Hey grow homies just a quick question for an organic amendment for Silicon,do rice hulls break down into plant usable silica, if so how much and is the same rice hulls pulling the nitrogen from the media and if so how much thanks in advance peace RECHARGE FOR THE WIN
833-420-2420
Be interesting to hear about the nitrogen pulling effects of rice hulls. I know uncharged biochar can have that effect. Not sure that the rice hulls breakdown fast enough to supply an adequate amount of silica. I saw buildasoil has a powdered form of rice hulls for silica just not sure how they are breaking it down. Stinging nettle, horsetail, and bamboo are all very high in silica so amending with these products would boost available silica. Gotta love that recharge.
They do break down into silica, but its a slow process. (months or years.)
I think rice hulls are better thought of as a soil amendment for improving aeration and soil texture. They will slowly break down over time and provide a source of silica, but it takes a while. I would continue to use some other fast acting silica product as well.
I use rice hulls as part of my aeration in my soil mix. I reccomend mixing them 50/50 with lava rocks or pumice. The combination of some chunky rocky stuff along with the rice hulls makes for a really nice soil texture.
They do break down but not fast enough to help a plant if you are only using your soil for a single cycle. If your doing no till or recycling your soil then it could still be beneficial as a long term source of silica.
As Soup mentioned rice hulls are a good aeration source also. But they will break down after 6-12 months so make sure to have something permanent like perlite or pumice in there also.
They’re a great mulch too, fit together very closely to keep the fungus gnats out of the soil below.