soil and then adding a bunch of compost to break it up and let in some air.
You're right. I'd fill deep raised beds with quality soil and compost (and maybe something to improve drainage). The soil would contain plenty of rock dust. I'd like to see a couple things from channels promoting rock dust: 1) a soil test demonstrating an actual trace mineral deficiency; and 2) a controlled test comparing crops raised in rock dust amended soil versus a control. Until then, I remain skeptical about the need for rock dust and whether it's responsible for positive outcomes in the garden.
The best way to add trace minerals to your garden is to first take vitamins that contain trace minerals, then collect your urine in a bucket. Dilute the urine with water, the more dilute the better. Then water your soil with the urine mixture which now contains water soluble vitamins and minerals.
Yep
Hey Patrick, great information. It just goes to show that "progress" has it's place but sometimes the old ways are the tried and true ways. Good compost and manure...our ancestors knew what they were doing...
Thanks! Yeah, gardening is one area where you probably don't need to follow all the latest "advancements", especially when they're driven by marketing. Even so, biochar is good stuff in some situations.
Old ways? A couple thousand years? That's what Biochar has under it's belt. I agree about old ways, but people find something ignored for centuries and it's the new best thing. Regenerative Agriculture has been around in indigenous people forever practically. I love that it is being publicized because I grew up on a farm where plow was king. Destructive little bugger. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater! Ha ha!! Thanks, everyone, for gardening!!
I never believe rock dust is great from beginning, but skeptical about biochar. Thank you for sharing this result. Seem like having a bit biochar is better than rock dust. Still, these can't beat old fashion way of compost goodness.
You're welcome! Yes, biochar is definitely effective in poor soils, but I remain skeptical about rock dust. Thanks for watching and commenting!
The proof is in the pudding, and you just told us... Good one..
Thanks!
OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening
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Glad to find this video even if it’s a few years old. I live in a sandy area near the Gulf Coast, with lots of rain and naturally acidic soil, so I’m trying to figure out the best way to replenish minerals in the garden. I already incorporate lots of compost, but I think I’ve decided that Rock Dust is not an alternative. I’ll probably just stick with lime for calcium and magnesium in addition to compost and fertilizer.
I work at a grow supply store and we sell basalt rock dust. It's a by-product of the mining industry. I can't help but think about the Giants Causeway. It's formed from basalt millions of years ago and has been exposed to the elements for longer than humans have roamed the earth. It hasn't dissolved. The edges haven't worn off. I'd say that basalt is very insoluble in water.
Good vid, Patrick. All of my beds are made of Angus bull compost with cardboard and limbs up to 6" as a base. The only thing I put on it is pre-emergent to kill weed seeds. I don't add anything else. The texture and overall composition seems to be perfect. I can dig anywhere with my hand trowel with little effort. I like that. I don't believe in tilling up the soil anymore. I'd rather build on top of it. Most of my raised beds don't even had solid sides!.lol I just shore up the sides now and then. I have 30 chickens and in the spring I plan to clean out the coop for the garden as well.
The greenhouse is still rocking the greens here. And my bok choi has made a comeback as if the cabbage worms never were. I am going to try winter-sowing after Christmas. Its worth a shot anyway. Stay warm!
HI Jill! I'm glad your greenhouse is still rocking! It sure is nice to still have greens growing. Have you tried organic mulches to suppress weeds?
OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening Yes, I use wood chip mulch as well. Im not totally organic. I just like using the pre-emergent on newly lain dirt BC the weed seeds are horrendous. One dose in the onset is enough to keep weeds at bad all summer, as long as I don't turn any of it up.
I've never used biochar but without any scientific study I have the same opinion of Rock dust I used it for a couple of years and couldn't see any improvement. Keep looking over your shoulder those garden centres are going to be after you. LOL
Now you've got me worried, Dale! 🙂 Fortunately, the trials are done and I can finally stop talking about rock dust and biochar!
From all that leaf litter you have very good soil already.
I agree
Very informative and well thought out! Wonderful presentation as usual. Thank you so much for going to the trouble and for explaining why these results would vary from someone else's that, say lives in the desert. I have a yard/several beds full of clay and sand so your hard work has been beneficial to me and anyone else with similar beds. I'll be sure to continue to make and add compost. Thanks again!
Thank you for this work, but I would note that soil already has a high WHC and adding rock dust at this huge amount is going to really kill the WHC. You have effectively driven the soil anaerobic = more bacteria less beneficial fungi = less yield. I used to add Rockdust to veges grown in pots and trays in potting mix...It worked very well. Then in my exuberance I overdid it and killed my potting mix permanently (just like your trial) and I was using very high AFP medias ie. a media with reasonably high air in the first place. I found rockdust helped but only at 1 to 3% by volume in already very open airy mixes. Australian university trials supported pretty much my observation. All rockdusts are not the same also! Rockdust only contributes certain elements and it is very slow, so you need a very good aerobic food web in the soil to support it. I found rock dust increased leaf size in peat, vermiculite growing mixes, side by side comparison, using balanced hydroponic nutrient. The rock dust amendment held more water. No surprises Shirlock...smaller particles means high WHC. In that peat environment it helped by adding alkaline components as rockdust pushes alkali. Might I take a wild guess and say your bed limiting factor was likely N as Biochar is full of everything else you could need. Worm castings are great, but only add so much Nitrogen, which unbalanced soils quickly volatilize. Also your climate might be the key limiting factor also, no matter how good your growing media. Like putting a Ferrari motor on a push bike. Similar Biochar will only add so much air to the mix and tend to make the media more alkali . I have done similar trials by adding perlite and vermiculite to a broad range of composted organic media mixes. and found that a media with 53%WHC in both large raised beds and mid size containers (9 to 20 litres) 2 to 5 gallons and 25% AFP is about perfect averaged over all seasons...and certainly maximises yields of most plants, so long as the nutrients are all there. You still have to feed this with a very well balanced nutrient generally liquid fertilizer, if not you cannot realise the benefits. Most beans like 45% WHC which was the peak value for yields. In Australia at the -33.3 degree latitude where I live the media quality and nutrient uptake balance is often the key limiting factor as we have abundant sun and near perfect growing weather for much of the year for a broad range of vegetables. I am in little doubt that biochar or perlite added to soil with the right amendments and focus on getting pH, organic matter and soil conductivity right, would out-yield most plain soils. One must remember that adding anything means you displace something else. So when you add one thing you need to also add its compliment eg. add coir ie. lots of K but the price is (Mg,Ca,Fe draw down) so also add perlite and vermiculite so elementally one helps to balance the other. The net gain of both is more balanced nutrition with higher WHC with higher AFP and good mineralogy too., but none of these have much nutrition and those it has are fairly slow as all are fairly inert. So now you focus on getting the nitrogen source right and you are well on your way to growing a great crop as you now have means to build a happy fungi environment. But all three have displaced soil, so you have depleted not only soil Nitrogen, so more work is required to put it back and also balance up everything, before you even look at all the other macro and micro elements you may need to balance for heavy feeders to have a feast and realise the amplified potential of the media itself. I hope this goes some distance to clarifying why others find rockdust and biochar work well. None is the complete answer, but merely a means to contribute to good media/nutrition synergy.
Regard Rod.
Patrick, I think you might have over applied the rock dust! I'm not sure why you would do a rock dust trial when I think you did a soil test a few years ago that showed your soil was good! I don't know what rock dust you used or what the application rate is for what you used, but I think 16# in 16sq.ft is a bit much!! Here is the application rate for azomite .How to apply AzomiteApplication rate for 1 Quart of Micronized Azomite:Mix 2.5 tbsp. per 1 gallon of water per 40 sq. ft. and water lawn, garden, beds, trees and shrubs.When transplanting, use 1 tsp. per 2 inch plant diameter.Application rate for 1 quart Prilled Azomite:Prior to planting: sprinkle in bed (at 3 tsp. per 10 sq. ft.) and water.Vegetables and flowers: 2 tsp. per 10 sq. ft. add to hole when planting or sprinkle in garden bed then water.Turfs and lawns: 1tsp. per 10 sq. ft.Trees: 3 tsp. per 10 sq. ft. around the base of a tree, or 1 qt. per 1000 sq. ft. (use the canopy of the tree to determine square footage).Application rate for 1 Liter of Prilled Azomite:For commercial and agricultural application rates, use 44 lb./acre or 1lb./1,000 sq. ft. For vegetable or fruit production, double the amount of Azomite. For extremely depleted soil or heavy feeding crops, triple application rates. Anyway keep up the good work and keep the vids coming. Tom
You're right, Tom. The application rate was over the top. We conducted these trials, in part, in response to recommendations being made on CZcams and being followed by many in the CZcams gardening community. As such, I specifically followed the recommendations of a popular CZcams gardener who promotes rock dust. I used a brand he recommends. I followed his application rate and I followed his application procedure. Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same trial and we reported all the results. Our results supported none of the claims regarding yield, flavor, brix readings, and nutrient density.
Interesting trial.
I'm a farmer myself from Ireland. Don't know much about these commercially available "rockdusts" in North America though.
But I tried out an experiment myself on a few acres when I was ploughing and reseeding permanent pasture. I was wondering what type of rockdust to go with. But anyway I googled the quarries in Ireland and by chance there was a quarry in the my county that had the type of rockdust i wanted for pasture on my soil. So I contacted the quarry and got the dust delivered (mafic dolerite) and spread it on the soil and tilled it in at 3t/ac. I also spread 3t/ac of calcite lime as the soil is acidic.
By my own visual reports are that the grass is darker in areas with heavier rates of dolerite in the field.
I went with dolerite as I reckoned it would be a good alrounder for the soil and I would have a hungry soil. But even in the lorry loads there would be a difference between some loads. With some loads being brighter with more quartz in the rock.
From experience with lime down the years rockdust can take nitrogen from the plant as the soil microbes break down the different elements. By taking N from the plant I mean the microbes get the soil nitrogen first and the plant roots just have no access to nitrogen. For my own grassland I've seen this nitrogen become available again in August when the microbes die with a big flush of grass.
But anyway there's a big difference in rockdusts and even loads from the same quarry and too much of one element can lock up or release another. Magnesium lime for instance releases locked up potassium in the soil.
This can bring it's own problems for dairy farmers as well as benefits.
But anyway soil test. Know what your plant requires and watch your soil pH.
I bought into the rock dust hype too. Made no difference in my garden either. Since then I have searched for good field trials for both rock dust and Epsom salts. Once you get passed the anecdotal reports, good field tests are hard to find, and inconclusive at best. Nothing beats a good soil test. Thanks for the frank report!
Thanks, Pat!
Thank you for your amazing work in recording results, truly admirable!
When charging biochar he should've added kelp fertilizer for trace minerals, I make a compost tea and brew that for 12-24 hours before adding my charcoal. I start with jump start fertilizer, insect frass, kelp, fish fertilizer and worm castings. Goal is not too feed my plants at all.
And i bet oscar keeps the mice under control as well. I'm surprised the rockdust made such a difference. Thanks for doing this trial for us!
You're welcome! I was surprised too. I expected to see no difference at all.
Great video! Have a wonderful Sunday evening!
Thanks!
Thanks Patrick, I was teetering on the idea of adding bio char , nope not going with that expense. I will stick to making compost by the tons. And all the ingredients are free, except my time , fuel , handling and hauling............Ken&Beverly
Hi Ken and Beverly! Yeah, if you have access to enough organic matter, biochar probably isn't necessary. Like biochar, organic matter increases the nutrient and water holding capacity of soil.
Thank you for sharing the results. We have to follow the basis, composting and soil biology.
You're welcome, David! I agree.
Thank you. Your the 2nd person to confirm this. I appreciate your time too.
My pleasure!
It's said Nile fertilize the land after each flooding! One of my subscribed channel urges to use rock-dust every year or alternate and another one shows good effects of silt on an Arizona location.
I am totally agreed if you have enough nutrients in the soil then don't worry about it. I personally have the experience mixing one part of river sand by 2 parts of pure cow manure and it's still going strong since 1993, the only thing was amended to that part of garden was manure, ash from wood-stove (occasional) and small batch of chicken manure. I think I will prefer sodium reduced ocean water or salt and sea weed instead of rock dust.
We used the sand and manure only once to creat new soil over saline effected area around 2 ft high around 700 sq ft of yard.
I'm glad to hear you've had success using (hopefully free?) local resources! Before considering investing in trace mineral amendments, I encourage people to test for deficiencies. From what I've seen on YT, none of the channels advocating rock dust have ever shared soil test results demonstrating an actual need for a trace mineral amendment in their garden.
OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening
We had to pay, it was very cheap back in 1993. Following the advise from IMNJOrganics, I have a few bags of fall leaves and dedicating a patch for growing fenugreek (nitrogen fixing) and pearl millet for organic matter.
You can't go wrong with that approach. We've had great results mulching with leaves over the years.
Find a maple tree of you can.
Pile up the leaves in the fall.
Use lawn mower over them twice.
Bag them up loosely, pour in a quart of water and let them sit all winter.
Mix with soil in the spring.
You just added free minerals! lol
Comfrey is excellent for minerals too.
Update:
Leaves seemed to help but didn't have enough of them composted to make a fair determination. I chopped up a whopping 80 bags of leaves and it still was not enough. Leaves also take a while to rot too.
I also used biochar (home made). Too early to tell with that too because it can take 2-3 years to see any benefits.
This year I am going to try a little Azomite (not the same as the lame rock dust) since I generally plant the same things over and over.
I plan on adding in some Polyacrylamide (organic version - water crystals - made from corn starch I think) for better water retention and more uniform soil moisture. Takes too much time watering anymore and too much water.
I am not looking for extreme production, just reasonable production plus a little extra.
Not going to pay $40 for a soil test for just ONE spot in the garden as the garden does not have a homogeneous soil mix.
Last year, out of 50 tomato plants, they produced about 400 tomatoes. Not very many for that many plants. And over 200 were destroyed by insects and vermin.
I even tried air pruning laundry baskets and they too didn't produce much.
I added rock dust to my cavendish banana plant in 2013 and in the 2014 to 2015 winter it survived -20 to -30 C temperatures in my car and growth resumed in the spring. It was the July heat in my car that killed the banana. Secondly rock dust is a slow release soil additive and speed of release depends on particle size and how well the rock dust is blended into the soil. In 2017 I applied rock dust to my mom's plants by way of blending fine grinded rock dust with water and I filled a watering can and watered her garden and planters and later in the summer the results were obvious.
So don't be so quick to dismiss rock dust as being useless. In my view it is an important part of an overall strategy of building up the soil with minerals and organic matter.
I'm by no means a rock dust supporter but could it be that you used too much? One pound/sq ft is way more than my bag calls for. Less is always more when it comes to plant nutrition.
I agree that the application rate was over the top. However, it's the rate recommended by 2 leading advocates of rock dust. One wrote a book on using rock dust to remineralize the earth and the other is the leading promoter of rock dust on CZcams.
I would think at the recommended rate of 1 pound per 10 sq/ft it wouldn't hurt but would probably only help if the land were void of the minerals it was supposedly supplying. Either way I wish I would have seen your video last week before I ordered my own bag. I'll be doing my own side-by-side and doubt it will help. Keep up the great work!
I'm very curious to know how your experiment turns out. Please let me know. Stephen from Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same rock dust field trial I did and had very similar results - much lower yields from the rock dust bed. He also sent plant tissue to a professional lab and found that the plants grown in rock dust amended soil did not contain more minerals than those in the control group.
Yeah i saw his test too and wondered about the application rate. In regards to nutrient density, plants use the essential elements that they need and more-or-less leave the rest in the soil. I would think the only time nutrient density could be affected is when there is a large imbalance in the soil causing uptake issues which would negatively affect mineral content in said fruit. Maybe not and only yield would be negatively affected?
I also saw another test on youtube comparing flavor. Rock dust again didn't do so well though I'm not sure about his application rate.
Have you ever tested kelp meal as a soil amendment? I have not but at least that has a beneficial NPK for our plants.
@@OneYardRevolution good ole John from growing your greens lol
Thank you. Just feeling my soil I can tell there is plenty of tiny rock dust particles already in there. There is no magic bullet. Except for compost.
You're welcome! You're right; there's no shortage of rock particles in the soil.
Thanks Patrick for great info. I maybe new in gardening but I remember back in my country we never added any other stuff to the soil except for backyard compost ..and yielded yummy and great veggies and fruits...
Oscar didn't like rock dust and biochar either.
Thanks, Ramona!
too many variables and competing additives and placements with regard to the sun and limited crop types and length in time, to come to much conclusion overall. The tomatoes seemed to like the biochar. Thank you for getting people to think about it. Maybe it depends on the crop and variety as to what they like. Different plants like different soils and other conditions.
Test your soil before you spend money on amendments for your garden is good advice. Thanks, Patrick!
You're welcome, Jim! You summed it up very well.
Thanks for the video !!!!! Came at a good time for me. I was very seriously planning on buying some Azomite and Biochar for my garden, but very seriously considering not buying any now. I use mushroom compost on my garden and already have pretty good results. Thanks again !!!!!
Thanks for the test. My intuition told me that rock dust wasn't worth it. No studies anywhere but all kinds of people saying the flavor is better, etc. Nothing measurable.
You're welcome!
Very helpful. I will still be using biochar because I don't have enough compost. The carbon in biochar should break down slower, so reduce the need for compost over many years.
Rock dust never made much sense to me. It is mostly adding calcium, which increases soil pH. I suspect that's a reason for the reduced yields you observe. The trace minerals in rock dust are so low in concentration it's better to get those minerals from compost.
I think rock dust can make sense in a soilless potting mix to which you would be adding calcium anyways to prevent deficiencies in the plant.
As Grayhand pointed out in the first year commentary, the experiment was flawed in the very first step. The control group already had fantastic mineral rich soil, so it only makes sense that adding anything wouldn't help, it could only hurt or have no effect. (see commentary from the 1st year video for details). I would like to see the experiment starting with a control of mineral-depleted soil.
You would need to do a soil test first to find out how much to amend with. You dont add salt to a half cooked dish someone else prepared that you havent tasted yet. Hope that makes sense. Application was way over the top for a depleted soil let alone for one you dont know what it needs. Rock dust takes years to become soluble. Would love to see this happen over 10 years whole monitoring what's going on in your soil and in the food. Bless
I thank you for doing this experiment and I'm grateful I found it now!
Ya looks like you got some good results there. 2 years unless something was fundamentally different about the beds in the beginning looks like you have very good evidence there on why not to use them. :) Thanks for sharing!
You're welcome! I was most surprised by the rock dust results, because the rock dust and control beds are literally right next to each other and were filled with exactly the same soil mix (before adding rock dust to the rock dust bed).
Ya I was quite amazed with the rock dust results. Do you have a theory why the rock dust slow production. I really have no clue as to why it did this and I can't even say it was a short term effect as the 2nd year it was the same. Just goes to show how careful you have to be amending your soil. Any thoughts as to how you will repair the soil or is this something that will git fixed by adding more compost. Or will you have the soil retested and go from there? Thanks :)
It's very hard to say. Stephen from Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same trial and had similar results, so it doesn't seem likely that it was a fluke. I don't plan to do anything special to repair the soil. It's just a 4' x 4' bed and my guess is that things will come back into balance eventually.
Nice :)
Thanks for the info! FYI when I got up this morning it was 18 with a wind chill of 11.
You're welcome, Jill!
Thanks for a great video.
I think the conclusion people should take away is that you should know WHY one is doing things in one's garden. If one's soil is good and not lacking in nutrients, as your is, adding nutrients is actually detrimental to performance. Nutrients are NOT a more is better issue (I would argue that nothing is a more is better issue). One wants the CORRECT amount of nutrients for one's specific circumstances. No one think *more* pH is always better. Consider it that way. If your soil was lacking a nutrient, I am pretty sure that adding it (through rock dust, if it has it) would be beneficial. Or better yet, finding a way to acquire it through bio means (deep root nutrient accumulators for example).
Thanks! You're right. The goal should be to correct deficiencies rather than apply products blindly without knowing what the deficiencies are.
You're right about the deep roots thing.
This is the role player by trees, they retreive minerals in deep soils and fertilize the top soil via falling leaves in case of
deciduous trees, some other forests get fertilized via forest fires.
Your honest and concise presentation was appreciated. Thanks
BTW, love that Oscar. He seems to be part piranha. lol
Thanks! Oscar loves to fight with me. (I get a kick out of it too.)
Nice field trial Patrick. I ditched rock dust a couple of years ago too. The bio-char is something I am looking at though for my aquaponics system. If I go with using autopots they recommend using it.
Chuck
Thanks, Chuck! Biochar will definitely hold onto water an nutrients.
A soil test between the control test bed and the the biochar test bed may be the difference in closure for this trial , the control bed may or may not have had more compost added per square metre than the bio char bed which may contribute to slightly higher yields , a soil test will double check this in organic matter results
If bio char isn’t pre charged correctly with nutrients before use it will act like a sponge and take up any nutrients in its surroundings and actually store them rendering the surrounding soil with lesser available nutrients, again a soil test will give a clearer picture
Great trial thou , I really enjoyed the journey
This is fascinating! Thanks for doing this and sharing your results.
Thanks, Sasha! You're welcome.
I was very optimistic when I amended part of my backyard garden with rock dust a few years ago. Now my worst performing part of my garden was that very same area. Perhaps coincidence, but perhaps not.
You, Stephen, and I have all had the same experience with rock dust. The peppers I grew in the rock dust bed in 2014 even had blossom end rot, which is something we never see in the rest of the garden.
It must put the balance out of whack.
All of a sudden the system is changed by addition of new elements that the microbes are not accustomed to.
Thanks for sharing the results Patrick, I hope it opens a few peoples eyes. Now the question is how to get the Rock dust out of your garden to get it to perform as well as the Control . LOL :-)
You're welcome, Kevin! Good thing it's just a 4' x 4' bed. 😬
Result thanks for the update.
You're welcome, Dave!
Fascinating. Azomite is 66% SiO2, which is biologically inert like ground glass and sand. It's about 11% aluminum, which also appears to be more or less inert and irrelevant biologically. Azomite reports loss on ignition of about 6% (gas like CO2). That leaves less than 20% of the Azomite volume as being even potentially biologically active. Given that over 80% of the rock dust is inert, I am at a loss to understand the striking reduction in production. That result is most interesting. What's your best theory? I'm curious. Good work!
Thanks, Bret! I wonder if such a large application of rock dust would make the soil less biologically active and, therefore, less fertile? The percentage of biologically active material in the control and biochar beds would have been much higher.
Gee, that's a lot of hard work and invested time, thanks you Sir all good info !
Cute cat, but we have a dog ....... LOL
You're welcome!
Great job on keeping track! I wonder if PH was raised too high from the rock dust, and if composting with it would make it more plant friendly?
I wish more CZcamsrs would mic themselves as you seem to do, very well produced audio!
Thanks, Justin! I didn't test the pH, but Stephen from Alberta Urban Garden conducted the same trial and had the soil professionally tested. The rock dust didn't significantly alter pH. He also had much lower yields in the rock dust group.
Aha! Thanks for the response, quick at that.
What about brix and/or flavor or pest resistance? I'm guessing that there were no conclusive results that favor the rock dust amendment pertaining to quality of produce?
Stephen also sent plant tissues to a lab for analysis and found that rock dust did not increase nutrient density. My brix test of tomatoes found no difference in brix. Taste test results were mixed and inconclusive. I thought rock dust greens tasted slightly better, but 2 friends, my wife, and I judged control tomatoes to be better tasting than rock dust tomatoes.
A lot of effort Patrick.Appreciated.I wonder if the vegetables themselves were higher in nutrient value.Or do they just take what's in the soil?Oscar is such a cute.Bet he grrrs at the dogs.
Thanks! I think Oscar thinks he is a dog sometimes 😸. I didn't test the nutrient content of the veggies but Stephen Legaree (Alberta Urban Garden) did and he found no differences.
Stephen and I conducted the same trials in our separate gardens.
After seeing the results, I'm thinking that it should not be looked at overall production, but on a plant by plant basis. It seems that Tomatoes really like biochar. My take away from this is that Biochar can help increase the yield of tomatoes. It seems to be a mixed bag with other types of veggies, though.
Great videos. I'm just using homemade compost in a trash bin and the occasional splash of urine. But then again I'm poor and can't afford fancy dust… so my plants will have to make the most of what I have to offer. Cheers :)
I think you're on the right track! You don't need the fancy powders anyway.
Biochar didn't do as well across the board, but I thought the data was solidly pro-biochar for a lot of the crops. It would make sense to me to have some biochar beds and some regular, rather than just dismissing biochar completely.
Good info. Thanks. BTW, I once had a cat that loved to wrestle like that. I always kept a spray bottle of Isopropyl handy for the inevitable scratches.
Let it bleed out first.
when we put in our new beds a few years ago, we used rock dust and had such a hard time growing in our new beds. I don't understand why, but in some instances it really does seem to INHIBIT better growth. Been trying to focus on compost now to balance out. To think we wasted money, time and back pain to add it in, lol. thanks again Patrick. videos like this are why I keep coming back. excellent job.
Thanks! I'm sorry to hear that. Have you seen any improvement yet?
Nope, but I'm really kicking up the compost and worm castings, as well as planting cover crops so I hope that helps. Some reason I always have the hardest time with seeds germinating outside. It's so odd. That I can't think would have to do with soil fertility though, as that should be within the seed itself. Do you have any ideas? Seeds such as everything from brassicas, raddishes, other greens etc. Many of the others I start in flats or indoors so it's harder to say on those. They sprout just fine. Another possibility, is the seeds rot. We can be quite wet.
It sounds like excess moisture could be a problem with seed germination outside. Do the plants germinate and die or not germinate at all? If they start but then die, damping off might be the problem. This is made worse by excess moisture and high levels of organic matter.
It really depends on the crop requirements and starting soil, on whether rock dust or biochar are needed. Did you test the soil composition prior? If so, you may have over amended already rich soil. If using potting soil and you want to reuse each season, adding rock dust and biochar will renew spent soil. Adding these amendments to already rich soil is completely unnecessary, unless you have a very high demand crop or very dense plots. I have had alot of success with azomite in native desert soils that are baked by the sun yearly. If weeds already naturally flourish in your garden, adding amendments is unneeded imo. Weeds are one of the best indicators and will tell you how healthy your native soil and garden soil already is. Thank you for this video, very informative and a great experiment!
I think this trial proves that in already adequate soil neither biochar nor rock dust produce immediate results, and rock dust - for reasons that are unclear - may even inhibit production. I'm not sure I would go further than that, but an interesting video nevertheless. Ten year results would be interesting. So would trials in poor soil.
Excellent video my friend. I also found the control consistently had higher yields but the small sample size could be to blame for biochar. I suspect the biochar over the long run would even out with the control as the soil provides the same functions.
Rock dust however concerns me as it was so much lower for both of us.
As always more research is required :)
Thanks, Stephen! I'd love to see more peer reviewed research on rock dust, but based on our collective results and soil tests, I'm convinced that it's not needed in our gardens.
I agree!
Like you mentioned in the later part of your video I think these things have little effect on good soil but help improve poor soil.
In my poor clay and purchased compost soil I did a side by side with and without rock dust on 2 beds that I grew lettuce and peppers in.
While I didn't see any huge variance in lettuce crops, the rock dust amended bed plants survived a frost while the others didn't.
Also my pepper plants looked stronger and produced longer.
With all those Autumn leaves you have to add minerals to the soil I'm not surprised you didn't get any benefits from the rock dust
I will be making a little homegrown biochar to add to my beds and compost in very small quantities, just to aid in improving my soil
further. It's a long way from what you are growing in yet - maybe in a year or 2. :)
Thanks for doing these tests and showing these products are not some kind of "magic bullet"
It's funny. I was out in the garden the other day, and even after all these years, the rock dust bed is still lagging the other beds right next to it. The tomatoes in the bed are doing very poorly. They're fine everywhere else in the garden.
someone really needs to do this sort of trial using cutting propagated plants so they're actually all the same... I've seen this much variability within a pack of seeds.
Great information.. love the scientific approach.
Thanks!
So you planted the same plants each year? In the same spot? What about crop rotation? And what about amendments being added the 2nd year?
great videos. you need paramagnetic rock dust (vulcanic) to facilitate
the flow of electromagnetic forces from the atmosphere to plants.
Thanks! The rock dust I used was volcanic in origin.
really appreciate the time and effort put into the research. While some bio and chemical tests definitely are best done in a lab, I wouldn't undervalue citizen science too much, after all a lot of the first scientists were citizens. That being said, I can't wait for more people to conduct their own rigorous experiments in their backyards.
Thanks, Timothy! Yeah, I think it would be great if more people tested products and practices using a control.
for the rock dust to have faster results it has to first be processed by anaerobic bacteria ( that creates biofertilizer) than it is easier plants to take it in.. and make the food more nutrisious but no necessarily have bigger yield or faster growth rock dust just add trace mineral to the food
there are many types of rock dust. you need to differentiate the kind of rock the dust came from. you also need to do a mineral analysis prior to the amendment so you can choose the correct dust. also rock dust is a type 2 nutrient. it is not totally biologically unavailable and it is not water soluble. so neither a 1 or a 3. it requires assistance of microbes to make it plant available. the plants will not promote the microbes that make these minerals available if there is no lack of already plant available minerals. you also need to take the long term approach as the microbes need time to establish and get to work.
Azomite isn't Rock Dust, its a crustaceous clay, and it's to be used in tandem with said biochar used for surface area enough for ample cat-ion exchange.
First time I've heard of 'charging' char... typical term is 'innoculating', i.e., soaking in a liquid for some time....urine, compost tea, etc. That's why it is beneficial for soils that need steady moisture and nutrients. If your soil is already is already full of compost, all nutrients, and never tends to dry out... of course, biochar wouldn't have much impact. It was discovered in tropical areas where any biomass disappears in weeks.... hence the value of biochar. This is a fair test of it's use for your soil.... but doesn't say much about other climates or conditions.
I agree that biochar can be very helpful in poor soils. "Charging biochar" is a very common term. I googled both terms. "Charging biochar" had 347,000 results, "inoculating biochar" had 63,800 results.
Great video! Your videos are amazing!
Always enjoy your videos. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for letting me know, David! I appreciate it.
hoorah the happy tune is back always good info cheers
Thanks!
Though the beds are near to each other, it is important to consider the differences in watering and exposure to sun. I assume that the first factor is the same for all, because it is easily controlled, but how is the difference in sunlight between the patches?
Very true. Rain is responsible for most of the watering, but I took care to water the beds similarly when hand watering. The beds were chosen because they get the same amount of sun.
Common, the Chard growth differential between the control and experimental beds has obvious issues, if that was taken out the biochar would have comprehensively beaten the control 2016. Also, there's plenty of field trials showing how biochar can significantly increase yields in certain crops. One thing I can see is tomatoes seem to do well with biochar my guess being biochar is invariably activated with nitrogen.
I agree that research has shown that biochar can increase crop yields. However, our soil is already rich in organic matter, has a high cation exchange capacity, holds water well, has nutrient surpluses, and has a well established soil food web. I wouldn't expect it to have as much of an impact in our garden as it would in poor soil. When nutrients are already in surplus, more nutrients won't help and might even create imbalances that prevent absorption. Given the small sample size of 2 tomato plants per group in 2016, I'm mo more inclined to attribute the higher tomato yield to biochar than I am to blame it for the lower Swiss chard yield. Instead, I looked at total yields for a variety of crops over 2 years to assess the impact of biochar in my garden.
Like averaging averages. Bad science.
The great thing about biochar vs compost (which is of course a godsend), is that biochar will not volitalize.
Nitrogen from rotting plant matter and roots will volitalize carbon from the soil.
Compost has to be added every year. Biochar need only be added once. They are both necessary imo, but biochar can improve the subsoil and really bank the carbon in the soil better than anything else.
Biochar, buryed wood, compost and mulch is super.
Good effort,although it might be slightly out of context. Firstly,various crops thrive in the climatic conditions they are accustomed to,rock dust & bio-char may be best suited for varieties that you did not experiment with,owing to their unavailability in your region. Secondly,it's possible that you did not adequately 'mix' either with complementary ingredients.
Thanks. Per your conclusions, I'd just add that everything I've learned in recent years from other OG/beyond OG & no-till growers is that the microbial life .. creates, to use that word... nutrients. Converts, increases, and increases plant health which in turns does even more. The main things then, are to use a broadfork if your soil is compacted, esp. if you've a real hard pan, and to use compost & mulches plenty heavily ( not so much mulch by the plant stems that they rot, for many types of plants. Potatoes r always fine of course, that i know of ). It may take a few years to see the desired results if you test the veg for trace mineral content or something ( if i can, I'll do this. Getting on land again finally this yr. ).
Thanks Patrick & Oscar for another year in gardening.I understand the logic of the perceived need of amendments,because of soil degradation from erosion,lack of rotation in crops,and plants taking from the soil nutrients without replenishment from compost.What surprised me that in some cases it was detrimental to productivity by the introduction of amendments of rock dust or Biochar. I have enjoyed over the couple of years that I've followed your Y.T. uploads.👍I appreciate the information you have sent, looking forward to seeing more next year!😊
Thanks, Uwe! I I appreciate your supportive feedback!
There's considerable evidence for the utility of Biochar. More importantly it doesn't need to be added to the soil year after year, and reduces the need to fertilize. Your study should have experimented with varying fertilizer quantities/frequencies in the different plots, and using different amounts of Biochar. Finally, your test-plot layout is not random- and the organized manner you laid out plots in means the different plots may have received different amounts of light, rain, etc. The best authorities on the effectiveness of soil amendments are agricultural departments at universities- and most of their work supports the utility of Biochar- though like you noticed it is less effective in already-fertile soils...
I'm trying bio char this spring and find this interesting. I'm in Ohio and have clay base soil so I don't have a lack of moisture and perhaps like your experience it's not for my clay base soil.
I'll test
Thanks