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Anyone using Potassium Silicate on their plants?

Proud Marine Dad said:
Some new findings as well as the info I am getting from other growers is that this stuff is great.
http://www.nutri-tech.com.au/blog/2010/06/silica-the-hidden-cost-of-chemicals/
 
I am going to start using it every other watering I think and buildasoil.com has a good price on dry Agsil16H
http://buildasoil.com/collections/all-visible-products/products/agsil16h-potassium-silicate
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I use this.





I use it mostly in my hydro stuff. Ebb & flood system, and also my cloner.


Just a side note. This stuff will throw your water into a high pH. Probably around 11 or 12. You will need to adjust your water PH. My ProSilicate has the consistency of thick Drano.

High pH like Drano too.
 
i bought an lb of the stuff last year.
its very difficult to keep in solution with my reg. fertigation solution. some documents i read suggested 100ppm silicates..... this number is all but impossible to reach unless we are talking about just water, no other ferts.
 
also, it was also 10 bucks an lb. not worth the expense imo. the solution they sell of silicates are insanely expensive, and laughable imo, as a liter contains single digit grams. 
 
dash 2 said:
Why not just make a high quality, complete, organic soil that you only need to add water to? That's what I'm doing this summer and you should too.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
:D  I'm sorry, man. I couldn't resist!
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This would make it complete :D
 
I use a homebrew version of Potsil which contains 34% potassium silicate. 0.2ml per litre (0.75ml/us gal) provides 18.2ppm K and 21.5ppm Si. The commercial stuff retails at around £18/litre, which is at least 20x more than it costs to make.. 
 
CannaMax, it comes out like glue at something like 50% Potassium Silicate. Though pretty cheap, I doubt it compares to Tanks wicked homebrew :) It's a handy emulsifier to rotate with. Look up AN's Rhino Skin if you want a good laugh.
 
dash 2 said:
     Why not just make a high quality, complete, organic soil that you only need to add water to? That's what I'm doing this summer and you should too.
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DAMNIT! I thought the same as soon as I saw this thread :D
 
I did mix DE in to the current mix to achieve this, but stopped the practice after reading about high levels of aluminum in some DE. Though apparently it is not such a concern.
 
 
Silica intereacts with several minerals but important research has highlighted the use of silicon as a means of inhibiting aluminium toxicity.
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Lol @ dash.  
 
People on IC have good results with the Protekt by DynaGrow.  Surprisingly even organic growers are using it.  
 
FWIW, agsil is meant to be a fully water soluble source of potassium silicate, for use in fertigation, not for soil amending, or watering into plain jane soils.
i was never quite clear on why you wanted to use this stuff in the first place.
 
if you are growing organic, you might as well just supplement sillica via a variety of sillicaceous(sp?) minerals. Calcium silicate is one i think greenhouse growers use for ornamental... roses i think, because they are especially succeptable to mildews apparently. as noted above, the absence of sillica tends to make plants more susseptable to mildew, or so ive read. Calcium silicate is AKA silica lime i think?
 
the earths crust is like... all silicate based minerals. sillica is pretty damned abundant, what makes you think you need to supplement it anyway?
Typically only those growing on 'inert' mediums do this because its absent, or not chemically available to the plants. very very few field crops are supplemented with silica. i think rice maby, but idk.
 
you could jar test your soil if you like. if you have any appreciable amount of clay... which if i recall correctly, has tons of sillica. From there on, Ph will probably play the largest role here, with respect to silica availability.
 
silicone dioxide is NOT a source of silica, ive seen many folks suggest adding diatomaceous earth, which to myknowlage is like 100% sio2.
 
 
edit:
not saying agsil WONT add available silica/sillicates to your plants, its just thats its so expensive. Theres other cheaper ways to skin this cat, BUT if you have the cash, its probably the easiest/best way to add silica. 
 
the math didnt make sense to me, especially considering myproblems with it. I would like to revisit it tho, but with v2 of my system + maby blended RO stock water,  AND a better understanding of its chemistry and behavior, which i do not possess at this point and time.
 
i keep mentioning cost, btw, which might bug some of you, so sorry. I tend to nerd out hard on plant performance.
miguelovic said:
 
DAMNIT! I thought the same as soon as I saw this thread :D
 
I did mix DE in to the current mix to achieve this, but stopped the practice after reading about high levels of aluminum in some DE. Though apparently it is not such a concern.
 
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you should be careful here, when people mention aluminum in natural soil, its almost 100% of the time an oxide of aluminum in a mineral. i suspect DE is mined from the earth considering what it is... so i also suspect this aluminum you speak of is the mostly harmless aluminum sillicate minerals. These could actually be a source of sillicate/sillic acid tho.
 
Is elemental(metallic) aluminum, toxic to plants? if that is the case, i was not aware.
 
Using it as a emulsifier for foliar sprays and to raise pH in chemical feeds is thought to produce a more drought/heat resistant plant with a thicker cuticle (pest, disease), especially of concern when growing indoors, typically in sub-standard environments. The prevalance is mainly among cannabis growers in inert (peat, coco, rockwool) media, usually lacking even compost, although many organic growers do it as well. Probably a hold over habit from when they switched styles, also seen with guano/flower boost teas and the like.
 
queequeg152 said:
silicone dioxide is NOT a source of silica, ive seen many folks suggest adding diatomaceous earth, which to myknowlage is like 100% sio2.
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Good to know, another reason to continue leaving that out. Calcium silicate sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.
 
Proud Marine Dad said:
You couldn't give me the overpriced crap that AN produces.
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Hehehe yeah I know, and it's something like 1.5% potassium silicate. Bloody rip-off. Look up Aptus if you want to see overpriced crap :shocked:
 
 
Ah double edit.
 
 
queequeg152 said:
you should be careful here, when people mention aluminum in natural soil, its almost 100% of the time an oxide of aluminum in a mineral. i suspect DE is mined from the earth considering what it is... so i also suspect this aluminum you speak of is the mostly harmless aluminum sillicate minerals. These could actually be a source of sillicate/sillic acid tho.
 
Is elemental(metallic) aluminum, toxic to plants? if that is the case, i was not aware.
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Aluminum oxide, althought specifically only a problem at very low pH. Excessive amounts of any element can be toxic or cause problems through uptake competition/lock out I believe, my concern was the quantities I was using it at as an pH buffer for a peat mix.
 
miguelovic said:
Using it as a emulsifier for foliar sprays and to raise pH in chemical feeds is thought to produce a more drought/heat resistant plant with a thicker cuticle (pest, disease), especially of concern when growing indoors, typically in sub-standard environments. The prevalance is mainly among cannabis growers in inert (peat, coco, rockwool) media, usually lacking even compost, although many organic growers do it as well. Probably a hold over habit from when they switched styles, also seen with guano/flower boost teas and the like.
 
 
Good to know, another reason to continue leaving that out. Calcium silicate sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out.
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i would not take my word on this matter tbh, its not an area im well versed in. you should read what/ ever public journals are available on the matter.
i DO know that calcium silicate is used, but i do not know how often this is the case, or if it has any benifits, other than the ancilliary ones you mentioned regarding pest/ drought resistance.
 
I have seen mention of productivity benefits for cucumbers grown on media, but no explaination, or elaboration on this. some plants dry tissue, are as high as... like 10% silicone, its hard to imagine it dose not have some direct impact on plant productivity outside the stressed environments you mention. for what ever reason, this is like an ongoing thing... its only now being examined, which is annoying to me.
 
anyway ill let the OP have this one back, lol srry.
 
queequeg152 said:
FWIW, agsil is meant to be a fully water soluble source of potassium silicate, for use in fertigation, not for soil amending, or watering into plain jane soils.
i was never quite clear on why you wanted to use this stuff in the first place.
 
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Not according to the experts in the organic forum I participate in.
Here is 11 pages if you care to learn from an expert: http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/980786-silica-%E2%80%93-hidden-cost-chemicals.html
 
Here's part of the article since you think it's abundant and does not need amending if that is what you were saying:
 
 
Poverty in a Sea of Abundance
Silicon is not classed as an essential nutrient, but, in response to a wealth of new findings highlighting the importance of this nutrient, that status may soon change. Silicon is the second most abundant mineral on the planet. It is everywhere. Clays are alumina silicates and sand is largely silicon, so how could there be a shortage of silicon? The answer lies in the form of silicon that enters the plant. Plants uptake silicon as silicic acid and this is what is missing in the soil. Something we have done in conventional agriculture appears to have compromised the conversion of insoluble silicon into the plant available form. It may reflect a mineral imbalance or we may have knocked out some of the soil microbe species that solubilise this mineral. It is not yet understood what drove the widespread deficiency but we do know that a healthy, disease suppressive soil should contain 100 ppm of monosilicic acid (as measured in a soil analysis) and very few soils come anywhere near that mark!
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Proud Marine Dad said:
Not according to the experts in the organic forum I participate in.
Here is 11 pages if you care to learn from an expert: http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/980786-silica-%E2%80%93-hidden-cost-chemicals.html
 
Here's part of the article since you think it's abundant and does not need amending if that is what you were saying:
 
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 not what im saying.
what i said, is that there are cheaper ways of accomplishing this, considering agsil is 10 bucks an lb. 
 
my most expensive fertilizer is MKP at 4bucks a lb by contrast. Im fairly certain, calcium sillicate is better, from a price standpoint for non media growing.
 
i would also caution you on taking the word of a fertilizer company as gospel, tho much of what ive read from that article jives with what ive read myself.
 
Epstien, the famous botanist, has done numerous studies on plant mineral nutrition etc. hes the guy who first created those studies wherein plants were grown in a solution deficient in only mineral etc etc.
 
anyway he has some papers that ive only partly read. but the biggest thing i recall was that he noted that dicots, have very low accumulations of Si, about an order of magnitude less than that of most other grasses/monocots. So while it might be a huge boon to say rice, with respect to production,  its probably not so much with most dicots. there is a reason why its not an essiential mineral in the first place.
 
that beign said, its clearly still a boon overall, if one only considers the effects on resisting stresses, insect/fungi or otherwise, and is hence worth doing. 
 
when i was speaking about abundant sillica in the earths crust, i didnt mean to suggest that you could easily get a full blast, maximally effective dose of silica this way. i was trying to point out that these sources of sillica probably provide more than enough to yield acceptable results for normal crops, and that adding more silica would not be worth it, financially speaking.
 
those directions will not yield the 100mg/l ive seen brandied about.
you need like 1-2 grams per gallon to yield 100ppm/mg/l. 
 
true, tho if you have only a handfull of plants this cost is miniscule. i dont think i made the point that it wasnt tho. i was speaking about field crops above.
 
queequeg152 said:
those directions will not yield the 100mg/l ive seen brandied about.
you need like 1-2 grams per gallon to yield 100ppm/mg/l. 
 
true, tho if you have only a handfull of plants this cost is miniscule. i dont think i made the point that it wasnt tho. i was speaking about field crops above.
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Mine says 1/4 to 1/2 tsp per gallon. For field crops you get a healthier more rugged plant. Even when bugs are attacking. Talk about farmers who irrigate with fert, that is costly too. Just depends what quality you want in your product, and what the market will pay.
In AZ they can get from 5 to 6 cutting off the alfalfa fields per year. Anywhere else maybe 2 or 3 if you push it.

That is with ferts & other goodies...
 
Jesus this is as bad as doctors and vitamans every year there is a new vitaman that the human body just jas to have more of! I'm sure that silica is important to plants given the huge percentage of the earth's non water surface it makes up, I'm certainly not denying that or the efficacy of any given product, it is just that every time I turnaround there is another nutrient or procedure or something to add to make our peppers just that much more green, or tall, or bushy or more abundant! Once upon a time these were weeds! Naturally occurring forest and jungle flora! Sorry about the rant, and especially sorry to PMD,just hasd to get this off my chest!
 
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