Framework
Episode 4: Building the foundation
“Earn the right to use potassium.”
Calcium, boron and silicon: the three amigos. Pour the foundation, build the house, then fill it.
The big idea
The three amigos, and the lone wolf.
Steve teaches the foundation minerals the way you’d build a house: the slab goes down before anything goes in it.
Pour the foundation first
Steve calls calcium, boron and silicon the three amigos. They’re the concrete in the foundation, and everything else is built on it.
Change the recipe in the bag and ask yourself whether you’d build a house on that concrete. And time it: a fruit makes most of its cells early, in a window Steve puts at days in beans and weeks in tree crops, and that window doesn’t come back.
Earn the right
Potassium fills the house. It’s a big part of fruit size and quality, and it’s often the first thing on the order. Steve’s rule is to earn the right to use it: foundation first, then potassium.
“Earn the right to use potassium.”
What’s inside
Four parts, about an hour.
Watch it in one sitting, or a part between jobs. Each one flows into the next.
After this one, you’ll…
- name the three amigos, and the job they do together
- time calcium to the cell-division window
- know when you’ve earned the right to use potassium
- 0–15 min
The three amigos
Calcium, boron and silicon: the concrete in the foundation.
- 15–30 min
Change the recipe in the bag
Would you build a house on that concrete?
- 30–45 min
Cell division windows
Days in beans, weeks in tree crops: Steve’s rule of thumb.
- 45–60 min
The lone wolf, Mr Potassium
Why potassium waits until the foundation’s poured.
Take it further
Where this episode leads.
The course is the start. Each episode opens onto Steve’s talks, the learning hub, and his work on farms.
From the Plant’s Perspective
One plant, eight episodes.
Hear when episode one is out.
One note when it’s ready, and nothing else.