PH question

I think you are right in your thinking. I'd also watch the tests closely for a while because I found that I was using up potassium faster than what the soil test told me I should so I ended up increasing the potash by 10% to hold it steady.

With your addition of the clover I think you will see soon begin to see a layer of organic matter building up between the mother plants in the T85. This layer appears thin during the winter months but during the warm months it seems to grow. My layer is now around three inches thick during the summer and is as rich as potting soil. My hope is that this layer will continue to grow and fill in the 18" plow layer and will increase the buffer of the soil.

I've also done the same by planning sacrifice areas for hay feeding. I did this by fencing off a ten acre area that contained my poorest most sandy soil and fed hay there for several years. This soil is no longer a sandy loam but a loamy sand and is extremely stable and fertile. I plan on fencing off another sacrifice area and repeating. The benefit of this is I haven't added anything to this acreage in 15 years and its producing a lot of forage with no inputs and as long as I don't cut hay on it and I only graze it the soil tests show it is remaining stable and all the nitrogen it gets is coming from the clovers (crimson and dutch white) and rainfall.

Jogeephus":w6sigyvo said:

There are so many things that could make this happen it will make your head hurt trying to figure it out. Just so many combinations from sampling differences to the method used in the lab and like Dave said it could have to do with the time of year because the amount of root respiration and the breakdown of organic materials can affect it especially if your soil has a low buffer capacity.

Since your pH increased and if I remember right you had some drought conditions last year my guess is you got the pH bump from the weathering of cabonate parent material. This typically happens during hot dry conditions and is more evident on soils having a low buffer capacity such as sandy soils but the longer you keep it in pasture and the more organic material you add to the soil the less fluctuation you will have in the pH.

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thanks Jogeephus....
this is pretty much the answer I was going to give.
holistic management and the return of organic matter to the soil will create a healthy community of life underground that also contribute to good soil health.
giving the plants time to put good roots deep in the soil is also a factor.

Funny, I was born in Houston and grew up in the area fighting the effects of Blackland Clays (Houston in particular). Tried and tried to get to the Piney Woods, and some acid tilting, tomato growing, sandy loam soil but for one reason or another didn't make it.

So here I am on my farm of 40 years still in Houston Black Clay with it's slightly alkaline PH. Does make for soft water and no plumbing streaks and I do like that. Hot water heater electrode usually is wasted in 6 years and that wastes the HW heater...can't get the old one out.

I guess my clay isn't all that bad after all as long as I work it as "it" wants to be worked, not as "I" want to work it. It doesn't need PH adjusters and if planted with the right crop, makes for fine summer/dry weather growing.....reason for the "Cotton is King" era.

its like 18 / ac spread here..

ddd75":13jkhsip said:

its like 18 / ac spread here..

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$50/ac spread here today. Sure jumped up in price from 2 years ago.

bball":q0x3sop3 said:

ddd75":q0x3sop3 said:

its like 18 / ac spread here..

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$50/ac spread here today. Sure jumped up in price from 2 years ago.

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Check that, $24 per ton spread.

Jogeephus":3dwu1wlq said:

Another thing worth mentioning on soil buffering is there are some snake oil products out there which advertise using minute amounts of this rather than conventional fertilizer or manures. What some of these products can do is mine the buffer from your land just like the turning plow did which is akin to your just digging your grave deeper and not what you need and is only a short term fix can which can hurt your land if done to much. You want to save this reserve and address fixing the 18 or so inches above this layer.

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Do you mind expanding on this a little more? Friend of ours has had incredible results with a snake oil product. They have not used any conventional fertilizer or lime since 2010. They also started rotational grazing around this time and that must be a contributing factor. They do apply a small amount of the snake oil each year and spread Clover. We pulled some samples and put our first application on a test pasture this fall. Will pull samples again in April to compare. We'll see.

How does this mine the dirt any differently than conventional methods? Not contradicting you, just confused.

rockroadseminole":ifrwew3f said:

Jogeephus":ifrwew3f said:

Another thing worth mentioning on soil buffering is there are some snake oil products out there which advertise using minute amounts of this rather than conventional fertilizer or manures. What some of these products can do is mine the buffer from your land just like the turning plow did which is akin to your just digging your grave deeper and not what you need and is only a short term fix can which can hurt your land if done to much. You want to save this reserve and address fixing the 18 or so inches above this layer.

Click to expand...

Do you mind expanding on this a little more? Friend of ours has had incredible results with a snake oil product. They have not used any conventional fertilizer or lime since 2010. They also started rotational grazing around this time and that must be a contributing factor. They do apply a small amount of the snake oil each year and spread Clover. We pulled some samples and put our first application on a test pasture this fall. Will pull samples again in April to compare. We'll see.

How does this mine the dirt any differently than conventional methods? Not contradicting you, just confused.

Click to expand...

The short of it is you cannot just take from the soil and not give back. I'm speaking more about hay land than pasture since haying takes so much from the soil. Pasture is different since cattle really don't take much of anything from the soil and replace nearly everything they take with their manure. I don't fertilize pasture land because I prefer slow steady more nutritious growth rather than a quick flush of growth then it becoming rank and less nutritious.

Before you go whole hog with the "snake oil" try some band strips in your pasture with it and see just how long it actually affects the grass compared to non sprayed. Like most all foliar feeds you will probably see a two week flush in color. Next time try spraying just some liquid iron chelate which will cost you about $0.50/acre and compare the results of this to the snake oil.

We use a lot of foliar feeding here on vegetables and it does do some good but it is in no way a replacement for fertilizer its just more for eye appeal and finishing.

Jogeephus":1qchvh67 said:

rockroadseminole":1qchvh67 said:

Jogeephus":1qchvh67 said:

Another thing worth mentioning on soil buffering is there are some snake oil products out there which advertise using minute amounts of this rather than conventional fertilizer or manures. What some of these products can do is mine the buffer from your land just like the turning plow did which is akin to your just digging your grave deeper and not what you need and is only a short term fix can which can hurt your land if done to much. You want to save this reserve and address fixing the 18 or so inches above this layer.

Click to expand...

Do you mind expanding on this a little more? Friend of ours has had incredible results with a snake oil product. They have not used any conventional fertilizer or lime since 2010. They also started rotational grazing around this time and that must be a contributing factor. They do apply a small amount of the snake oil each year and spread Clover. We pulled some samples and put our first application on a test pasture this fall. Will pull samples again in April to compare. We'll see.

How does this mine the dirt any differently than conventional methods? Not contradicting you, just confused.

Click to expand...

The short of it is you cannot just take from the soil and not give back. I'm speaking more about hay land than pasture since haying takes so much from the soil. Pasture is different since cattle really don't take much of anything from the soil and replace nearly everything they take with their manure. I don't fertilize pasture land because I prefer slow steady more nutritious growth rather than a quick flush of growth then it becoming rank and less nutritious.

Before you go whole hog with the "snake oil" try some band strips in your pasture with it and see just how long it actually affects the grass compared to non sprayed. Like most all foliar feeds you will probably see a two week flush in color. Next time try spraying just some liquid iron chelate which will cost you about $0.50/acre and compare the results of this to the snake oil.

We use a lot of foliar feeding here on vegetables and it does do some good but it is in no way a replacement for fertilizer its just more for eye appeal and finishing.

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Thanks for clarifying! I smell what you're stepping in now. Curious to see what kind of results we get. We sprayed a 40 acre pasture with it, and left a strip right down the middle. Also, another pasture, untreated, is adjacent to it so should get a good look. We applied 2 qts in the fall and are supposed to reapply 1qt this spring. As of now, i can't see a real difference. Should see change in soil samples and should get a difference in grass growth as things heat up. Figured we would try it for a year... we shall see.

rockroadseminole":1h9qv4s4 said:

Thanks for clarifying! I smell what you're stepping in now. Curious to see what kind of results we get. We sprayed a 40 acre pasture with it, and left a strip right down the middle. Also, another pasture, untreated, is adjacent to it so should get a good look. We applied 2 qts in the fall and are supposed to reapply 1qt this spring. As of now, i can't see a real difference. Should see change in soil samples and should get a difference in grass growth as things heat up. Figured we would try it for a year... we shall see.

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You will probably see a difference for a little bit. Foliar feeding has its place but what I have a problem with are some of the salesmen have wild claims about its effectiveness. One of my neighbors was a distributor and tried to get me to use his product and claimed at a cost of $6/acre would do the same as conventional fertilizer. He gave me a few jugs of his product and told me that some of my neighbors swore by it and were all using it. After talking to them I learned he had given them the same spill and that was using it and I swore by it. We all had a good laugh over this but not wanting to miss I did give it a try and applied it in bands with control strips between it. The sprayed strips did green up but this was very short lived and after looking at the ingredients I figured I could accomplish the same thing with iron at a cost of $0.50/acre but this is short lived as well.

Where I think it has its place is if you use it within two weeks of cutting your hay. Just like with produce foliar feeding will give a short burst and increase photosynthesis which will increase sugar production thus enhancing the eye appeal and nutritional value. I think it might be useful where you have a crop of hay that you haven't been able to cut due to weather conditions and is going backward. A shot of this stuff might boost the food value of an otherwise sorry hay cutting. May not, but I don't think it would hurt. Just can't see using it in place conventional fertilizer.