[APWG] Smell soil to see if you have dead soil causing weeds?

[craig at astreet.com]

Dear Robert and All,
Thanks for your email.
 Now I understand why we are having difficulty in communicating, you
are speaking from an Eastern forest perspective, and I am talking about
the forest understory plus talking about arid grasslands and desert
ecosystems.  
What I am suggesting, will still work for your
Eastern deciduous forest understory, where the wildflowers and native
grasses are in about the same destroyed cow-chewed condition as we have
here in the West, along with the accompanying soil nutrient problems
caused by the grazing for more centuries than we have had out
here. 
I did a roadside native under-story survey from Virginia
to Delaware and from Georgia to Alabama, and the East Coast wildflower and
native grass understory is in relict tatters just like we are out here.
 When I did encounter a solid stand of relict natives, that could be
used as a soil nutrient reference level for future restoration
projects.
And smelling the soil is like a cook tasting what they are
cooking.--It gives you a basic look at if your soil to see if it is living
or dead, and then you can see if there is a relationship between weeds and
the dead soil or not. 
And when the difference between living
and dead soil is only 20 feet apart, and the dead has the worst weeds
growing on that spot and none of those weeds on the living soil, that
might be an important difference that could be helpful for solving weed
problems?
Grants are never given to professionals, with the
exception of the Federal SBIR program, and grants are usually for academic
studies by students, plus it is not necessary with a grant to produce
successful outcomes every time like is required of the professionals, a
grant only needs to test a hypothesis.
Yes, there are minimal
nutrient thresholds known for natives, and also for some weeds too, that
have been measured by soil labs, but those threshold were done for project
by professionals, and only used for the projects and not published in any
journals.  By doing the three stage soil tests that I recommended in
an earlier email, you can measure the nutrient thresholds for any native
or weed seedling survival. 
All the soil nutrient threshold for
all of the grassy and herbaceous weeds we are trying to manage across the
country should have been measured by now, along with the thresholds for
all of the natives we want to replace the weeds with.  
For the
Great Basin species for the 600 acres north of Reno, Squirreltail was at
the lowest threshold end and the Great Basin Wild Rye required the highest
soil nutrient levels in order for their seedlings to
survive. 
And the way we knew we were going to have problems
north of Reno, is we had close to 100% failure of the seedlings in the
first year test in-situ plot, until we did the ex-situ flat test at http://www.ecoseeds.com/good.example.html
then sampled the soil around the in-situ reproducing stands with
seedlings, to get our lab results to peg the thresholds for each
species.
Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650)
325-7333
================
> I doubt if grant funders will
provide restoration money based on smelling
> the soil. Dogs can be
trained to smell certain cancers. Maybe we can hire
> them. Is there
really any data regarding minimal nutrient thresholds for
> native
plants? We have known for years that nitrogen is a tricky element
> to
measure because it likes to quickly change forms from ammonia to
>
nitrate, nitrite, etc . Any nitrogen measurement is a snapshot of a
moment
> in time. Phosphorus is also turning out to be a tricky
character due to
> mychorizzae. I have University lab soil test results
from soils that list
> 0 pounds per acre of P, yet these soils are
covered with healthy forests.
>
>
>
>
________________________________
>
From: APWG
[apwg-bounces at lists.plantconservation.org] on behalf of
>
craig at astreet.com [craig at astreet.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 24,
2013 4:24 PM
> To: apwg at lists.plantconservation.org;
craig at ecoseeds.com
> Subject: [APWG] Smell soil to see if you have dead
soil causing weeds?
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> I am going to
suggest an even easier test to check for soil problems that
> can cause
weed infestations--is to smell the soil?
>
> Where I have the worst
weed problem at my site in Palo Alto, the Italian
> thistles and the
medusa head grass, I noticed that when I dug up the soil
> for the soil
nutrient tests on those sites, there was no visible organic
> matter
below the weed thatch, and there was no smell to the soil. The
> soil
is dead, nobody microscopic like the fungi and yeasts, alive any
>
more.
>
> Then if you go 20 feet away where there is no medusa head
or Italian
> thistles, when you dig past the surface thatch, you can
see visible
> organic matter, and if you breathe in, you can sniff that
somebody is
> still home in that soil.
>
> I am suggesting that
along with soils being below the nutrient threshold
> for native
seedling survival can cause weed infestations, that you can
> also have
a case of weeds as symptoms of dead soil. The weeds could be
> looked
like flies gathering on a dead body, and we may need to resurrect
> the
soil microbes in order to chase away the weeds?
>
> Sincerely, Craig
Dremann (650) 325-7333
>
>
>
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