Highlife42
Well-Known Member
KNF is not a new concept in this world. Trace back the times where KNF was used and used well. Produced well.... man!
Heavy metals in rock dust
- Thread starter Rurumo
- Start date
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
*ignore* button utilized
Highlife42
Well-Known Member
ok?? chttps://businessdiary.com.ph/3468/how-to-make-fermented-plant-juice-or-fpj/
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
Wow...looked up diatomaceous earth on a whim. They only had one sample but it had 177 ppm arsenic, which is just off the charts. The kelp meal which is problematic usually has 30-40 ppm. I did not know this, but diatomaceous earth is apparently a well known source of arsenic, here is just one example: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.8b06062
bodhipop
Well-Known Member
thanks to your studies, I will never use diatomaceous earth. What else should we for sure stay away from or use with extreme caution? I will be making quite a bit of soil in the future and was planning on buying a mineral mix from buildasoil. They've been crushing it.
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
I was hoping that I didn't ruin your thread because it is very nice! I was showing it to my wife yesterday, she is close to getting her horticulture degree.
MustangStudFarm
Well-Known Member
I know that I keep talking about Greensand, but my soil tests come back very low in Mn and greensand was one of the very few products that naturally have Mn in it. Also, if you look at the other compositions of greensand, it is completely synergistic. Mn, Fe, K. My wife pointed out that "micronutrients" are metals themselves and it should be no surprise that they are contaminated with eachother. Makes sense... I'm now using Mn & Fe sulfate for my deficiencies.
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
No not at all! I was thinking of getting it going again once I put together a living soil blend that has as little heavy metals as possible. I've got a ton of stuff on the way, it has just proven difficult because some products haven't been tested. I couldn't find any rock dusts that were free of heavy metals. Luckily, I did find some worm castings...and as it turned out, the castings that tested free of heavy metals were not fed rock dusts, so that was definitely the source of contamination. I also got sort of sidetracked looking into ways to mitigate the heavy metals that are already in soil-there is so much literature looking at that angle.
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
I think some greensand deposits are pretty clean. I tried to contact one company directly to see if they had third party testing but they had gone out of business or something-their email kept kicking back to me and their phone number was disconnected lol. Hard times for greensand!
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
The only one listed in that heavy metal database was Sunleaves Indonesian Natural Fertilizer (which I assume is guano, it's 0-7-0, and it has 2.9 ppm Cadmium. Bat guano seems to be all over the place, some deposits have it, others don't. Oyster shell and gypsum are both great, and langbeinite is a pretty neat thing too, for K, mag, and sulfur, but very very potent.
And then I read stuff like this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264829675_Insights_into_the_Adsorption_of_Heavy_Metals_from_Wastewater_using_Diatomaceous_Earth (Full access version)
I guess you can just call me confused. Lol
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
That's a great point. Another is Bentonite clay, which might contain some heavy metals to begin with but which is also used in heavy metal remediation. I just wonder how long they hold onto the metals before giving them back up-I'm no chemistry expert obviously lol. I've been looking into the use of zeolite in living soils. It's an aluminosilicate like bentonite and azomite so I'm not sure what that means for aluminum levels when using fulvic acid, but it has some very useful properties-huge surface area for rhizobacteria, high cec, water retention, etc, seems to have a lot of overlapping benefits with biochar.
Rurumo
Well-Known Member
I've found a few interesting studies on the use of zeolites in agriculture, and their ability to bind heavy metals in soil as well as bind to the heavy metals found in fertilizers. See the section "heavy metal traps" great stuff! https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1985/8512/851210.PDF
bodhipop
Well-Known Member
Well just reading PAGES 133-136 has me wanting to try adding a little to my next mix. So we want Clinoptilolite Zeolite I'm guessing?
quiescent
Well-Known Member
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I watched the livestream and there were some nuggets for sure. Basically if you're already doing it right your chances of having a plant not predisposed to heavy metal accumulation testing hot in most modern mixes are very low.
Gypsum continues to be the thing people are finding mitigates problems they didn't know they had and allowing plants to express themselves fully as well. I've been using gypsum in all my gardens, something my grandmother taught me.
I wish that whole conversation was available, would assuage a lot of concerns.
2cent
Well-Known Member
Oregon state has a page for confirming as they are strict as fuck if it has metal in it
Kelp and neem listed as the green safe amendments. Also bat poo.
They explained that the minority of unvetted companies selling high metal kelp and bat guano are responcible for the damaging myths and cheap storage near contaminants so note if you use proper ones not china orders will be safe from the dangerous ones.
The bad ones have labeled them all again discrimination on the poor kelps