Pinging the List.
I’ve been potting up a flat or two of beautiful Israeli Sweet peppers today...I hope any musloids that happen to drive by don’t consider it an ‘act of provocation’...
Hello Everyone!
BEGIN INSTALLMENT 7 on SOILS
SOIL TESTS SERVE 2 BASIC FUNCTIONS:
1.) Provide base line starting point to develop soil improvement plans
2.) Monitor the nutrient levels to keep fertilizer program on track
TEST A MINIMUM of EVERY 3 – count ‘em: THREE YEARS [more often, like once a year - is ideal]
PROPER PROCEDURES: [in order to reduce errors – TAKING AN IMPROPER SAMPLE IS THE GREATEST CAUSE OF ERROR!]
1) The labs will use a tsp for the test sample. 1 acre weighs 2 million tons. Your tsp for an area will reflect the composition of the area you test.
2) Recognize that a field or garden area will have nutrient variability.
He showed a rectangular field or plot with different areas of nutrient concentration plotted. The top right corner showed a 45 lbs/acre concentration from a sample of that corner. A concentration along the right border shows a concentration of a hemisphere with 25 lbs/acre of nitrogen, with a ring around that of 28 lbs/acre. Along the left border is a hemisphere of 102 lbs/acre, with a ring around that of 75 lbs/acre. The rest of the field is about 34 lbs/acre of nitrogen.
How do you get around the Variability in a field or plot?
There followed a discussion in which he showed several fields with hot spots to illustrate Variability.
One of the pix was a field with several intermittent patches of vibrant green, with the rest of the grass being somewhat brown, or less intense green. Finally we were told (or someone guessed) that these patches were due to cow patty distribution!
So the way around variability is to take 20 cores from different areas of your field or plot to make a representative composite in order to get a good soil test result.
If you have a *field or garden plot, you need to take about 15-20 samples.
*For a flower bed, take 4-5 samples.
*For a pot, take a few from different areas of your pot.
3) How do I take the sample? Several different ways are available. Can use a bucket and a small auger drill and catch the samples in your bucket. Can also use a trowel with your bucket. OR can use Sample Probe. Check with county ag extension office to see if they have one of them available.
BE SURE TO USE A CLEAN [circle “clean” in red for emphasis!] BUCKET!!!!
BE SURE TO GET SAMPLES FROM 6 inches deep.
[In real time, the above info from start of installment 1 to here took us until our lunch break!]
After you have taken your bucket samples, you mix them very well.
Then you will place a much smaller amount into the sample bag. Check with your county ag agent if they have cloth sample bags available. Otherwise, a CLEAN ziplock bag would be adequate. [Texokie note: I do not seem to have written in my notes how much soil should be in the sample bag. Since they will take only a tea spoon for the test, about a cup would probably be max.]
MARK IDENTIFICATION ON YOUR SAMPLE BAG! VERY IMPORTANT! Place of course your name, etc, and critical to your ability to use sample info if you send in more than one, would be identify what the sample represents. Ie, “South 40” or “From the strawberry pot” or “Garden plot” or “Rose bed.” …etc [Texokie note: Again, check with your own county agent to find out what they want on their sample bag ids. There is also a submission form that Oklahoma labs require. I think the ag agent fills it out, but your state may be different. As you can see, your new best friend needs to be your County Ag Agent!]
Get it to your county ag agent to send to the lab. [Texokie note: In Oklahoma, they will deal with public directly, but prefer to have the agent be the intermediary. You will want to check with your own county to find out testing policies.]
WHAT DO WE TEST SOILS FOR?
At OSU, the ROUTINE TEST:
Primary Test:
pH, buffer index, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium - The prof noted that in Oklahoma, the tendency these days in most fields is that potassium is actually too high. It is rare any more to find deficiencies in phosphorus.
Secondary Test: Not routine
Sulphate, Magnesium, Calcium
Tertiary Test: Not routine
Micronutrients: iron, zinc, boron [re boron: when it is low, your plants will have deficiencies and be affected. If it is too high, it will be toxic and plants will be affected.]
Other Nutrients that can be tested for: sulfur, Chlorine, Copper, Molybdenum, Manganese.
Other Tests Available: Not routine
Soil Organic Matter
Texture
Soil Salinity - you might want to test for this if you have white powder precipitates. Rain can push salts out to evaporate. Pots can be very subject to this as well. Some salts can be leached out. Some cant be, and you must add gypsum. Not always able to remedy some salts. Crude oil is not very bad for soil as the volatiles will dissipate. However, salts can be more difficult to remedy.
WHAT WILL I SEE ON MY SOIL REPORT?
1) pH
2) Buffer Index – tells how much lime to apply. 1 acre = 43,560 square feet. This equation can be used as the conversion factor for the lbs/1000 square feet for smaller gardens.
***[Texokie SHOUT OUT to Johnny, Marcella, and other thread participants to help with the crunch conversion to obtain the amount for a smaller garden!THANX!]***
3) NO3-N (lbs/A)
[Texokie note: He was going like lightening here, and my notes are somewhat obscure. This is what I show under NO3-N:
Surface
Subsoil
Soil Test P Index
Soil Test K Index
Next up we will get into Soil Test Interpretation/Fertilizing strategies.
End installment 7 on SOIL
I did, however get a BUNCH of herbs that I'm using in the kitchen.
Thank goodness for those. I'm doing home-made pizza tonight.
/johnny
I managed to sneak in a bit of garden time in the evenings this week, and now we’re getting some nice rain showers.
I’ve deep-sixed 22 tomato plants so far. The other 10 will be stuck in their pots for a few days until the ground dries a bit. I noticed yesterday that a couple of the cucumber seeds that I stuck in the dirt last weekend are peeking out. The patch of cilantro that came volunteer is almost ready to harvest. There is volunteer dill everywhere that hasn’t been tilled. I’ve got a few squash seedlings ready to go in the dirt.
Now that it’s rained I’m not sure what to do with myself this weekend. I still haven’t bought my peppers so I better make a run to the nursery before they’re all gone.
The cold winter did a number on my winter plants. Lost many pansies, bulbs and herbs. Those that survived are in great shape. The worst problem is squirrels. They are digging up and ruining my garden pots. Have applied blood meal in the area, hoping that will help.