Red or Black Cinder For Making New Soil

[1voyager1]

I have slowly been enlarging our growing areas by making new soil. The first area I did this in, I used red cinders [-1-1/2"] mixed with composted mulch as the base. I've put in several types of avos, citrus, bananas, pineapples, tomatoes and a few other things into this area. All seem to be doing well after 2 to 4 years.

Because of being told that black cinders are better for that use, I used black cinder soil mixed with composted mulch for my next growing area enlargement. I have bananas, pineapples and tomatoes growing in this area. The bananas are showing signs of calcium and boron deficiency, the pineapples are not growing and developing as well as they have in the red cinder area. The tomatoes are a new addition and seem to be doing well so far.
It's looking to me as if red cinders are a better base to build new soil from.
Anyone have thought on this?

[Kenney]

Aloha 1V1.

I'd still go with red cinders for driveways and filling big holes and black for planting.
Maybe something other than the black cinder is causing the problem? Or possibly what's under the red cinder is more nourishing. Or maybe things are just getting settled and rooting in.
We filled one big 30 X 20 hole with red cinder (so much cheaper than black) and Avos and Jaboticaba are doing great there, but there's at least 3 feet of composting trees and leaves and weeds under the cinder and 30 + years of chicken doo from the old coop. Once the tree roots got into the "slash" they really took off. It took a few months.
Mostly though, areas where we have red cinder, only weeds grow.
We have everything else in black, with compost, green sand, Mac nut husk and rabbit and chicken leavings. (home grown fert)
Somebody here will know what to add to your planting mixture for your suspected calcium/boron deficiency concerns.
Happy planting, bountiful harvest!

[microage97]

You need to fertilize most likely due to the rain washout...could be that the soil PH has lowered locking out the nutrients. I would add dolomite or sweet lime.

[1voyager1]

I also use red for the driveway and any major fills. As soon as I finish a couple of in progress projects, I will be ordering another load of red to make a base for a new shed, maybe another load for a few other "fill and level" areas that may end up being planting areas also.

I do apply dolomite around, mainly because my citrus demand it. Their leaves turn chlorotic without it. I do apply fertilizers, although probably not as often as I should. None of them contain boron as a nutrient. With just dolomite and an occasional fertilizing, the red area is doing well. Most things in the black area are showing signs of deficiency, or just look stunted. The only difference I can see is the type of cinders used for the top layer of new cinders/compost that was tilled in.

Applying borax mixed with dolomite to the tall apple bananas in the black cinder area seems to have taken care of the boron deficiency. But it is very soluble and is leached out of the soil very quickly by the rains. Too much borax can be a very effective herbicide. So, I'm leery of using it.
Everything growing in the red area is doing quite well other than needing the dolomite and occasional fertilizer.

The two growing areas are on opposite edges of the ripped house-yard area, 75 to 100' apart. The depth to bedrock is not all that much, from 18" to just covered by the new soil in the red area, about the same in the black area, maybe a little deeper on average.

The two areas are pretty close together and look to be very equivalent, except for the type of cinders used to mix the compost with and deepen the existing soil by about 6", or so.

It has me stumped as to why the difference in how things grow, especially the bananas, in the two areas.



Welcome to Puna, the land of the Vocal Lunatic Fringe.

[KiminPL]

For driveway and building purposes, an angular rock base is much more stable than the red cinder. The angular nature of the pieces helps them lock together firmly, while the rounder red cinder remains loose, like a pile of marbles.

As for planting, I purchase cinder soil mix. It is brown in color but contains fine red cinder along with lots of clay, which is more nutrient-rich than either red or black cinder. I do not spread the cinder soil around; I only use it in the planting hole itself. Even with the clay in the cinder soil, certain plants will need regular fertilizer to remain healthy. As already mentioned, the rains wash out the micro nutrients pretty quickly. Black cinder is good for starting certain kinds of plants in containers, plants that need sharp drainage above all. I have not used it for plantings in the ground. To me, black cinder is like glass - inert as far as nutrients. I have no scientific research to back that up, just my sense of the material.