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Im not a huge fan of this genus, but I was impressed with the Giant Lau Lau at F&SP. The fruit was tasty and the flower droppings under the tree was an impressive site.
Potassium sulfate is certainly going to be the quickest way to solve your issues. If you can source a ton of banana, especially peels, that does have a reasonable amount of it, as does fish. If you could ferment some fish (will smell horrible), that can be great addition for your soil as well. Wood ash can be worked with, but you need to source the wood to burn in the first place, and I know in the tropics it's not the same as what we have here in North America where you have falling pine and oak annually, or need to do tons of pruning anyways so it's free flowing.
I practice permaculture techniques as much as possible, but when I need real fuel, I rely on commercial fertilizers. The combination of both strategies is what will yield the best results. At my old place, the soil was completely devoid of anything really, just sugary sand. Once I had established a reasonable soil biome, the fertilizer requirements seemed to fall off entirely, but I did not keep my foot off the synthetic fertilizer the entire time. I stopped seeing deficiencies, and the trees fruited splendidly. It was especially crazy to go back this year to meet the new owners, and see my fruit trees were in spectacular condition without the usual fertilizing I did.
I agree with you, there is no magical answer that cures all deficiencies. The "natural" reaction to a plant that fails to thrive and produce in the conditions readily available, then let it die and replace with something that can. Many of the fruit trees we plant are non-native and have no business being there anyway.
As far as what nutrients a specific plant can add to your garden, my own belief is that certain plants attract certain wildlife. Every insect, every worm, every snake, every bird generates waste, sheds skin, dies, etc and that biological material is also added to the soil as it breaks down. At the very least, a well-developed garden attracts abundant wildlife that can bring in additional nutrients beyond what the plants contribute.
I've been thinking about this comment lately. Doesn't it also work the opposite direction too? Birds for example. Cattle egrets more specifically is something I observed that made me remember this comment.. When I see them visit our cows in their silvopasture setting they usually show up about an hour after dawn, and descend into the paddock with the cows, stay for most of the day and then fly away in the late afternoon. They nest somewhere far away (not on our land) and it's great while they're here pooping, but they also eat bugs and whatnot from our property, and I assume a portion of those nutrients are then exported after they fly away.
Or leaf cutter ants that are on a neighbor's degraded property and walk a half kilometer to defoliate my fruit trees and carry the vegetation away into their underground nest that's also not on our land.
In my opinion, it is rare that nature itself is really *stealing* from your land in a meaningful way. It's usually pretty close to net zero, even in the case of egrets eating things and flying off, or leaf cutter ants taking leaves. Even with gophers in CA, which are the bane of my fruit tree growing existence, they can be reasonably helpful to loosen up hardened clay soils and may have a purpose. It's just the reality of your environment and you'll need to find a way to work with them, or deter them.
In any case, it really does sound to me like you just need to find any organic amendments you can acquire easily and cheaply in your area. It can be anything. Wood, manure, leaves, coffee grounds, agricultural by products, etc. Do they do any sugarcane processing near you? The squished canes are nice fluffy wood. Is there a sawmill nearby? That has a ton of great fluffy sawdust they'd love you to cart off. Think of those types of industries and see what you can do.
For this purpose we work for the most diversity possible. Our farm has ample secondary rainforest with a large native canopy. We rely on these forest corridors to support our soils in the cultivated orchard areas.
Peter
As far as the vanilla is concerned, I don’t have production comparisons right now but the growth looks the same in the 3 areas where I have plants.
One of those areas has good soil underneath. Another is too wet for my liking and the third has poor soil from a landslide.
But I have seen vanilla grown on cement or gravel in Mexico. Then they support a medium of composting biomass that measure about70cm across and 30cm high. That medium gets applications of all kinds of stuff. The idea with having gravel underneath is to keep out any pathogens that might be in the soil.
Peter
I agree with you, there is no magical answer that cures all deficiencies. The "natural" reaction to a plant that fails to thrive and produce in the conditions readily available, then let it die and replace with something that can. Many of the fruit trees we plant are non-native and have no business being there anyway.
As far as what nutrients a specific plant can add to your garden, my own belief is that certain plants attract certain wildlife. Every insect, every worm, every snake, every bird generates waste, sheds skin, dies, etc and that biological material is also added to the soil as it breaks down. At the very least, a well-developed garden attracts abundant wildlife that can bring in additional nutrients beyond what the plants contribute.
It seems to me that you are very unlucky with your parent material. Sandstone would usually be one of the worst bedrocks when it comes to nutrients as it is often very rich in silica. Judging from your test you also have a lot of aluminium and iron there. Igneous and most of metamorphic rocks (except for quartzite, which is metamorphosed sandstone) have a variety of minerals that could deliver necessary nutrients upon weathering. The same would be valid for other sedimentary rocks except maybe for very pure limestone and dolomite.
Judging from your other videos, it seems that your land is very prone to landsliding. And your least productive site has indeed many characteristics of a landslide source area. So all the soil with nutrients that accumulated from biological activity and aeolian sedimentation (your neighbour's lost nutrients from burning) got swept away. Chemical weathering is very fast in the tropics so the new soil that formed on your site is just a nutrient-poor weathered parent material.
Since the the tropical soils are usually deeply weathered, it makes sense to plant mexican sunflower or similar plants that can accumulate nutrients from the freshly weathered material down below, but that wouldn't work out in your case.
As far as the vanilla is concerned, I don’t have production comparisons right now but the growth looks the same in the 3 areas where I have plants.
One of those areas has good soil underneath. Another is too wet for my liking and the third has poor soil from a landslide.
But I have seen vanilla grown on cement or gravel in Mexico. Then they support a medium of composting biomass that measure about70cm across and 30cm high. That medium gets applications of all kinds of stuff. The idea with having gravel underneath is to keep out any pathogens that might be in the soil.
Peter
Potassium sulfate is certainly going to be the quickest way to solve your issues. If you can source a ton of banana, especially peels, that does have a reasonable amount of it, as does fish. If you could ferment some fish (will smell horrible), that can be great addition for your soil as well. Wood ash can be worked with, but you need to source the wood to burn in the first place, and I know in the tropics it's not the same as what we have here in North America where you have falling pine and oak annually, or need to do tons of pruning anyways so it's free flowing.
I practice permaculture techniques as much as possible, but when I need real fuel, I rely on commercial fertilizers. The combination of both strategies is what will yield the best results. At my old place, the soil was completely devoid of anything really, just sugary sand. Once I had established a reasonable soil biome, the fertilizer requirements seemed to fall off entirely, but I did not keep my foot off the synthetic fertilizer the entire time. I stopped seeing deficiencies, and the trees fruited splendidly. It was especially crazy to go back this year to meet the new owners, and see my fruit trees were in spectacular condition without the usual fertilizing I did.
Arguing against myself-
IF there was a larger concentration of nutrients further down in the soil than where you took your sample from (I have no clue if this is true for you) it is possible the plants (with long enough roots, also unsure if this is the case with Mexican sunflower) the plants could move minerals from lower soil tiers to higher soil tiers. I also assume your trees would have to have shallow roots and not be able to access the nutrients on their own
It's also possible if you had areas of the land that are not used for growing anything and you planted Mexican sunflower there, then chop and dropped them at the base of the trees you could "concentrate" the nutrients closer to the tree, assuming whatever area the Mexican sunflower was growing was initially unavailable to the feeder roots of the trees
Nice video, you certainly are putting a lot of effort into this and your approach seems well thought out.
I’ve noticed at my farm that the soil quality varies significantly from area to area as well. The area has a history of landslides and we had one five years ago that completely changed an area of 5000sq meters. At first it was a soft, creepy moonscape. Then some sections burste forth with growth while others to this day barely grow weak looking grass. I replanted the areas of high weed growth with fruit trees and the result was amazing. In 3-4 years I had production of sapodilla, canistel, terap, and others. The areas that seemed unsuitable have been planted with vanilla and pitaya since they don’t really need soil. Those epiphyts are on living posts with stakes around their base to hold the biomass they want.
Anyway, that’s a small scale solution to a good soil, bad soil solution.
On crops that produce high income we apply rock phosphate and magnesium sulfate. We also apply manures and we apply laboratory produced lactic acid every two weeks unless it’s too dry. Everywhere we apply microorganisms has biochar which we produce on the farm with a TLUD adapdted steel drum.
I don’t think leaf cutter ants help in any way. The leaves that they bring to the nest are all subsequently removed by them and decompose on top of the sterile hills they produce.
Saludos, Peter
Thanks for sharing the video of your property.
One thing I thought of after seeing the video is that you likely have excess nitrogen on the portion of your property that isn't doing as well from the animals grazing there. Excess nitrogen relative to potassium can cause imbalances in addition to your situation where there's already limited potassium. From your video it seemed like you were keeping them on the portion of your property that's potassium deficient?
I think the most efficient and economical way to supplement the minerals your lacking is through foliar application. Looked like your trees are small enough that it would be an easy way to start.
Janet
I agree with you, there is no magical answer that cures all deficiencies. The "natural" reaction to a plant that fails to thrive and produce in the conditions readily available, then let it die and replace with something that can. Many of the fruit trees we plant are non-native and have no business being there anyway.
As far as what nutrients a specific plant can add to your garden, my own belief is that certain plants attract certain wildlife. Every insect, every worm, every snake, every bird generates waste, sheds skin, dies, etc and that biological material is also added to the soil as it breaks down. At the very least, a well-developed garden attracts abundant wildlife that can bring in additional nutrients beyond what the plants contribute.
The hustle was unmatched. They’d get 50lb in their hip sack in like 5 min I am glad I could speak Spanish with them and express how impressed I was with their speed. Nothing special tool wise, just a crappy ladder and the will to get’r done.
Oh, very easy, they jump, grab the branches, break them and ea r the fruits on the ground. Another way is to dig around the tree with their snouts and make the entire tree fall on the ground...
My property is huge and it would be pricy to fence it all around...
