Why Nutrient Availability is Not Determined Only by pH

Most growers are familiar with the chart showing available nutrients according to soil pH. The problem is that the chart is so incomplete it borders on being inaccurate. Nutrient availability is not one dimensional, as the pH diagram makes it appear to be. Additional dimensions include redox and microbial activity.
In this webinar, John will describe nutrient availability from a multi-dimensional chemistry based perspective, and how to develop more accurate perspectives on nutrient delivery.

[@paigetench4705]

I’ve listened to Dr. Husson’s presentation on the website. Between the audio quality and his accent, and especially my own struggle to fully grasp what redox potential means, I felt like I missed a great deal. This presentation helped! But if you could start back even further and flesh out redox potential, and its measurement, it would be much appreciated. Thanks so much for all that you offer in terms of education.

[@davehansen4208]

I view my surroundings differently with your teachings. We massively completed things to loop back to letting biology take back control of the wheel. Allowing nature to do what it has been doing for millions of years. That connection makes me smile and feel hopeful. Thanks John/Aea team we appreciate ya….happy growing 🤠

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

Excited for another AEA John Kempf talk!

[@bbtruth2161]

What a great discussion. I feel like my gardening knowledge is growing exponentially in the last few years. So much of what I'm learning is by observation followed by a search for knowledge. Way back when, I cared a lot more about ph. A natural progression led by some observations have born out several conclusions, many of which were well explained here and tie in with everything else I'm learning. My soil pulls hard neutral. Can't even really budge my ph without harsh means. I have a bag of limestone, don't know how many years old still sitting in my polebarn. Instead, I have learned that my soil being incredibly healthy offers a magnificent buffer. I do a lot of soil health determination by observing my plants. There are only a few plants (blueberries for example) that I even bother with ph. I don't use chemicals. I do use cover crops, heavy mulch, no till, no dig, and natural home made amendments and composts. Living on a old cattle farm, surrounded by woods and on a swampy lake, I would have to imagine there is so much biological activity happening in my soil that my job is just to keep it that way. I often say that I can't take much credit for the quality and abundance of my gardens, the soil does all the work. All that said, I have seen my plants routinely do things I haven't seen elsewhere. Some things border on ridiculous. I often say that healthy soil makes healthy, resilient plants. I could go on and on, but I do love to see information like this that corroborates my observations and practices. Great video!

[@richardruss7481]

Excellent as usual John, thank you. You stated that you are not familiar with any report that measured soil life in any meaningful way. Elaine Ingham used to run a course on using a microscope and her big indicators of healthy soil are interesting, the most important was the bacteria to fungi ratio (50/50 being optimal for most crops) and amount, second was certain numbers of protozoa and nematodes. There were labs that did some of those counts, but so much of this has to do with getting the soil to a microscope quickly, and working quickly (the microscope light kills what you are trying to look at), that i do not think it would be practical to do unless you were on site with a scope.

[@richardruss7481]

After listening until the very end, you answered another question and what i took from it is that you do not know how to apply the results of such tests. The first thing that you will easily be able to tell is if there is enough mycorrizal fungi in the soil. If you are good, you can tell aerobic nematodes from anaerobic (usually the bad guys). If you do it for a long time, who knows. I suspect that you can tell so much more from the plants that are living in the soil, (and perhaps the sighting of a very healthy earthworm), that it might not be worth look into something so small ;)

[@paulbraga4460]

@@richardruss7481 the Haney and Solvita tests are good metrics for soil life but they are not direct yet should serve much purpose

[@harleytucker21]

@@richardruss7481 I have been using Earthfort Lab in Corvalis OR to at least give me direct microscopy counts of active and total fungi, bacteria, protozoa and nematodes, and watch whether my management techniques improve or hurt those biological metrics. John is right in that no commercial lab that I'm aware of measures individual species of biology. But that may not really be critical to having success. I use the Haney test to look at water extractable carbon and nitrogen and that is very helpful, and usually if my biology is growing correctly those metrics are improving too.

[@richardruss7481]

@@harleytucker21 I believe John has a good sense of what is happening based on his knowledge in plants, but i also think that it is possible to gain even more useful information looking at the little creatures in the soil also, but the information is very much dependent on the microscope operator, so much that i would think that it needs to be looked at often and by one person.

[@chris432t6]

Great discussion. Learned so much from this channel. Thank you always John!

[@robinliddle5029]

I thank you for all the life changing information .

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

@ 38:00.... I think that is the answer on the best lab test for soils... plant growth response rather than lab assays. This was an excellent talk, hope you will share the results with the sauerkraut soil and chemical remediation. Thanks as always!

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

I suppose I should add, if you are going to use lab results.. plant sap is the only way to see what the plants are actually doing (which is a more precise way to measure the actual soil health). See my plant sap analysis test results for better insight on this.

[@ashwinpatel4537]

Great john Thanks a lot

[@gabchrls9674]

hi guys! I'm french and i'm into regenerative agriculture on my own farm. I'm following the different webinars from AEA and I would be happy helping translating the book you're talking about into english id needed or at least emphasize some points tell me :)

[@ratemyboard]

Thanks! Is translation available?

[@harleytucker21]

Regarding one of the questions, I've worked with blueberry growers for years as a consultant and have seen fields at 3.5 pH and they can be productive if nutrients are managed well but tend to be highly susceptible to diseases. Aluminum toxicity get really bad too. Below 3.5 they crash pretty hard. There may be a way to grow at 2.5 to 2.9 pH but I don't know anyone who has.

[@MedicallyFit]

Could you go further and discuss ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species)?

[@biomecaman3514]

Very interesting, is there a link to the software?

[@JoseReyes-xs3js]

May be humic acid and fulvic acid is the key . fulvic acid can Penetrate the roots and help the up take of nutrients on any ph level it helps chelate and makes nutrients more soluble available and humic acid helps cations exchange humic acids is very complexs its not just one thing it has amino acids Enzymes trace minerals like 30 plus organic acids and every one manufacturers them different so theres different kinds of humic acids some are very good quality and some can be low quality and only a few organic acids .

[@michelle778]

Tank you John for your great content. But you seriously need a better microphone/audio mixing.

[@dylankrous7877]

Thank you for another great video. Also Whoah first time I’ve ever heard you name drop Elaine. Would love to see what you feel about aquaponics in the future.

[@vivooppojdd2247]

Really very interesting Lol to all the questions

[@iwenive3390]

What is the ph of ez water?

[@harleytucker21]

@advancingecoagriculture, are thiosulfate fertilizers oxidizing? Such as calcium thiosulfate, potassium thiosulfate, and ammonium thiosulfate? Mostly interested in calcium thiosulfate. If gypsum (calcium sulfate) is neutral to slightly reducing, would the thiosulfate form also be neutral, or does the thiosulfate form change the redox of it? thanks

[@soilsolutionshomestead6511]

🌱👀🌱

[@soilsolutionshomestead6511]

Loving it

[@BobieFPV]

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[@lwhowell4387]

Thank you!

[@brentthebloodhound]

Can you talk about how Russia will impact your supply chain? Or does your product not depend on phosphorus ans nitrogen ?

[@bbtruth2161]

One more comment. I have made the exact same observation about weeds. I use that as a technique for creating new beds. Nature abhors bare ground, she puts the things there that are needed.

[@sycamoreknox9419]

I need to get to sleep, so I stopped the video at 32:00.