Soil PH Changes Over Time

[SD51555]

That's crazy on the earthworm production! It makes you think why the farming industry went straight to conventional farming, tilling and using fertilizers when God put the ingredients right there in the soil to have a successful crop if done right! Greed comes to mind on the reason they went that route.

Those guys did the best they could with the tools and knowledge that was available at the time. Today is a much different story. The biggest hindrance to advancing the cause of better food, higher profits, and regenerating environments is willingness or ability to implement this new found information. And that includes understanding the politics and economics preventing it from happening.

Think of the information that was out there before the internet. It was likely there, but not easily distributed. Today, at the click of a mouse and for free, I can access the life's work of any of the smartest growers and researchers to ever walk the earth. And I can get it in a well produced 90 minute video in my living room. Don't have to go to school, don't have to go to the pizza ranch, don't even have to go to a field day. What we need to do is pick up where these guys and gals left off, and ask new questions and solve the next problems. We owe that much to everyone that's come before us.

I'd like to think our ancestors would come back and give us a real beating if they knew the resources we have available now and choose to not use.

 

[Jerry]

Well I see a guy has to be real careful asking questions around here. :) I do very much appreciate the responses. I watched the whole video and it too added to my informational base. I think most of what I am hearing here supports my intended efforts. If my plan wasn't obvious it was to use rotations and residue to replace (significantly or completely) future soil amendments. The fun part will be in experimenting how best to accomplish that. Thanks again everyone.

 

[Telemark]

I would try to find out why the pH was so high. Might not be anything you can do about it long-term. In the short term I might try sulfur.

 

[Bassattackr]

Agricultural farming can't be compared to food plotting. Key difference (as Jack pointed out), is complete removal of stover in Ag setting vs recycling or reincorporating in food plot setting. Because of this, you absolutely can mine nutrients with various plants to bring them higher up in the soil profile, I don't think anyone is arguing that here..

pH may just be naturally high for the OP. Glaciers thousands of years ago, different rock types that your soil is based off, etc all play a part..

http://www.bonap.org/2008_Soil/pH20110321.png

I was hoping our retired staff agronomist @FarmerDan would chime in here with his ashes to ashes speech..

 

[4wanderingeyes]

As for my land, that map is spot on.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Agricultural farming can't be compared to food plotting. Key difference (as Jack pointed out), is complete removal of stover in Ag setting vs recycling or reincorporating in food plot setting. Because of this, you absolutely can mine nutrients with various plants to bring them higher up in the soil profile, I don't think anyone is arguing that here..

pH may just be naturally high for the OP. Glaciers thousands of years ago, different rock types that your soil is based off, etc all play a part..

http://www.bonap.org/2008_Soil/pH20110321.png

I was hoping our retired staff agronomist @FarmerDan would chime in here with his ashes to ashes speech..

........which will be an enjoyable,informative, and undistilled analysis worthy of its own thread/forum

We will call it The Misanthrope's Corner

bill

 

[yoderjac]

........which will be an enjoyable,informative, and undistilled analysis worthy of its own thread/forum

We will call it The Misanthrope's Corner

bill

There is a lot we can learn from commercial farmers. Because of the financial incentives, there is a huge amount of research that goes into it. That great video was a small example. The key for deer managers is understanding the differences between managing for deer versus farming. It starts by understanding that deer have a large range and a hugely varied diet. They don't need us to survive in just about every place they are established. The things we can do to manage for them need to be considered in that perspective. Managing for deer and improving hunting are different goals that sometimes overlap and often conflict. Many of us have a blend of these as our objective along with other things like passing on the tradition to the next generation.

Because deer have such a large range and such a varied diet, we need to understand that things done on a large scale like timber management have a much larger impact on deer. Our food plots are a small fraction of their diet across year. Understanding the seasonal cycles and focusing food plots on stress periods helps even out the cycles. That is the primary management function of our food plots from a management perspective. The other place they play a role is in population management. Deer, when attracted to and feeding in food plots, can more easily be evaluated and selectively harvested to meat harvest goals for population and age structure management objectives.

By understanding soil health and working it into our food plot strategies, we can accomplish a variety of things. First, we can reduce or eliminate commercial fertilizer saving a lot of time and resources that can be applied to other habitat management projects. Second, this increases the sustainability of our plots. We can plant more acreage at lower densities with greater weed tolerance rather than high intensity lower acreage clean plots which benefit deer less. We always need to keep in mind that from a deer management perspective any crop that doesn't end up in the belly of a deer is not contributing. Beyond that, any food we plant that deer eat during times when they would otherwise be eating similar quality native foods, is not contributing either.

We have opportunities to apply the kind of research we see in the video without the constraints that commercial farmers have to deal with.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Angus 1895]

I use conventional fertilizer but I am now very careful about using so much the earthworms are affected. The one thing I like to show people on my farm is where some of the granular fertilizer was spilled the year or two before

The amount of growth surrounding the scalded are of the spill is easily twice as tall as the rest of the field