phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
this is all from the same plot. 3 separate areas. 2 strips rotating between LC brassica and LC rye mix. 3rd area is an expansion area to this same plot.
2015 soil test results
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Holy Potassium!
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I'd get a second opinion on my reading Phil, but consider it.
I think you've got a hydrogen problem. If I'm reading it right, your "acidity" is your buffer pH, and it's low. The one test that is calling for 3000 lbs/ac lime is sounding accurate. I'd focus on the base saturation test. Where the test said you didn't need any, I'd still add pell lime at a rate of 1000 lb/ac to start and test again in a year or two. That should raise your pH closer to perfect and help get your hydrogen down. Should about fix the Mg and Ca as well. Here's a few things I've found helpful to read and interpret these things:
http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/CEC_BpH_and_percent_sat.htm
I think you've got a hydrogen problem. If I'm reading it right, your "acidity" is your buffer pH, and it's low. The one test that is calling for 3000 lbs/ac lime is sounding accurate. I'd focus on the base saturation test. Where the test said you didn't need any, I'd still add pell lime at a rate of 1000 lb/ac to start and test again in a year or two. That should raise your pH closer to perfect and help get your hydrogen down. Should about fix the Mg and Ca as well. Here's a few things I've found helpful to read and interpret these things:
http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/CEC_BpH_and_percent_sat.htm
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
Thanks guys. I'm beat right about now...long day....will discuss more tomorrow. How about the crazy high Zinc in the expansion area?!?!?!? That area used to have a lot of junk in it....I cleaned up as much as I could but who knows what pieces of machinery my grandfather left there as "inventory" over the years...lol
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Lots of galvanized no doubt. I knew a guy in college that ran a strip of galvanized metal under the ridgecap (1" reveal) on his house to prevent moss from growing when he re-roofed.
http://www.greatwesterncoatings.com/articles/zinc-abatement-and-galvanized-surfaces/
http://www.greatwesterncoatings.com/articles/zinc-abatement-and-galvanized-surfaces/
Not that it matters very much, butI wonder how quickly that stuff comes off of galvanized when it's in soil. I mean in the air, where it's wet only a bit of the time, it'll last a REALLY long time, but in the ground I wonder if it's only a few years to start wearing off in a major way. Soil seems to be the perfect combo of moisture AND O2.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I scoured the net, and I couldn't find an idea on how to address high zinc. Appreciate the hunt though. One interesting thing to note, I was talking to my soil scientist today, and he flat out told me he was not a fertilizer guy and my questions on how to translate my soil sample into an amendment plan is best left to someone other than him.
I'd say most likely he just runs the samples. I have some friends and/or classmates that did some work for MSU's ag extenesions and they were clueless on anything ag related. They were chem majors, that knew how to run the machines. It's easier to find someone to run the machines, and then someone to interpret than it is to find someone who knows how to do both.
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phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
Sounds about right. I was planning on a light application of pell lime on the strips where none was indicated in soil test results. I figured with pH's of 6.3 and 6.4 i could get that up to 6.5 or so easily, as you noted the benefits of raising on the pH on hydrogen levels will help. The third area (expansion) I'm surprised that the pH was as high as it is.....makes me wish i had pulled a sample from it last year before i limed it. In general my soil tends to be around 5.4 to 5.6 to start with.
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
I was considering adding some N to the brassicas at about 3 weeks after planting, but they will be planted in a strip that was a modified LC cereal/legume mix. I'm letting the rye, med red clover, and crimson clover go until I prep for the brassica planting in mid July. I'm not sure how much N i will gain from the cereal/legume mix. I'm still on the fence about adding any N this year. So far its looking like i could absolutely get by without adding any synthetic fertilizers this year.
On an interesting side note....i noticed that i have a decent amount of Crimson Clover in my LC cereal/legume mix. I'm not sure if some actually survived the winter or if i got some reseeding from all of the crimson i let go to seed last summer.
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
My main question revolves around my K values. The ppm levels are high, but the base saturation levels are right around the acceptable levels (according to the video SD linked) of 4%. The three samples showed 4.4 for the 2015 cereal/legume planting, 3.4 for the 2015 brassica planting, and 4.3 for the expansion area. So if I am lacking in the others of the 5 nutrients that help with transferring the K to the plants, will correcting those deficiencies help to "unlock" the rest of that K (ppm levels)? If so will that become a problem having that much K? will the K levels go down over time as successive crops utilize the nutrients, if i add no more K?
SD51555
5 year old buck +
What you have to do is get your hydrogen levels down. Base saturation is just the sum of the percentages of salts, hydrogen, K, calcium, and magnesium. If you get your hydrogen down, your others will come up as a percentage of the whole. Should put everything right where it needs to be.
wiscwhip
5 year old buck +
phil, how big are these plots? Is the "Acres" box correct? They are .16, .16, and .06? If they are that small, that is too bad. If they were larger, I would say get the ph up to about 6.8 to 7 and plant them with alfalfa to use up some of that P and K. Pumpkins and squash will use a bit more P. Soys will use up some P as well, but also not conducive to plots that small.:(
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
Yep those numbers are correct! It's all one plot that comes in at just over 1/3 acre. The two .016's are individual strips in the plot that will be planted to different rotational mixes loosely based on LC's rotations.
2015 Brassica strips total .16 acre and were planted as rye, oats, medium red clover, and crimson clover in September of 2014. As of today the rye, MRC, and crimson are growing great. I will let them all go until about first week of July, then mow the strips really tight, wait a week/ten days, spray with gly then broadcast into thatch.
2015 cereal/legume strips total .16 acre and were planted as DER, PTT, GHFR in early July 2014. I wanted to frost seed MRC into these strips but never got the chance during the narrow window we had. New plan is to run a small ATV disc over these strips to clean up the the yellow rocket/left over brassicas that are bolting and then seed oats and crimson clover. In late august I will mow, a week/ten days later I will spray and then broadcast rye, oats, MRC, crimson.....and maybe some soys.
The .06 expansion area was created last year. And was seeded to crimson clover in the spring and then brassica mix in July. This year I will continue the existing strips into this new expansion area, so the two strips of .16 above will become two strips of .19 as I expand the existing strips into the expansion area.
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
pH for the 3 tests are 6.2, 6.3, 6.4. So I'm thinking some additional lime will help. How will having a high CEC play into replacing the H cations with Ca cations?
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
Understood on the H levels.....additional lime is in the works.
