Hi Lloyd Do a [google] search on bentonite for Australia. there is a fair bit on the web. Yes, there is a calcium bentonite, which would probably be much better than the sodium bentonite. See the page 'Mineral Information Leaflet 1'. Quoting from Sattler-Wistinghausen, 1985, Der landwirtschaftliche Betrieb biologisch-dynamisch (The agricultural enterprise bio-dynamic), Ulmer, Stuttgart, my bd bible: Addition of bentonite: compost: 1-2 kg/m³ spreading in the garden - not field (sic!) - 0.2-0.4 t/ha (Don't know, why it is okay in the garden, but not in the agricultural field (Acker). Perhaps adding it to the manure is the better way.) liquid manure 200 g/m³ 200 g/100 l spray as additive to the trunk coat and additive as resistance inducing preventative fungicidal sprays in orchards and vineyards. The Al-ions are the effective components. [Hofmann, Köpfer und Werner, 1995, Oekologischer Weinbau (Ecological Viticulture), Ulmer, Stuttgart]. Sorry, I am not biased towards German vs Australian books. These are just the ones I have got, because I had easy access to them.
Christiane [EMAIL PROTECTED]@envirolink.org on 02/04/2003 04:01:34 PM Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Subject: Re: Vitality and fertility ofsoils Hi Christiane Thanks for your input - bentonite sounds like good stuff to me - is there just one bentonite - animal feeders round here use sodium bentonite and I can get some of that - I know soil conservation used to recommend bentonite for repairing leaky dams and I thought I had heard of a calcium bentonite is there such a thing ? Maybe my ears were ringing at the time. > There seem to be two lines of thought: > 1. Stimulating soil life, by making clay minerals available. Bentonite is > a weathering product of volcanic tuffs, usually high Mg containing > montmorillonites. The minerals are easily available to microorganisms and > plants and especially recomended for light sandy soils in small quantities > but frequently. > > 2. "but I'd rather use local paddock reared clay" sounds to me as you > wanting to access energies or, in my interpretation, in the [clay] soils > laid down learning by your environment (or is it of your environment?). I > relate this to deep psychology - accessing the sub- or unconscious deep > learnings and then connect this with what is happening now in an > up-and-down process. Analogously, what about adding little bits of each > soil layer to create an interchange of knowledge between the past and the > present? Nothing so deep, just figuring we have some nice clay here thats a strong part of what this farm is and what the soils will do, why bring in clay from hundreds of miles away ? However for a nutritional kick along, supplying readily available trace minerals - thats a different and interesting subject. What rate of bentonite would you suggest to use on a sandy loam soil? - is it affordable on a broadacre scale? Cheers Lloyd Charles
