Lime Question

[SD51555]

That is a nonsensical statment. It presumes the soil contains zero sulphur, which is completly unrealistic for a food plot.

Reality is, most guys with reasonably health plots will need about 1/3 or less of what you are proposing annually.

Let's just skip to the end. What do you think our viewers should do?

 

[SD51555]

I woke up this morning and poured myself a cup of coffee, logged into HT ready to keep reading a good old gypsum fight. You are all really letting me down. This didn't devolve into name calling or serious posturing Internet tough guy stuff. I'm upset that you were able to keep it civil. Try harder.

My folding chair broke. I feel out of character without my throne.

 

[H20fwler]

Wow...just Wow.

You are really are not following this. My starting PH was 5.2 not long ago, and is now 6.5....by your own admission you agree that if I used Gypsum it would still be 5.2. That would have been a complete and utter waste for my intended purposes. My Sulphur levels are also steady year over year and at proper levels for my crop needs at planting, without having spent needless amounts of money on excess sulphur that is prone to leaching.

You may want to start paying attention to the pesky facts. You seem to repeatedly be misunderstanding and or misrepresenting them.

I understand completely, maybe your not...did I not begin my post with "Except it is, given a decent PH to start with" and I have said the exact same thing over and over throughout this thread from the start all while you keep yammering about raising lowering PH that I agree has nothing to with gypsum unless you are looking to keep it stable.

Lets take a look at it in more detail and see what the experts say about it with proven facts/charts/models and real world science, not just guys chewing the fat on a website;

Dr. Warren Dick of the Ohio State University explains how gypsum helps keep nutrients in your fields for plants to use;
https://www.usagypsum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/AMI-Tech-phophorus-OSU-8.4.14.pdf

Another by Dr. Warren Dick highlighting and pointing out the benefits of using gypsum including supplying calcium and sulfur;
https://www.usagypsum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Gypsum-as-an-Agricultural-Amendment.pdf

J.E. Sawyer, B. Lang, D.W. Barker, and G. Cummins Iowa State University, Ames, IA years of study and trials for increased crop production plant growth;
https://www.usagypsum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/AMI-Tech-Sulfate-Crop-Yields-IA.pdf

Marvin T. Batte University of Kentucky & D. Lynn Forster the Ohio State University again calcium and sulfur and benefits to the soil/environment and enhanced plant production;
"Soil scientists suggest a number of potential benefits associated with gypsum use in agriculture. These range from fertility value of sulfur and calcium nutrients, to improved soil characteristics and improved soil water management, to reduced offsite impacts of soil sediment and nutrient-laden surface water. Looking across the full range of results for the farmer survey, we are impressed with the apparent high level of satisfaction with gypsum as a soil amendment and nutrition source. Farmers’ own evaluations of gypsum suggest significant benefits in a number of areas related to soil condition, water management and crop performance. Particularly important benefits were provision of sulfur and calcium nutrients, contribution to long-term soil productivity improvement, improved plant rooting depth, improvement in crop quality, and improved seedling emergence.
They also reported significantly higher yields for all key crops, and greater reductions in usage of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers and agricultural lime. Farmers’ own estimates of partial B/C ratio showed longer-term users of gypsum gave higher values than did users with less than three years usage experience."
https://www.usagypsum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Economics-of-Agricultural-Gypsum-Use.pdf

Dr. Arthur Wallace (Ph.D. Soil Science and Plant Nutrition) and Dr. Garn Wallace (Ph.D. Bio-Chemistry) of Wallace Laboratories in El Segundo, CA, U.S.A.
Maybe the best link of all listing benefits and straight out facts
https://www.usagypsum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/AMI-tech-general.pdf

USDA
https://www.usagypsum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/USDA-Ammending-Soil-Code-333.pdf

 

[Bowsnbucks]

My camp hasn't limed in about 4 years, and last year's plots showed less vigor. Soil tests.

 

[White Birch Farm]

BucksnBows

I dont think you are all that far from me. For reference, here is what a relatively virgin soil test result looks like at my place on tillable soils.

Notice Ca and PH are very low, yet Sulphur is very close to desirable levels already prior to any ammendments. No one in their right mind would recomend Gypsum to ammend this soil. Calcitic lime is the correct product to apply, as it is in the vast majority of instances in the Northeast.

 

[Kooch]

I don't have it handy, but my test from last year was also virgin ground. My sulfur was 2ppm. TWO. I did use about 100/acre AMS to top dress my brassica though instead of urea. Might be higher now. Unless the deer ate it all and wandered off with it.

 

[White Birch Farm]

H20,

That fact that you posted a half page of links to random stuff and can not independently articulate the value of Gypsum in specific situations when presented with them undermines your position terribly. If your whole point is that state that Gypsum can have value in some specific situation you need to find some place else to argue as that fact is self evident. Instead, this discussion is about not making blanket recomendation concerning the use gypsum where it provides little or no value when compared with readily available alternatives.

 

[H20fwler]

http://www.sakg.co.za/portal-downloads/e9993eca-cb87-4639-8cf2-6067e007418f.pdf

“This is also why gypsum, which contains
about 20% calcium and 17% sulphur, should ONLY be used when calcium is above 60% (base saturation). But because gypsum contains sulphur, the excess sulphur and nitrogen will STRIP the soil if CALCIUM is below 60%.
Once the calcium level is above 60%, the sulphur in gypsum will strip the soil of other cations that are in excess. It’s therefore a good product to use where there is an excess of magnesium, but the calcium level is in the desirabable”
...

Getting back to the original topic. Paragraph one directly addressed why H2Os continued implication that gypsum is a good product to randomly apply in a previously unfertilized woodlot in NY is a bad recomendation (where the CA base saturation would almost certainly be below 60, and if it werent, suggesting the use of gypsum to add Ca without any understanding of soil qualities and nutrient levels would make even less sense). In reality, he doesn’t seem to understand that it would actually have the opposite effect of what he mistakenly thought it would.

Paragraph two adresses the fallacy of his continued statements that I should use Gypsum on the soils that are the subject of the test I posted. First, (if my fields were static, which they are not) I don’t need more calcium, but if I wanted to push it I would at least want the benefit of raising my PH toward 7, also I don’t want to reduce my magnesium. (Heck...Even SD who seems to have previously sided with H20 on ever was recomending that I do the exact opposite and try to use dolomitic lime to RAISE my Mg levels.)

It's funny that you missed where I said this early on;

I agree the OP may not even need lime at all but gypsum is still a benefit regardless.

By all means a PH test should be run before anyone uses lime or fertilizers on their plots/farms especially any unknown or new ground. I use gypsum for more of a soil maintenance thing every few years on food plots.

You just keep on blathering on about everything you think you know

 

[White Birch Farm]

I don't have it handy, but my test from last year was also virgin ground. My sulfur was 2ppm. TWO.

Are you lacking in OM, for example as is usual with a sandy soil? (For every percent of OM, your soils should naturally be producing a few PPM sulphur annually. For example, in my field with an OM of 4.5, they will naturally produce 8-10ppm of Sulphur annually.)

 

[H20fwler]

H20,

That fact that you posted a half page of links to random stuff and can not independently articulate the value of Gypsum in specific situations when presented with them undermines your position terribly. If your whole point is that state that Gypsum can have value in some specific situation you need to find some place else to argue as that fact is self evident. Instead, this discussion is about not making blanket recomendation concerning the use gypsum where it provides little or no value when compared with readily available alternatives.

If you would have bothered to read the links you would have seen that they say the exact same thing I have been repeatedly saying the whole time not that it matters to your one sided argument.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

White Birch - My camp is about 3 hours from your location, and is on a ridge top in the mountains. I don't want to make any assumptions as to what the soil health is in regard to nutrient balances. I'm going with more soil tests.

I'm aware of the Northeast's buffering capacity / net alkalinity problems. Acid rain plays a huge part here - I know. I used to measure the rain with an electronic pH - detecting meter supplied by a Pa. DER ( as it used to be known ) officer. I did the measuring as part of a Trout Unlimited study of rainfall and also local streams' pH readings. Rainfall here is / has been as acidic as vinegar and lemon juice.

 

[White Birch Farm]

It's funny that you missed where I said this early on;




You just keep on blathering on about everything you think you know

If you would have bothered to read the links you would have seen that they say the exact same thing I have been repeatedly saying the whole time not that it matters to your one sided argument.

The fact that you keep attacking the messenger, and are not contributing one iota of independent analysis speaks for itself.

Why havent you posted your soils test results and explained the basis for your approach in a real world aituation?

 

[Kooch]

Are you lacking in OM, for example as is usual with a sandy soil? (For every percent of OM, your soils should naturally be producing a few PPM sulphur annually. For example, in my field with an OM of 4.5, they will naturally produce 8-10ppm of Sulphur annually.)

The OM was around 5%, very surprising to me. My soil has a top layer, about 4 inches, of nice black dirt with high OM, then it turns to heavy clay. I'm thinking about building a potter's wheel and a kiln instead of deer stands.

My samples may not have been great either. First time. The place is pretty close to Canada. It's been logged a few times since the area was settled back in the day. I'm learning a lot of the history of the area from my older neighbors, which is neat, but irrelevant to this discussion. But, it's never seen a plow. Just loggers boots and machinery. Now it's me, my ATV and a chainsaw.

I'll do it again this year and rely on my local resources to point me in the right direction. Then, it's just me an ATV spreader, and a lot of labor. My neighbor tells me when he was a kid, like 70 years ago, there was actually a saw mill where my camp is now. I like him, once he starts talking he won't stop and he's got a lot of interesting old detail. Maybe he'll let me buy his place when he gets too old to enjoy it.

 

[SD51555]

I don't have it handy, but my test from last year was also virgin ground. My sulfur was 2ppm. TWO. I did use about 100/acre AMS to top dress my brassica though instead of urea. Might be higher now. Unless the deer ate it all and wandered off with it.

You'll have some left. I had the exact same situation when I started out. Everything tested from 2-4 lbs. We actually saw a browse preference where we grew soybeans following a fall planting of brassicas. Where the brassicas got AMS, there was about 20lbs residual S left over from a 150lb AMS fall app. We cut open a new plot of soybeans that next spring and the deer hammered the other three soybean plots before they started on the one with no soil sulfur. They eventually at the ones with no S, but not until the rest was exhausted.

 

[White Birch Farm]

I don't want to make any assumptions as to what the soil health is in regard to nutrient balances. I'm going with more soil tests..

As well you should. My point from the begining of this thread is no one should be making, let alone acting on blanket recomendations to ammend soil with any given product. That is especially true when the product’s (in this thead gypsum) primary purposes are to adress issues that rarely cause significant issues in the are for which it is being recommended.

Btw...do you happen to know Brian Cowden?

 

[White Birch Farm]

SD,

In one of the videos that you posted and raved about, the host made a point of highlighting the fact that his Ag lime contains Sulphor in amounts that he finds meaningful enough to calculate. Were you aware of that, and do you know how much Sulphur average Ag lime contains?

 

[H20fwler]

The fact that you keep attacking the messenger, and are not contributing one iota of independent analysis speaks for itself.

Why havent you posted your soils test results and explained the basis for your approach in a real world aituation?

I don't keep my soil test results, I call up to Landmark if I need to look over any history...and your personal query definitely does not qualify a call. I have nothing to prove to you your mind was made up from the start.

 

[SD51555]

I don't want to make any assumptions as to what the soil health is in regard to nutrient balances. I'm going with more soil tests..

As well you should. My point from the begining of this thread is no one should be making, let alone acting on blanket recomendations to ammend soil with any given product. That is especially true when the product’s (in this thead gypsum) primary purposes are to adress issues that rarely cause significant issues in the are for which it is being recommended.

Btw...do you happen to know Brian Cowden?

You know what’s interesting? A 300 lb rate of applied gypsum is about perfect for nutrient removal of calcium and sulfur from a 50 bushel soybean crop.

Talk about staying in balance.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SD51555]

SD,

In one of the videos that you posted and raved about, the host made a point of highlighting the fact that his Ag lime contains Sulphor in amounts that he finds meaningful enough to calculate. Were you aware of that, and do you know how much Sulphur average Ag lime contains?

Most contains none. Where he was talking about sulfur in lime, he was talking about water treatment lime. They live less than 8 miles from the Sioux Falls lime settling ponds. When you're applying hundreds of tons of water treatment lime across multiple farms, it's prudent to check what you're getting in extra nutrients so you don't wastefully double up on micros or secondary nutrients.

 

[White Birch Farm]

You know what’s interesting? A 300 lb rate of applied gypsum is about perfect for nutrient removal of calcium and sulfur from a 50 bushel soybean crop.

Talk about staying in balance.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Unfortunately, you forgot to mention that your approach is not “balanced” because the highly acidic fertilizers used to feed your crop would result in essentially mining your PH and without lime would quickly result in a low PH soil with corresponding low nutrient availability levels. The very essence of an unbalanced approach that “mines” soils.