it's the only benefit of crab meal calcium well in this video we're going to get into it you're
here with mark batwell and dave hansen on perfect garden steve lee if you haven't checked out our
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great grow make sure to hit the join button on the bottom of every video alright so dave i'm
super happy we we are getting into another down to earth video will you please go ahead and share
your screen and let's go ahead and get into it and remember stay to the very end of this video
because before we ever have these presentations we actually have an in-depth conversation with
adam from down to earth and he really gets into the nitty-gritty of things that he can't say to
public we do and we always like to share a couple clips at the very end on things that he does share
with the community so dave go ahead and just jump in and just kind of get into it yep yep so we're
going to be getting into as mark stated uh crab meal it's coming at an mpk value of four three
zero i'm gonna start it off with a quote from um john bros a man takes root at his feet and at best
he is no more than a potted plant in his house or carriage until he has established communication
with the soil by the loving and magnetic touch of his souls to it so becoming one with our soils
diving into crab meal what does it provide crab meal is a great source of magnesium and calcium
it's also rich in nitrogen it improves aeration drainage and soil tilth and and i really want
the viewers as we start going into all these ingredients we we started off with bat guano
we have good nitrogen levels uh micronutrients we kind of dive into kelp meal which is getting into
our root systems with the auxins and also the micronutrients and here with crabmeal we also
have a good source of calcium but i want people to start looking at their ingredients not just as a
food source but also what is making up the total mass of that soil for drainage so these pieces of
shell whether it's oyster shell crab meal kelp you know the physical matter is going to help
in drainage and water retention as well so not just looking at it as a food source but also
improving your your drainage as well promotes growth of chitin eating bacteria in the soil so
this goes back to products also like um back wano where um the chitin is found to deter root nets
ants and other other things that we're trying to keep out of the garden and this is another
way so also deterring the root eating nematode so good nematodes bad nematodes there's a few
different varieties some that eat bacteria some that are going to eat the physical
roots and others that are going to eat other things like root net eggs as well it can
be considered a bio pesticide so just leading right into what we're just discussing it's it's
a natural way to potentially deter those bugs away from your soil do you have anything to add to that
is different than other ones just remember it is absolutely important to mend your soil with this
not really as a top dress that's where we're going to get its major benefits as as well as
being a bio pesticide yeah no that's that's a good point and we have to always remember
that and what we're adding some of this stuff is going to take longer to break down so if you have
preparation up front amending your soils maybe so to speak what people call cooking them
you're going to have a better response um with your plants um moving forward crab meal is also
shown to aid in simulating the plant's immune system so you know is it the chitin that's
helping doing that where it's making the plant think that it's being attacked and then amping
up its different parts of its immune system also high in protein content providing the foundation
building blocks for terpenes and cannabinoids application methods as mark stated i feel as well
too that this is better to add into your compost or adding into your soil be prior to you using it
so you can enrich your compost with it aiding in the soil diversity breaking down the plant matter
so it's that whole domino effect as the engine gets going more and more colonies of bacteria
microbes are going to be colonizing furthering breaking down of your compost and availability
of the calcium that we are seeking to get compost teas i would not recommend it you could
i've heard of people doing it but once again these shells the calcium that we're trying to get
is is not easy to access via a compost teas like worm castings or maybe back one or cow meal which
could have more readily available nutrients this takes longer to break down if you did do it and
you do find value i recommend i'm taking you know the remainder of the shells after you're
brewing it and putting it and top dressing it top dressing you can add it as a top dressing method
i've also seen people sprinkling it on top of the soil in lieu of the the chitin that we're thinking
um that has been shown that the science has shown that for it to have if you are doing this gently
work into the top layer of your soil and then just putting again aids and water retention keeping
soil moist for longer but we definitely recommend if you can amend it ahead of time you're going to
get more benefits probably than top dressing so if you're seeing those calcium deficiencies
and then you top dress with crab meal you might not get those instant results which will go into
some alternatives for you guys that need a little bit uh speeding up mark you have anything no no
i think uh i think that's pretty good okay um application amounts um once again you can find
this stuff online for quick references but here's the the recommended from the manufacturer for
vegetable gardens and flower beds and then more pertaining for the indoor cultivars you're going
to add one to two tablespoons per gallon of soil and mix thoroughly and like we stated if you can
do it ahead of time you're probably going to get a lot more benefits than just top dressing alone
three weeks guys just keep that in mind always three weeks when you whenever you're using a down
to earth or dry amendments you kind of always have to be aware that you want to be putting into your
soil and it really a lot of these things unless there's a high amount of water solubility uh
which it still shortens it down it's it's not as it takes as long but it still takes a little bit
of time even even with the more water soluble dry mammoth products three weeks and then it is before
it becomes really bioavailable to your plant so just just have that in mind if you you always
got a proper planting when using dry amendments in my biological living and living soil yeah and
and as people get more comfortable with their ingredients what's in their ingredients and and
how their plants and vegetables are going to react to it though they'll probably naturally get into
more pre-amendments and creating their own super soils and once they start seeing those results
they're they're really going to be great growers at that point so ending with our conclusions it's
a great way to improve your soil aeration and drainage so as we get more into these
different amendments you're going to see how all these building blocks are going to help create
that soil aeration proper oxidization within the soils and those those root zones as well with
drainage great source of calcium and magnesium food source for your microbes and bacteria which
is extremely important and then it's it's slow release so we want to keep that in mind all their
alternatives from down to earth is their solution grade products um which we will be diving deep
into but i just if you guys are currently going through a calcium deficiency and you're watching
this video and we're just talking about a week three weeks of being available and you're like
dang it you can head over there for their soluble grades and try out their calcium 96 which is 96
calcium carbonate and then they also have a solution grade gypsum that's a in a calcium
sulfate form and then it's also found to help deter certain bugs and that goes back to the to
the chitin as well do you want to dive into any of these solution grades or your opinions on them or
well kind of what we were talking about again and kind of reiterating the same thing guys if you
want to use living soil and get into this you have to plan for your grow you can't just be like
oh i want to grow you know get into the season go buy it you know and just rush through the process
you have to get your soil amend your soil to really make it work because if you don't plan
for it you're going to start to run into issues and you're going to want to find solutions then
your next one every single time you go further and further down this pathway to becoming more water
soluble and instantly available you're going from what your core values are and every time
you're compromising a little more a little more a little more until the point where you are just
kind of using anything out there which you just at that point you're the chemist and you've got to
uh you've gotten rid of all the all the biology and you're you're the chemist if that makes sense
so just proper planning if you're running into an issue of calcium these two products are once again
going to be a little more water-soluble or a lot more water-soluble and will be much
more readily available next options beyond this could be a liquid bone meal but when you start
to once again go into these other ones you have to think about their processing techniques of how
they extracted the bone meal and what type of acids were used during their processing
yeah and and as as people get more comfortable as i'm stating you're amending these soils ahead of
time you know these these solution grades you'll probably find over time through your growth and
growing experience you'll probably use less and less of them and and and i'm confident in in in
the growers in in these organic products that you will get to those those levels where you're like
man it seemed like i was top dressing all the time and now it's like man maybe you top dress
going into flower and then you you get your plants to harvest just fine it's because of that up front
work the knowledge of your products what you're contributing to the soil and the soil biology
and really optimizing and giving the plant the ability to be its best and express all
these levels of oils terpenes and everything we're seeking will come through that upfront
work so yeah very important and then just our end want to thank everybody for continuing to support
watching us uh love the feedback and the comments and i see a lot of suggestions for
other products and just asking to be patient we do physically like to work with these products
before we recommend them and uh yeah mark yeah guys after the day remember to stay till the end
because adam's gonna talk about a number of other reasons why calcium deficiencies could appear in
your plants he's going to run through a different a nice little dialogue on that
once again only on perfect gardens tv please remember to like share and subscribe
what was the question mark the question was the same one i was digging at last night on
our conversation there's a uh there's an amount you amend your soil with but then during your grow
you might run into a deficiency and you have the top feed it does the recommended dose change and
do we have to take into account water solubility of your product if we are top feeding or it like
should we instead of doing a top feed should we mix the first top feed into like a gallon of water
and get as much water solubility into the roots as possible and then allow the top
dry amended to just fall onto the top of the soil because that's what has to be bioavailable later
issues and that's so big with people that are entering into organics or they're not familiar
they're always looking for especially calcium calcium and magnesium but calcium always seems
to be that if they run into a deficiency i want it now type mentality calcium is uh exceptionally
challenging um so yeah so for crab meal if you're top dressing with crab meal to fix a calcium
deficiency should you mix it into water i don't think so i think you should be using something
else ultimately because with the dry amendments almost all of them you should need to be thinking
two to three weeks ahead because they're just too slow so even when there's a water soluble
component well calcium you know calcium is simply not going to be water soluble in in
any way that we really think of it that way but nitrogen yeah you may squeeze a little bit of
nitrogen out of that crab meal but not enough to be worth your time doing that i think if you need
if you need nitrogen you find a liquid or you know a soluble powder like a soybean hydrolyzate
or a fish hydrolysate because if you're correcting imbalances two weeks is too long
and you want to get it fast so you know i like to think of the dry amendments as like a base feed
as the diet of the plant for the long term so you start with it and you may have a couple subsequent
reapplications built into your program but if you need to fix something or you really want
to push something then you know with exception of maybe the guano or the blood meal you really
should be using a liquid they're simply you know you're talking about starting to work within a day
instead of work starting to work within a couple weeks and you know just like we don't want to
live off of sugar necessarily or caffeine necessarily if we get to the point where we
are just dragon it's a nice little boost you know it's a nice little fix for the way we're feeling
but it's not the meal it's not the diet and it ultimately isn't what powers it so i would say
think of in those circumstances still like for calcium if you really need fast calcium um there
are liquid calcium sources like calcium hydroxide but they are generally recommended if you're doing
like you know trying to do to omri levels they're generally going to be recommended only for foliar
applications and i am pretty iffy on how well foil full your applications work with calcium
because calcium is a fixed nutrient it doesn't move once it's in the plant so you have to deliver
it exactly where it's needed and so some might get in there but it's not necessarily going to be
translocated to where it needs to go so if you're having a deficiency like a calcium deficiency in
the fruiting so something like blossom end rot you have to get it where it's going and sometimes that
material doesn't sufficiently take the nitrogen up in a foliar fashion like a fruit and most of
that beads off and goes away so what you want is the finest calcium you can get into the soil
that's what we have here crab meal is definitely not on the list the oyster shell is okay but we
offer uh calcium 96 which is a ultra fine calcium carbonate basically just a very very finely ground
limestone and it's meant to go into liquid uh suspension and be delivered to the plants that way
down down to earth has that i never heard it yeah yeah it's one of it's on our soluble powder line
so it's calcium 96 i'll send you guys an email with a link to the product again crab meal
first of all it's a relatively big chunk and which is nice for soil structure as it breaks down but
i wouldn't count on it for that calcium uh if you're you know if you're prophylactically using
oyster shell which is really hard to get right now in fact it's impossible to get right now
then you know if you're working a week to two weeks ahead of time and you're able to guess
that you're going to be deficient then that might work but again the finer you go the better for a
material like that so kind of returning to the original question about the crab meal if you are
going to be top dressing it i wouldn't put it in water the very little of that is going to be worth
your time and energy you might squeeze something out of it but i i won't say you will i'll say that
there's a potential and it's a pain too because it's you know you swirl it around and most of it's
going to go right to the bottom of the container immediately upon you know end of agitation um so
you might as well just spread it on the soil water it and if any of that soluble material
is accessible then it's going to be pulled down if you do want to increase the speed of a material
like that if you know ahead of time you're going to have trouble you can mix it into something like
compost uh something very biologically active so here's something for like rock phosphate a
colloidal rock phosphate you can you know that's a relatively slow and low source of phosphorus
and calcium but you can mix that into a compost ahead of time by a month or so and then apply
the compost to the soil and you might see somewhat well you would see more rapid use of that so long
as it didn't get too brutalized by the rain and such leading up to it you'd see a faster
uptake but again you probably see still faster by something like an ultra fine calcium carbonate
or a liquid basically you know in my practices and my observations as a whole so not just with our
medical plans but with house plans gardening and stuff like that i noticed that there's different
absorption rates depending on your media and while most will say well that's pretty obvious