Quote:
Originally Posted by Stvrob
I applaud the effort of their remediation strategy, but that land won't develop a prarie soil for thousands of years if ever. That is not to say it won't work, with mine tailings almost any kindnof soil development is better than nothing.
In any case, I could not justify bringing strange rock dust of unknown origin into the garden without a very clear idea about what I was trying to achieve and how it was going to help me achieve it.
|
We agree about caution needed in using rock dust. Like most things it is not always beneficial, and not always bad either. But in general terms in most soils not needed with a bigger potential down side than up side.
The creating soil thing? I guess we will simply need to agree to disagree there. It doesn't take 1,000s of years with human intervention. Without human intervention...sure..probably take at least that long in most cases. But with proper management using the most modern advances in agricultural science.....it can happen very rapidly.
Remember there are three main parts of soil.
The mineral base which can be sand silt or clay. (usually best is a mix of all 3)
The humus and other non living organic matter.
The living biological "soil food web"
If any one of those three are in deficit, then amending with what is lacking will help. If you pay close attention to those getting benefits from rock dust, you'll generally find they are container gardeners using soilless mixes, or people with quite high raised beds ... again with mostly organic matter and little mineral base.