Joe,
Sifu is the title of respect given to a learned man who takes the time to teach - Chinese for - Teacher.
Adair has been kind enough to teach me about the J.B.pine.
If you were not kidding, the idea is akadama is a pumice based loam, with a little clay, found that on-line and in one
the Murata books from the 60's or so.
So you could just purchase pumice from somewhere in the US.
What is loam -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loam
This probably what Bnut prime figured out.
For our part the inorganic we use for it's porous nature is a fired red earthenware brick sifted to 5 mm. It fortunately
does not float and with the white builder's gravel 5 mm, is visually very pretty.
What I have noticed here and on other forums, is a mix-up of ground growing technique and refinement technique.
If you are refining as in branchlets. it is pumice etc.
If it is trunk building, roots and branches, it is ground growing.
Found this over at AUSbonsai -
What makes a tree -
5% fine / feeder roots
15% larger / transport roots
60% trunk / main stem
15% branches and twigs
5% leaves
and this is for a mature tree or a mature herb.
We use no soft inorganic ingredients for the simple reason, they will with say 30 years of growing
change to a clay or fine silt and have to be removed from the core of your tree.
It is scary interfering with the core of an old tree.
Additionally found was that the reason oxygen reaches roots is due to the BORERS that pass through
the soil, feeding on organic matter, in our case - compost [ in the wild - it is called leaf mold ]
So you actually help your tree with the use of some organic matter.
Now that we have a base figure of 1 organic to 28.7 inorganic, we can use even less compost for
finished trees [ thanks to Cocoa tree research ]
So working with nature, it takes longer for the soil to lose it's fast draining and air/root abilities.
Isn't Science and understanding nature - GREAT !!!!!!!
Great Day
Anthony
* Sifu, without the Science, this would all become - cat in bag or magic.
