Turface MVP now available in Australia

[petar]

Hi there,

Just wanted to share some interesting information.

Sage Horticultural (in Melbourne) has just started selling Turface MVP, a calcined clay product that is used widely in the USA by bonsai growers, and those growing any sorts of plants in containers.

http://sagehort.com.au/product/view/?na ... 4dce84db35

Since Maidenwell Diatomite is no longer available, I was looking around for an alternative. I came across a lot of information about Turface MVP on the internet, but I was unable to obtain any in Australia... that is, until I recently discovered that Sage is now selling it.

I purchased a few bags and my initial thoughts are very positive. The particle size is very good for my purposes. I mix my own batches of potting soils, which I use for my indoor and outdoor plants:

- 1 part uncomposted screened pine or fir bark (1/8-1/4" particle size)
- 1 part screened Turface
- 1 part crushed granite
- 1 tbsp gypsum per gallon of soil (eliminate if your fertilizer has Ca)
- Control-released fertiliser (if desired)

I basically follow the suggestions described in this great article on the Garden Web forums:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/loa ... 16564.html

I’ve had great success with my plants using the “gritty mix”. Excellent drainage and aeration.

If anyone else ends up trying out Turface MVP, keep us posted on your thoughts.

Cheeers,
Pete

[Jow]

Interesting... ill have to give it a go next season.

[alpineart]

Hi Petar , turface is basically soft red scoria with a fancy name and a price tag to go with it . I have been using 10mm minus soft red scoria for quite a few years and blend it with aged pine bark . For the last 50 years or more tennis courts have been using this sieved red scoria as the top coating .There's a lot of bags to the tonne , hence the quarry material .

Today 99.9 % of my tree and plants are in this blend , even the ground growing area's have this blended in as i don't waste any of the fines or courses .Seed raising mix is made from the fines as well . I wash the fines out and sieve the courser material out and use the 2-8mm material depending on species as to which grade i use . It costs about $80 per cubic meter /tonne , however the Victorian material is far superior to any other . It come from a quarry in Beveridge just North of Melbourne along the Hume freeway . I swear by it and won't use anything else .

Don't make the mistake that all scoria's are the same , black marble and red marble are extremely hard and virtually useless for Bonsai blends , as they don't absorb water . like the soft red scoria

Cheers Alpineart

[Gareth]

I thought turface was pumice?

[petar]

Hi again,

I haven't used pumice before, but there's a discussion here that compares it to turface:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 28271.html

Quote:

"Hmmm, the pumice I've used is nothing like Turface. It's more like perlite. If I planted something in straight pumice, it would need frequent watering. Whereas something potted in straight Turface would probably rot after the first watering. I like using both pumice and Turface in my mixes, but I consider them to be on nearly opposite ends of the water retention spectrum."

"They are fairly different in how they hold moisture, indeed.
Pumice, like Perlite, holds most of its water in external pores.
Whereas Turface holds most of its water in internal pores."

Cheers,
Pete

[treeman]

Scoria has some good properies but you have to make allowences for the often very high ph (7-10)
Petar, What grades does the turface come in?

[The Specimen]

Peter,

Where do you obtain your furface / scoria material?

What do you blend it with ?

[petar]

Hi,

Looking at Turface MVP's product spec sheet, this is the sieve analysis (converted to metric units):

15.0% / 3.35 mm sieve
31.5% / 2.36 mm sieve
18.9% / 1.7 mm sieve
30.9% / 0.85 mm sieve
3.1% / 0.60 mm sieve
0.5% / 0.42 mm sieve

For my first batch of potting soil, I used the Turface straight out of the bag. I can't say that I noticed too many tiny particles.

I believe Turface comes in several grades, but I've read that the MVP product is the one with the "best" particle size for our purposes. The Turface Pro League product has smaller particles than Turface MVP. In any case, I think that MVP is the only available Turface product here.

I mix it with pine bark and grushed granite - equal parts of each. All of my indoor and outdoor plants are in this mix, and I'm very happy with their progress. Some were on the brink of death, and repotting them into this mix ended up saving them.

Regarding the particle size of Turface MVP, according to Al (the guy who devised the "gritty mix'):

Turface MVP, used directly from the bag, is too water-retentive to be a good choice as a stand-alone soil ingredient because it has too many fines. Even the larger particles after screening over insect screen to remove the fines are on the lower end of the desirable size range because of how much water they hold. So, if you're using even SCREENED Turface as a primary fraction of your soils, you don't want to mix it with anything that has smaller particles because you'll be introducing additional water retention and increasing the ht of the PWT.

This image shows the particle size in relation to a ruler:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/TURFACE-MVP- ... 0472140011

I used to get the Maidenwell Diatomite from Sage Horticultural. That's also where I now get the Turface. They're a nice bunch of guys to deal with. I also buy fertiliser from there (Nu Vital it's called) that works really well in conjunction with the gritty mix.

A friend of mine from Adelaide recently ordered a bunch of Turface MVP bags from Sage, so it's good to know that these products can be made available to other states in Oz.

Never tried scoria so I can't say where to get that. Would be interesting to try it though.

Cheers,
Pete

[Bretts]

Thanks for the heads up Pete, I will be sure to get some Great stuff Sage Hort

[The Specimen]

Thanks Peter much appreciate your explanation.. crushed granite can you explain that please ?

Alpineart, I am also interested and will be not wasting the sieves and fines.. can you tell me where you get your scoria as well as what you mix in with them?

[alpineart]

Alpineart, I am also interested and will be not wasting the sieves and fines.. can you tell me where you get your scoria as well as what you mix in with them?[/quote]

Hi The Specimen , scoria is not just scoria , there are 2 types . Most people see scoria as a garden topping or landscape topping for a feature . This material is known as Red Marble or Black Marble Scoria and is available in various sizes from 10mm to 40mm screenings

100_9632.jpg

.It is extremely hard ,hence the name marble . This doesn't absord moisture like soft red scoria . Its moisture take up is less than 5% being hard like glass , i use this screening material for wet beds

100_9633.jpg

to place potted plants onto

100_9635.jpg

to save water and create humidity .This material is used for drainage purposes NOT for bonsai blends .It is used when large tree's are potted in big pots as a layer at the base of the pot .Drainage use only .

Soft Red Scoria is hard to find because of its limited use now-a-days .I located it in Albury /Wodonga , however they don't keep it any more due to the lack of demand . Unless i buy a 10 tonne load they won't deliver it . Dario located a Nursery in Hiedleberg - Melbourne , however i inspected the material and its 5mm minus which contains too much mud/fines , its basically cracker dust used for driveways as it compacts to a solid surface . By the time you wash it you would be left with 10 % usable material .

I have looked around for another supplier but haven't located one up here as yet . The quarry at Beveridge - Melbourne should be able to give you a distributors name for this material .All my tree as i have said are in Soft red Scoria and aged Pine Bark whick is collected from the plantations after several years on the ground after the tree's are stock piled and collected for our Mill .This has been basically sun dried and rain washed for a couple of years , i have used collect bark however it contains a lot of tannin and resin hence the collected material .Orchid blend would suit the purpose if it was crushed of put through a mulcher then washed to remove the dust and fines .

100_9620.jpg

100_9625.jpg

100_9627.jpg

100_9626.jpg

100_9630.jpg

100_9631.jpg

100_9623.jpg

Hope this info helps .

Cheers Alpineart

[FatMingsBonsai]

Good morning all,

Thank you for sharing, it's very kind of you. This is how Oz Bonsai scene will take leaps and bounds to better specimens.

[petar]

Hi all,

Specimen, to explain the purpose of granite (and the other ingredients), these quotes from Al should help:

It was a combination of trial and error, reading what others were doing, and experimenting, using what I had learned about soil science that helped me up with the idea of combining an ingredient that was large enough that it held very little perched water but still held plenty of water in internal pores (screened Turface) with an ingredient on the opposite end of the spectrum - granite, which holds no water internally - only on its surface. The bark, though it offers some nutrition as it slowly breaks down was an excellent compliment to the other two ingredients because it offered a filler that held about the same volume of water as the average between the Turface and granite, and because it was plentiful and cheap; plus, it fit the durability requirement better than any other commonly found organic component, as long as I limited the organic fraction (bark) to 1/3 of the whole or less.

I've been using the gritty mix for about 15 years, and haven't found a way to improve it yet. With the number of people I stay in contact with in the bonsai community, it's easy to imagine there were a lot of materials that could have been substituted for one of the 3 primary ingredients or added to the trio. Many were tried, then discounted, and I still prefer the equal parts of fir bark:Turface:grit to anything else.

One of the properties I found desirable was adjustability. I discovered that with just Turface & bark, I needed to add more bark than would allow me to guard against soil collapse, so I came up with crushed granite.

As simple as the gritty mix is, there is a LOT of thought that went into it. The bark is kept at a fraction 1/3 or less, and the grit and Turface make up the remainder in a ratio that can be varied to adjust water retention. The soil is designed and screened so almost all the water is held INSIDE of soil particles. This makes the entire soil mass a healthy place for roots, regardless of container depth and when last watered. There is a lot more, but those are some highlights.

Gypsum is used as a Ca source when you're using a fertilizer that doesn't have Ca. If the fertilizer doesn't have MG, I suggest you also include a small amount of Epsom salts in the fertilizer solution when you fertilize. Many of us have simply started using Foliage-Pro fertilizer, which has both Ca and Mg, as well as all the other nutrients essential to normal growth. This allows you to set aside concern for supplying Ca/Mg through the gypsum & Epsom salts.

Regarding criushed granite...

Any material in the 1/8" size range that has no internal porosity can be substituted.

For my first batch (which was made using Diatomite instead of Turface), I bought a bag of 7mm crushed granite from a local sand, soil & building supplies place (they give you the shovel and bag, and you go out and fill it yourself... there's no service like DIY :

http://www.midwayminimix.com.au/images/ ... te-7mm.jpg

Before adding to the mix, I put the granite into a bucket full of water, swirled it around and then poured out the "dirty" water to remove the fine particles, dust, etc. The 7mm size was chunkier than the Diatomite. Ideally, I think smaller particles would have been better.

In my more recent mixes, I have been using screening rocks. They're also OK, and a bit smaller on average, compared to the granite. I use a sieve to remove the fine particles.

I actually have 2 sieves, both made from scrap timber for the frames. One is for getting rid of particles that are too large. It's made up of 12mm x 12mm wire mesh, again not ideal, but I haven't been able to get hold of a smaller size (in small quantities).

The other sieve is made up of flyscreen. Not sure of the hole size, but it does the job and gets rid of the dust and small particles.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Pete

[Luke308]

I mentioned this product (turface) to a friend of mine in the horticultural business, yet he told me not to use it as it is "too acidic, and has too many oxides". I dont know if its because he doesnt like to try new things, or because he wants to keep supplying me with diatomite, but I thought his comments were odd. I thought 7 was ph neutral, so 6 should be ok, but then again, it is plus or minus 2ph which could make it a ph of 4 or 8. I know next to nothing about chemicals, but there seems to be a bit in the turface eg Typical Chemical Description:

SiO2 (Silicon Dioxide): 74%

A12O3 (Bauxite): 11%

Fe2O3 (Iron (III) Oxide): 5%

Chemicals < 5% include:

CaO (Calcium Oxide), MgO (magnesium Oxide), K2O (Potassium Oxide),

Na2O (Sodium Oxide) and TiO2 (Titanium Dioxide).

Does anyone out there have a degree in horticulture or know a lot about soil??

For now I will keep using diatomite, and hopefully I can find another source of commercial grade dust free diatomite like I have been using prior to the mine shutting down. God I hate having to sieve out the fines

[The Specimen]

Great post and thanks Pete! I read with interest and am still intrigued with this soil ingredients