Soil

[CORVIDSTATION61]

Hi everyone!

Could anyone tell me if certain plants thrive in poor soil, does tha mean they wont grow very well in good soil? Thanks Mar

-- CORVIDSTATION61

[symplastless]

Very good question. Some trees, pioneer species as they are called, can thrive in poor soil because they can survive for some years without mycorrhizae. I do not know of any that cannot grow because of mycorrhizal fungi being present. There might be one. One pioneer I can think of is birch. Birches are planted often in urban areas which the soil is not as poor as others. Really good question. So where do we draw the line between poor soil and great soil? In old growth forest I did some soil testing about the rhizosphere or rhizoplane and found the carbon to nitrogen ratio to be 27:1. Eastern Hemlock and White Pine. Back to your question. I do not have the answer. I know some can. On the other hand there are places where trees won't grow and they have to inoculate with a fungus that will infect the non-woody roots of the trees and form the organ mycorrhiza. Or they won't grow. It sounds like a good question. I recommend contacting someone in the US Forest Service with a back ground in tree biology.

let me suggest one off the top of my head. Dr. Kevin Smith

did a lot of research with the late Dr. Alex L. Shigo

Remember about mycorrhizae. We cannot inoculate the soil with mycorrhizae. Mycorrhiza is an organ. You cannot inoculate with an organ. You can inoculate with a fungus that will infect and then a organ forms.

[Charles]

A counter example, Protea. Soil with adequate phosphorous for most plants is toxic to them. Pacific Horticulture magazine had an article about them, one place they grew very well would not support weeds.

I think there are other plants from Australia with a similar phosphorous sensitivity.

[Bill]

Take a peak at the reviews here.

Bill

[Phisherman]

Of course. Every gardener knows how well weeds grow just about anywhere. I saw a petunia growing (and flowering) out of a crack in the street (and have a picture to prove it). Most cacti grow better in poor soil than good soil. Now at this point I'm not sure how to define "poor soil" and "good soil." I guess that depends on the plant in question.

[Billy]

Bill, I hope the holidays are being good to you. Mine started off fine but then the relatives showed up:-(

Books like "Weeds and What They Tell" really appeal to me but some times I wonder. One of the reviews read, in part, "Guilds, the author tells us, are groups of plants that function as an ecosystem to provide products for humans, create cover and food for wildlife, nourish the soil, conserve water, and repel pests. A simple example of a guild is the "three sisters" (corn, beans, and squash); corn stalks provide a trellis for beans, the beans supply nitrogen to the soil, and the squash leaves inhibit weeds and conserve water." The group kicked around the idea this year of growing beans on corn stalks and iirc the up-shot of it all was that there may be specific beans that do well on corn but in general, it is a bad idea. I grew my corn in blocks and the light seemed to have had a hard time penetrating in to the beans. The beans that grew on the periphery did OK but they had a bad habit of pulling the corn stalks over. The melons that I planted also had the sunlight problem and were stunted until the "hounds from hell" found them. That was the end of that particular problem.

The group discussions we have had have been more valuable to me than any of the books that I have purchased.

Oh, in response to the OP. Grapes make better wine if they are nitrogen and water stressed. If water and nitrogen are available, ad libitum, they will vegetate and not set fruit.

[David Hare-Scott]

This is quite so. Many natives of Oz have evolved to deal with rather poor soil and do not do well in rich soil and may drop dead if overfed. In his book "Indigenous" Don Burke describes planting a native garden in ground up sandstone on a sandstone base. I thrived.

OTOH with some 700 species of Eucalypts and 500 of Acacias (to name just two genera), and given the size diversity of the country, you will find one adapted for almost any conditions.

David

[Omelet]

Add more Bone Meal to the soil?

[Billy]

With grapes, the roots don't need it. I would worry about encouraging excessive fruit by adding excessive bone meal. One way of producing higher quality wines is to drop (cut-off) part of the crop (1/4 - 1/2). Normally, growers are looking at around 4 1/2 tons per acre, if it is less than that, then bone meal would probably be helpful.

[Omelet]

I added extra bone meal to the flower bed this year.

I ended up with unhappy plants and NO blooms.

They must need a happy medium. I will do major soil revision. Might even lift the peruvian daffodils to see if I can keep from losing them. :-(

[Bill]

I only add bone meal to new bulbs or plants I treat as bulbs.

Bill who thinks about that mad cow stuff for some reason.

PS Just went to a new computer system and it has been slow.

[Andrew Ostrander]

One way that this is true is illustrated by the cosmos. In the poor soil along my house, cosmos flowers nicely. In the rich soil of my garden, it produces only leaves. Lots of them. But no flowers.

Andrew