Hopefully by late summer or fall next year. I have a ton of grafts that I've made, and pretty much all of those are for distribution. A lot of them have already been cut once, so they will throw multiple pups next year.
Seeing your first videos I started using charcoal on a regular basis for fast growing cacti, about 30-40%. In Europe i must admit I am finding coco coir not great since it gets attacked from not so friendly mushrooms in here. I am using 50-60% really mature wormcompost and so far it works really nice. I fertilize regularly with 20-20-20 about 5 times a year.
I use charcoal water (powered) to water and stimulate flowering. And also as substrate ❤. Broken ceramic(from tiles) is also a great substrate that I have learned from bonsai growers. This combo is the components from "terra preta de índio", a ancestral soil found on some places of the Amazon Jungle (also it has oyster/clam shells)
Love the stuff. there isn't really any comparison when it comes to cactus mix ingredients. I think it will be used a potting mix base much more in the future, hopefully as a standard.
Just wanted to show some love man me and all my friends on my discord love you one of my friends bought some definitely last night and I got that crusty off of you right as I was shopping I was trying to buy another one and somebody got it out from under me lol
I put one fat lump of charcoal (4"x4") in one of my pots, and the roots attacked it and went right through it. I wouldn't use fine powder either, but from my experience the size does not matter when it comes to absorption but it does matter when it comes to aeration.
Cool. I find that over time they will colonize it more, but I"m not sure with harder char how deep or thorough they can get in there in bigger pieces. Maybe I"ll dissect an older one sometime.. They certainly can get something out of it. In old pots, the chunks can be well coated with roots.
Thanks for sharing all the deets! Great deal on coco coir at Harmony Farm Supply if you're ever down in Sonoma County. They have 12kg bricks for around $22 (with an account, $26 without)
I think the pH discussion can depend on peoples' sources of water. Some people acidify the soil or water they're using because their local tap water is very alkaline and will over time make the pots overly alkaline. Some people acidify their water to avoid having to repot as frequently due to mineral buildup and pH change. Particularly in the desert southwest where a lot of cactus growers are the water tends to be hard and alkaline. Rainwater tends to be a neutral to slightly acidic pH.
Im using Coco coir and I'm running in to the problem of the soil not drying out it's been months with no rain water or water. Im thinking my 60 inorganic to 40 organic isn't good for Kansas weather. Will be lowering my organic. I will say I've only had one or two rot and they were more in the shade.
Try charcoal. I find that it dries quickly. someone said it is because of the extremely high capillarity. Makes sense. I think about 70/30 is my ideal with char and coco, but even 80/20 is probalby fine eventually you run into anchorage issues though. I want to do some experiments with very low or no significant organic matter, but those will probably have some clay or maybe clay loam as a substitute. What aggregates are you using? My friend used to put stuff in just sand and crushed oyster shell, but it doesn't drain or dry well. It just fills the spaces with water and sits there.
I will use any old charcoal made any way, or salvaged from burnpiles, firepits the woodstove etc. as long as it is not made with painted or treated wood. also, any kiind of wood or woody material. I make most of it in open piles and a trench method, which you can see in the biochar playlist linke din the description. I have never bought any, but hardwood charocal sold for BBQ (not briquettes) is fine. If you can burn stuff where you are, it is very easy to make in quantity if you've got wood and in many areas wood is easy to get, including pallets.
@@martinwhitehurst9893 No. I have noticed that very high amounts of char in both soils and pots seem to dry out more quickly. that could be addressed with consistent watering, but in general I don't think there is any reason to use nearly this much charcoal in a potting mix or regular garden soil. I think more experimentation is in order, like adding other things like clay maybe, or using a higher proportion of finely ground char, but I'm not too interested in pursuing that and most plants do fine with smaller amounts of charocal. My minimum for garden soil here, with the soft open burned charcoal I use, is 10% but that should be tested by people in their own gardens by making long beds with several different percentages, then planting them to the same crops in long rows and treating the whole bed the same otherwise. For cactus, fast draining and drying is generally a benefit it would seem, so high amounts of char work.,
not that consensus is worth much (probably more like a road paved with good intentions), but I have also come across the alkaline soil being more akin to native soils for tichocereus. Would suspect however that this flows from a few sources regardless of where one came across the info. I too have heard other reports of acidic soil. Can't help but wonder if that is a misapplication of approaches for desert cacti or possibly a concern about nutrient availability. You mentioned egg shells and I seem to recall instructions for using them for plant calcium involving using acetic acid to 'liberate' the calcium in a plant available form. That said I believe some amount of acetic acid is a natural occurrence in a 'living' soil. Would think that the bio char would provide all sorts of nooks and crannies for such organizes to be happy in so imagine that the production would be enough to provide calcium in suitable amounts. Just my .02 and probably somewhat erroneous in spots that I will figure out in time. In closing would just add that find whenever I have even bothered trying to hit certain pH spots with soil someone seem to only make failing soils and when I don't bother, much like you, things seem to go much smoother. Also feel that 'soils' should be build around one's environment as well as their idiosyncrasies with watering. Find that in WI it would seem that my summer climate temp and humidity along with my watering habits seems to encourage me to focus on faster draining soils otherwise I struggle with rot. Anyway loving your vids always feel my time is well spent.
it has long been a thing among organic farmers that soil ph is less important when using high organic matter soils and organic fertilizers. Lime too can often be used in quantity without seeming ill effects. I think that soil ph is probably way over simplified. I'm happy going by results and I have stupid amounts of alkalizing elements and high calcium in my mixes and garden soils. While it may always be true that we could possibly dial in for ever better results, that can be an endless game. Understanding soil, really, is hopeless. It is incredibly complex and constantly changing. It is very hard to study too. the myopic nature of careful scientific inquiry, where factos are tightly controlled, yields tiny windows of information. Often that small amount of information is exrapolated by people into broad beliefs. that is a problem in biochar studies, where pot trials are often used and then extrapolated by people into real life dogmas, when they may not have so much relevance to varied soils, climates, crops and farming styles. If it seems to work, I'm usually good with that and I fuckiing hate reading scientific papers. I'd rather have my teeth cleaned lol.
@@TeamWachuma AMEN. On another note I can't help but wonder if you have used charcoal ash as an ammendent? From what I understand it is somewhat different than wood ash. If you haven't or for that matter don't have to time feel free to disregard.
I made my first biochar following your advice. It came out great! Love your videos. Thanks for sharing these skills!
And please keep the videos coming I will watch them over and over again just to get your views up 💯 ☝️ 👍
thanks :)
Thanks for the video Steven, I appreciate it. A day with a new Team Wachuma video is a good day - especially if it's about media.
Goddamn it. This ending is a perfect conclusion to another great video. I just had a good beer to boot. Thank you Team Wachuma/Steven Edholme.
I appreciate the video, great info, good music, very well done sir thank you! Stoked for all the new cacti headed my way from you as well🌵💚😁
Man I love your information on videos they're helping me a whole lot
I can't wait till this King tubbies are ready 🎉
Hopefully by late summer or fall next year. I have a ton of grafts that I've made, and pretty much all of those are for distribution. A lot of them have already been cut once, so they will throw multiple pups next year.
Love the music recommendation!
Blackbraid is awesome. I listened to that this morning watching the sunrise and meditating. Maybe not what most people do, but it works for me :)
Seeing your first videos I started using charcoal on a regular basis for fast growing cacti, about 30-40%. In Europe i must admit I am finding coco coir not great since it gets attacked from not so friendly mushrooms in here. I am using 50-60% really mature wormcompost and so far it works really nice. I fertilize regularly with 20-20-20 about 5 times a year.
I use charcoal water (powered) to water and stimulate flowering. And also as substrate ❤.
Broken ceramic(from tiles) is also a great substrate that I have learned from bonsai growers.
This combo is the components from "terra preta de índio", a ancestral soil found on some places of the Amazon Jungle (also it has oyster/clam shells)
Love the stuff. there isn't really any comparison when it comes to cactus mix ingredients. I think it will be used a potting mix base much more in the future, hopefully as a standard.
Just wanted to show some love man me and all my friends on my discord love you one of my friends bought some definitely last night and I got that crusty off of you right as I was shopping I was trying to buy another one and somebody got it out from under me lol
I put one fat lump of charcoal (4"x4") in one of my pots, and the roots attacked it and went right through it. I wouldn't use fine powder either, but from my experience the size does not matter when it comes to absorption but it does matter when it comes to aeration.
Cool. I find that over time they will colonize it more, but I"m not sure with harder char how deep or thorough they can get in there in bigger pieces. Maybe I"ll dissect an older one sometime.. They certainly can get something out of it. In old pots, the chunks can be well coated with roots.
Thanks for sharing all the deets! Great deal on coco coir at Harmony Farm Supply if you're ever down in Sonoma County. They have 12kg bricks for around $22 (with an account, $26 without)
thanks. I think I'm paying about 10 for 5k blocks now.
I think the pH discussion can depend on peoples' sources of water. Some people acidify the soil or water they're using because their local tap water is very alkaline and will over time make the pots overly alkaline. Some people acidify their water to avoid having to repot as frequently due to mineral buildup and pH change. Particularly in the desert southwest where a lot of cactus growers are the water tends to be hard and alkaline. Rainwater tends to be a neutral to slightly acidic pH.
Were do you order the Anderson pots from?
Im using Coco coir and I'm running in to the problem of the soil not drying out it's been months with no rain water or water. Im thinking my 60 inorganic to 40 organic isn't good for Kansas weather. Will be lowering my organic. I will say I've only had one or two rot and they were more in the shade.
Try charcoal. I find that it dries quickly. someone said it is because of the extremely high capillarity. Makes sense. I think about 70/30 is my ideal with char and coco, but even 80/20 is probalby fine eventually you run into anchorage issues though. I want to do some experiments with very low or no significant organic matter, but those will probably have some clay or maybe clay loam as a substitute. What aggregates are you using? My friend used to put stuff in just sand and crushed oyster shell, but it doesn't drain or dry well. It just fills the spaces with water and sits there.
@TeamWachuma perlite, pumice rock lava. Anything I have on hand. Ill have to check charcoal out
Hi, so do you just use charcoal straight out of the bag and crush it up ? Or do you make your own biochar and then crush it up?
I will use any old charcoal made any way, or salvaged from burnpiles, firepits the woodstove etc. as long as it is not made with painted or treated wood. also, any kiind of wood or woody material. I make most of it in open piles and a trench method, which you can see in the biochar playlist linke din the description. I have never bought any, but hardwood charocal sold for BBQ (not briquettes) is fine. If you can burn stuff where you are, it is very easy to make in quantity if you've got wood and in many areas wood is easy to get, including pallets.
i'm replying from my other account :)
@@SkillCultGreat! Thank you so much for your help. Keep up the great work
@@SkillCulthey I forgot to ask…. Do you use this method on all plants ?
@@martinwhitehurst9893 No. I have noticed that very high amounts of char in both soils and pots seem to dry out more quickly. that could be addressed with consistent watering, but in general I don't think there is any reason to use nearly this much charcoal in a potting mix or regular garden soil. I think more experimentation is in order, like adding other things like clay maybe, or using a higher proportion of finely ground char, but I'm not too interested in pursuing that and most plants do fine with smaller amounts of charocal. My minimum for garden soil here, with the soft open burned charcoal I use, is 10% but that should be tested by people in their own gardens by making long beds with several different percentages, then planting them to the same crops in long rows and treating the whole bed the same otherwise. For cactus, fast draining and drying is generally a benefit it would seem, so high amounts of char work.,
not that consensus is worth much (probably more like a road paved with good intentions), but I have also come across the alkaline soil being more akin to native soils for tichocereus. Would suspect however that this flows from a few sources regardless of where one came across the info. I too have heard other reports of acidic soil. Can't help but wonder if that is a misapplication of approaches for desert cacti or possibly a concern about nutrient availability. You mentioned egg shells and I seem to recall instructions for using them for plant calcium involving using acetic acid to 'liberate' the calcium in a plant available form. That said I believe some amount of acetic acid is a natural occurrence in a 'living' soil. Would think that the bio char would provide all sorts of nooks and crannies for such organizes to be happy in so imagine that the production would be enough to provide calcium in suitable amounts. Just my .02 and probably somewhat erroneous in spots that I will figure out in time. In closing would just add that find whenever I have even bothered trying to hit certain pH spots with soil someone seem to only make failing soils and when I don't bother, much like you, things seem to go much smoother. Also feel that 'soils' should be build around one's environment as well as their idiosyncrasies with watering. Find that in WI it would seem that my summer climate temp and humidity along with my watering habits seems to encourage me to focus on faster draining soils otherwise I struggle with rot. Anyway loving your vids always feel my time is well spent.
it has long been a thing among organic farmers that soil ph is less important when using high organic matter soils and organic fertilizers. Lime too can often be used in quantity without seeming ill effects. I think that soil ph is probably way over simplified. I'm happy going by results and I have stupid amounts of alkalizing elements and high calcium in my mixes and garden soils. While it may always be true that we could possibly dial in for ever better results, that can be an endless game. Understanding soil, really, is hopeless. It is incredibly complex and constantly changing. It is very hard to study too. the myopic nature of careful scientific inquiry, where factos are tightly controlled, yields tiny windows of information. Often that small amount of information is exrapolated by people into broad beliefs. that is a problem in biochar studies, where pot trials are often used and then extrapolated by people into real life dogmas, when they may not have so much relevance to varied soils, climates, crops and farming styles. If it seems to work, I'm usually good with that and I fuckiing hate reading scientific papers. I'd rather have my teeth cleaned lol.
@@TeamWachuma AMEN. On another note I can't help but wonder if you have used charcoal ash as an ammendent? From what I understand it is somewhat different than wood ash. If you haven't or for that matter don't have to time feel free to disregard.
@@jimduchow1580 No, I'm not familiar. I'll look into it.
@@TeamWachuma Oh no need to do research I am capable of doing, just curious if you had any first hand accounts