How much are you willing to spend for fertilizer on your plots this year?

[Foggy47]

Considering all the above. My head hurts.

 

[Wild Thing]

What am I missing here? Adding lime will make the soil less acidic.

LOL - Yes - My point was that if blueberries are growing there naturally, it is indicative of acidic soils….which is good if you plan to grow blueberries. If you plan on growing most anything else it isnt good and you will need to apply lime to move your soil to a more neutral state (Less acidic as you say).

 

[Wild Thing]

A few years ago, I started digging small ponds (water holes really) on my place. I spread these soils out on my food plots. In some places, I've got 30" of this subsoil. I got the wild idea to sample my subsoil beings that this was all of a sudden my new topsoil.

I went to one of my dig sites and pulled cores from the 24-30" depth because that was about the mid point of my dig. I was blown away at how different the subsoil was compared to the topsoil a mere 12-18" away. It was when I saw this I quit worrying about working lime in, and I quit adding magnesium. For comparison, the upper test is the topsoil from this same spot.

View attachment 42613

Far as roots go, I think that really depends on your practices. A no-till/no-kill perennial system is going to have multi-year root channels that go very deep and can be explored by roots very quickly. If you also have robust mycorhizal fungi, your root mass can be 100X larger than a some-till/some-kill system, and that renders these root zone considerations a non factor as the roots can just reach past a trouble spot to get nutrients.

I believe that is why nearly all soils were growing things just fine before us. We unknowingly knock out the mycorhizal fungi in the conversion to food plot process, which is unavoidable, and suddenly we're stuck in that acidic zone only, and we gotta throw the kitchen sink at it to get it working again. In reality, we just got to plug back into the MF network. There's nothing we can do other than not prohibit it from rebuilding itself.

Interesting that the subsoil had a higher pH but much lower OM (not so surprising).

 

[Foggy47]

LOL - Yes - My point was that if blueberries are growing there naturally, it is indicative of acidic soils….which is good if you plan to grow blueberries. If you plan on growing most anything else it isnt good and you will need to apply lime to move your soil to a more neutral state (Less acidic as you say).

Just a tidbit of info on sulfur....fwiw....

I was talking to the manager at the feed store in Pine River about two years ago....and I bought a couple of bags of sulfur from him. He had to special order as nobody buys it "straight". He told me the only people that have bought sulfur from him were putting it on their blueberries.....and had gotten some good results when growing berries. I think it is a typical sandy soil deficiency? Dunno.

A few years prior to this I had talked with the owner of a wildlife seed company in Wadena MN (Hart)....whom emphasized to me to get the sulfur levels up to get good brassica food plots. That alway stuck with me....as he was quite adamant about adding sulfur.

I did have a great crop the year I added lots of extra sulfur...but I also had lots of fertilizer, and plentiful rains. But, somehow I have always tried to add a little sulfur to my land by adding it to my blends of synthetic fertilizers. Have not recently soil tested for it.....so I suppose I am due for some soil tests.

2 cents.

 

[SD51555]

Just a tidbit of info on sulfur....fwiw....

I was talking to the manager at the feed store in Pine River about two years ago....and I bought a couple of bags of sulfur from him. He had to special order as nobody buys it "straight". He told me the only people that have bought sulfur from him were putting it on their blueberries.....and had gotten some good results when growing berries. I think it is a typical sandy soil deficiency? Dunno.

A few years prior to this I had talked with the owner of a wildlife seed company in Wadena MN (Hart)....whom emphasized to me to get the sulfur levels up to get good brassica food plots. That alway stuck with me....as he was quite adamant about adding sulfur.

I did have a great crop the year I added lots of extra sulfur...but I also had lots of fertilizer, and plentiful rains. But, somehow I have always tried to add a little sulfur to my land by adding it to my blends of synthetic fertilizers. Have not recently soil tested for it.....so I suppose I am due for some soil tests.

2 cents.

If let your rye crop do rye things, you’re not gonna need much.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bigboreblr]

Just a tidbit of info on sulfur....fwiw....

I was talking to the manager at the feed store in Pine River about two years ago....and I bought a couple of bags of sulfur from him. He had to special order as nobody buys it "straight". He told me the only people that have bought sulfur from him were putting it on their blueberries.....and had gotten some good results when growing berries. I think it is a typical sandy soil deficiency? Dunno.

A few years prior to this I had talked with the owner of a wildlife seed company in Wadena MN (Hart)....whom emphasized to me to get the sulfur levels up to get good brassica food plots. That alway stuck with me....as he was quite adamant about adding sulfur.

I did have a great crop the year I added lots of extra sulfur...but I also had lots of fertilizer, and plentiful rains. But, somehow I have always tried to add a little sulfur to my land by adding it to my blends of synthetic fertilizers. Have not recently soil tested for it.....so I suppose I am due for some soil tests.

2 cents.

Sulfur is an easy way to decrease pH, but it's also a essential element in plants too. Some just need it more than others. Cruciferous vegetables are high in sulphur.

thats why I like to lightly lime annually. Besides the pH staying level, calcium and magnesium is added too.