dmahny88,


The thing you have to remember about soil is that most of it is an erosion byproduct.

Abiotic processes (weathering) and biotic processes (via living organisms) have been powdering and oxidizing the Earth's crust for a billion years. This powdered stone provides raw materials which are then processed into complex organic molecules by bacteria... it's the bacteria that provide the substrates for the growing plants. The raw chemicals (the eroded stones) aren't biologically availabe to the plants, the plants live off the work of the bacteria: spongers.

Remember, plants aren't cannibals... they dont consume other dead plants (compost). Soil bacteria (rhizobacteria) convert the inorganic (stone residue) and organic (plant waste) materials into the substrates the plants absorb. Bacteria were converting eroded stone into a nutritious slime for millions of years before plants evolved to take advantage of it.

So large fractions of your soil are completely unproductive:

-the stone residue is unproductive.

-all the organic material in excess of what the rhizobacteria can process is unproductive.

-all the perlite (and other aerating material) is unproductive.



Why not do what I do?

Make a soil that is only productive fractions: just enough organic material to support elevated levels of rhizobacteria and a nutrient base.


-PayDirt