Weeds Indicate Soil Minerals 

potassium gets it name from pot-ash, the chemical symbol K is from Kalium, which also means ash

‼️‼️‼️JUST REALIZED this is Hugh Grant. So cool that he’s doing his true passion now!

I would think he is 100% wrong. Wood ash from fires is the best source of potassium, (potash). After fires plant growth is good due to it being there for plants to absorb. Potatoes like, need, it for example. It is good for root development generally.

This is a very confusing video.

You have it backwards dude,,,, those plants are hi I K because if the potash left from a fire,,, Ash is very hi in K potassium requires a very very hot fire to burn off,, and is left behind in the ash of any fire that has not gotten hot enough

This doesn’t make sense. You gather potassium from plants by burning them and then using water to settle out the ashes so you can get to the potassium. Pot ash, as others have said… So if all the potassium goes up in smoke, how did we EVER find it and how do we really extract it??? I have to think more remains in the as than this seems to suggest.

not true.. where I grew up bracken was common and every where and we never ever had fires.. sorry Geoff.. wrong again..

Do you mean in very short supply, or very short demand ? I subscribed about 5 words into this post.

This guy is wrong the potassium is found in ash!

There are videos on RU-vid how to cook young bracken shoots a few ways before developing leaves 🌱🌿

It likes acidic soil. Where i used to live, there were no fires but this bloody nuisance was everywhere and impossible to get rid of.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the fern prefers to grow when there is an abundant supply of potassium, such as immediately following a fire. Some plants SEEM to have an affinity for absorbing certain minerals from the subsoil - one of our ambitions here it to conduct the proper testing, with a mass spectrometer and controlled conditions, to determine what plants are really 'accumulators'. Is it the plant itself? Soil Ph or form the element is in? Are microbes essential for this delivery? Fungi? I plant morus rubra along side of my allium beds in the hopes of capturing some sulfur from the leaves .. but I remain ignorant of precisely _how_ the tree accumulates it. If I want to be able to take my design to Mars, for example .. I need to know these things. We ALL do.

So glad to see you still going 100%, Geoff!

So what do you do with this info? Do you break up the ferns as mulch and give it back to the soil? Or leave the ferns as their very presence is adding potassium back into the soil already?

Potassium does not burn off

every plant is high in potassium. It's the most abundant mineral element in plants (OK, in some plants it's actually silicon). Potassium doesn't burn off in the smoke unless the ash is actually getting blown away from the fire

Thank you! I don't understand how the adding of potassium from ashes leave the soil depleted of it. Shouldn't it be the opposit?

So does the fern (or a symbiotic microorganism) fix potassium in the soil or is the concentrated potassium just slowly released as old plant material decomposes?

I simply love this guy. I have watched complete video of him on weeds. Want to know more😊

If I remember correctly, it is best to mulch up the bracken ferns where they stand in order to add the most potassium into the soil. Is this correct?

Really interesting. So you're explaining why we have terrible problems with bracken in the UK? They burn the plants off the hills so grass will grow for the sheep, and bracken soon grows

nearly all the forest in area was burned 150-100 years ago to make pastures, and we do now have a lot of ferns everywhere, i never made the association before

Bracken is at home in very, very wet climates that will never see a brush fire. Look at Wales and Ireland,

So would bracken be good to make a liquid tea/ fertiliser then ?

... hello ☕, good to see this, it's been awhile ⚓🌏

I make my own plant food with banana peels! 1 peel = 73mg of potassium. So, how much potassium is in 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket? Then chop'em up, then put in blender until a paste. I end up with 5+ gallons of " banana slurry ". But without accurately knowing the total amount of potassium, all I can do is water it down to safe levels. This for the compost pile, &/or tree food, ect. (I get the banana peels from a bakery that makes banana bread twice a month..) But this stuff works great in the garden. It really shows!😂

I like ferns so now I know how to encourage them in

We have that Malunggay tree ( moringga) here in the Philippines

Wow. Ty

Any plants that help restore selenium in a grazing operation?

So.. burning of plants that contain potassium... depletes the soil of pottassium?

I've been trying not to mow over my dandelions..... it is an indicator of low calcium, it's tapping it deep down and trying to bring it up to the surface.

I need you to step in when my young child asks me questions and only responds to my answers with, “why?”

❤️ this short with the guy

What is in Maderia tubers ? Im wondering if its nitrogen...

It's not bad thing if you like ferns . The trees are going to make use of that it's gone so quickly but there's still nitrogen iron all other sorts of micro nutrients that are left for plants to use

Also the secretion is growth inhibiting and stoos germination of other plants, never put this stuff in your compost but the ashs from this stuff is amazing yp to 15 percent pk higher then any other plant that i know of

It used as a gold indicator also

My man out there teaching kids about weed

It burns ,but you can make lots of things except fire ,not just fire ,u can sell it for instance ,u can remove stumps yeah ,and u can make hno3 nitric acid for chemichal reactions , or for gold recovery fro. Old comouters yeaaaah .

Shit 🤦‍♂️ over here thinking ash is a great source of potassium

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"Element scale". And it all goes downhill from there.

Bracken ferns also cause Bowel Cancer if ingested.

Wouldn't that be short supply?

I had no idea that wasnt weed behind u

So what about the ancient woods near me thats by a river and has a fuck ton by the water?, when was the fire?

total BS

_"K on the element scale."_ ? You mean the periodic table? {:o:O:} _(Edited fpr tyops)_

So the potassium is replenished in the soil seasonally?

Wow...

Now I know where one of lethal company's most feared enemy comes from. Thank you.

👍

How can we confirm this? Is it only one element left in the content both in the air and ash? Cmon we gotta have a way to verify all this and even if it is right, do plants only use one element that we should care so much about just that purified element? Fertilizing exists even in the Bible but I don’t think they used Monsanto grow for it, would be interesting to see what the Jews used in those times and try that versus a control to see if it grows best

Is that canabis in the background?

You mean short supply, high demand.

Is there any schools, colleges or universities that teache permaculture?

🌿

This is incorrect. After a fire potassium is left behind as carbonate and other salts, these are not volatile and remain in the ash. That's why potassium is named as it's found in pot ash. This guy is full of crap.

In short demand? What the fugg? So they like potassium free soil but they aquite potassium? Where the fugg do they get the potassium from if theres no potassium in theh soil? There is not potassium in the air. ??? This is mental.

When you say they "harvest potassium" what do you mean?

"in very short demand?" you mean very short supply?

Short supply not short demand

Now tell us about the radioactive cesium 137, which your body thinks is potassium, because they are from the same family of elements. That burns off too, but in Japan they burned over a billion pounds of tsunami debris in incinerators across the country, to supply energy in remote areas, while the nuclear reactors were shut down.

💒

Not something to eat. They grow everywhere.

That voice...Baldrick?

Thank you

Very deep knowledge

So how long till you don't see the bracken? Im guessing once its gone that land is back to health. child me calling this plant. the Jurassic park plant.

Make fires illegal .

Way more potassium in meat.

Hmmm interesting 🤔

You contradict yourself...

Sorry, cant agree that this is generally accurate. It may be locally accurate in some areas, but the fells of Cumbria are rife with Bracken, and Bracken is very common in open terrain there; and we don't get many Fell fires in Cumbria.