Re: Soil mix!!/ wood by-products

From: "Celeste Whitlow" politicalamazon at charter.net> on 2002.04.04 at 04:31:01(8454) According to one of my horticulture textbooks ("Horticulture: Principles and Practices" by George Acquaah), the wood by-products that should be avoided in a media mix are cedar, walnut and eucalyptus because even heavy leaching does not sometimes remove the toxins or allelopathic (discouraging other plants from growing nearby) qualities of the wood. Redwood should not be used because it has high levels of manganese which can injure young plants. In addition, growth inhibitors have been found in the barks of walnut, cherry, cedar and white pine, as well. Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) and slash pine (Pinus caribaea) barks do ont have growth inhibitors and thus are the most widely used in artificial soil mixes. Any wood by-products used should be either well-composted, nitrogenized, or extra nitrogen will need to be given until the wood stuff starts decomposing. This is because of the high carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of wood products which means that the microorganisms that do the decomposing must get their nitrogen from another source which means it puts the microorganisms into competition with the plant for the nitrogen available in the media/soil. +More So sayeth George Acquaah... --Celeste ----- Original Message ----- To: "Multiple recipients of list AROID-L" Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 12:23 PM Subject: Re: Soil mix!! > I've also heard that you should use cypress mulch because pine bark mulch > attracts roaches. --- faery tale > > Also heard they all attract termites. ---- grandpa's wood lore > > >From 22 years of experience, I can tell you bith of these are false > ideas. > probably spread by the cypress bark suppliers. > > GRSJr@worldnet.att.net > > > ________________________________________________________________ > GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! > Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! > Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: > http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

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