ganjafarian

Just getting to transplant clones into veg pots. I was wondering on how much bat guano I Should be adding to every gallon of soil. And I was wondering how safe it is to order seeds on-line. Please write back, it will be greatly appriciated.

organic

follow the instructions on the bag

The rule of thumb for organic fertilizers is 1 tablespoon/gallon of soil.

stoker6

The bag of worm castings I used said to mix 1 part to 3 parts potting soil. The mushroom compost I used said 30-40% compost and 60-70% soil.

Wow! Thats a lot more than a tbsp/gallon of soil.

Xzoomd

those are soil amendments. the guano is a fert.

stoker6

worm castings are a fert also. especially in their pure, undiluted form.

Xzoomd

i would venture that, if it was in its pure undeluted form....it wouldnt say mix at 0.33%. think? alright..it's a fert/amend.

xmd

stoker6

I am a bit on this topic. The bag of WC said it was pure/undiluted and to mix at 1/3 ratio. I can understand 30-40% mushrom compost because it has other stuff like gypsum and moss.

I looked at the organic nutrient chart and here is an observation:

Worm Castings NPK = 0.5 -0.5 -0.3

Cave bat quano NPK = 3 -10- 1

Desert Bat Guano NPK = 8- 4 -1

So maybe the bat crap has a higher concentration of NPK per unit volume??

Xzoomd

look at the nos.
like organic said...in its form..1tbl per gal. of soil.
the guano is just more concentrated, thats all. all good stuff!
i think you can make a guano tea too. i have not made the shift yet, still using some comericials, but teas are cool.

ltr
xmd

organic

also, worm castings ride the line between ferts and soil amendments. They should be viewed the same as compost - i.e., the major benefit from their use comes not necessarily from the nutrients they contain, but from the plant growth-promoting microflora and other goodies they contain.

Having said that, I wouldn't go higher than 20% w.c. in your soil mix for a couple of reasons. I just attended a presentation by a researcher who specialized in worm castings, and he had experimental evidence that ratios higher than 20% showed no additional benefit (and sometimes a drop off) to plant growth. (10% also showed itself to be highly beneficial, btw.) The second reason is just a mater of economy - why use an extra ten percent, except to pad the pockets of the w.c. supplier?

Aside from that, as X mentioned, make sure to use the guano as a fert and not a soil amendment, and you should be good to go.

- O

stoker6

One other thing I remember is that the bags of wc I used stated not only that the castings were pure and undiluted, but also that they were non-composted (viera farms wc). The organic chart said that wc are already composted and don't need to be. Does viera farms mean that their castings are something special or different? What exactly are they trying to say?

I actually didn't have enough wc to do 20%, just 15% ( got lucky). I used another 15% mushroom compost for a total of 30% compost. Seems to be working out very well