Yay! Soil sample test is back ... annnnnnd ...

[SkizzlePig]

... I can't tell if it's good news (see the attached PDF). I mean it's not great, but the property was a pine forest just six months ago.

This soil test was for a six acre cattle pasture. We plan to seed native grasses, alfalfa and clover. The pH is ALL screwed up ... and the K is super low ... and ... argh!

Is this going to be the "bridge too far"?

[farmerDale]

A couple questions? How deep is the sample from? What is the soil texture? What is the OM content?

I have no idea about lime and prices for lime, because we don't need it here.

A "for here" valuation on nutrients needed, would be around 60 dollars an acre for the P, and about 30 for the K. Depending on the depth of the sample, I would skip the boron. Usuallyplantsare not all that responsive to micro-nutrients, even in high demand crops.

If the texture is decent, and the soil OM content reasonable, you should be able to replenish and maintain the soils, providing you continue to soil test, and put back what you remove. Good for you for doing a soil test in the first place! Many do not put that effort in. It is an economical way to get great results..

[SkizzlePig]

Thanks, Dale.

The surface texture is largely sandy loam. This sample was taken from 1" to 4".

I think the Boron was because of the grasses. The test reports "low" Boron at 0.4 an acre. Adding a lb per acre, could make it really high ... in my uneducated opinion.

I called the extension and they are finding a source of 10 tons of lime ... annnnd the other bits.

[jwal10]

Add what you can afford, the more the better but you can add more later. Plant legumes with the pasture, inoculate the seed they will make nitrogen. Good pasture will improve on its own except trace minerals. Even PH can be improved over time. Manure is good, worked in or spread over time, even pastured and piles spread will help. Pasture ground does not have to be perfect to get started....James

[farmerDale]

With a 1-4" sample, remember there are a LOT of nutrients below that, that the legumes/grass will reach down and recycle as well. Which is why I said what I did regarding the boron. There should be more than enough in the entire soil profile, so you can save a bit there.

And my values are probably high. We in Canada get the old hose when we buy fertilizer, relative to the States. Kind of like gas and fuel. We pay more, just the way it is!

Good luck, the 1-4" sample gives me a better feeling about your sample. There is a lot more soil than that for the roots to explore...

And sandy loam is not a bad texture at all, if you get regular rainfall. Good for root crops!

[BlueRidgeFarms]

It's not actually all that bad, except for the pH. And you don't have to fix it all at once, it's just that legumes can't make nitrogen as well at that low pH. The bacteria just doesn't work very well. But, if you can do it, spreading even just half the lime recommendation (1500 lbs/acre) would do a lot of good. Don't think you've got to do everything at once.

I agree it would be good to have a deeper soil test to know what's down deeper in the soil. But you don't have that right now, and so that's another reason to not rush everything. Also, your soil is pretty responsive to fertilizer. Some soils have tremendous buffering capacity and change very slowly. Others have less buffering capacity, and will change quickly in response to fertilizer. Yours is the second kind.

If they ask you if you want dolomitic lime or calcitic lime it would be alright to have dolomitic lime. That contains magnesium as well as calcium, and your magnesium is low as well.

Your soil can be a very good productive pasture. It will just take more management than some others. You might want to plan on taking fresh soil samples at least every other year to monitor the changes you are making.

[rambler]

Spend your money on the lime. Anything under 5, and the other numbers don't matter, your plant roots can't pry the other stuff away from the acid soil. Lime takes a few months to do its thing, so getting it on early before planting by several months would be best.

Your CEC is very low, not much you can do, typical sandy forest ground. Building organic matter with a pasture root mass in 5 years will help some, but will always be a low CEC..... It is sort of a rating of tiny clay bits in your ground, rates how many nutrients your soil can hold. Under 8-10 is low... If you were to try to fertilize a crop needing nitrogen, you couldn't put on more than 35 lbs or so at a time. Not enough clay bits to hold on to it. It will work fine for a pasture, is the good news. If you get enough rain to keep it wet.

Add the P and K like they say. With your low CEC probably don't want to get too much out there, in my 16-34 CEC soils I can put down 3 years worth of p and k and really makes a nice long lasting pasture without applying every year. You might need to spoon feed your soil a little each year......

I wouldn't get hung up on the boron, nice if you get it sure, but it is at the tail end of what to worry about.

Around here sulfur is a bigger deal, I see they didnt test for that.


Do the lime! It will be the biggest bang for the buck. There are different types of lime, some work very fast but don't last long, others take almost a year to start working but then last 5-6-7 years.... You likely will get what is common in your area, just understand the differences and how they act differently. You would like something that goes to work for you, but you also will need long term and repeat applications to keep up with that soil.

Some folks get concerned about the calcium level, and would use special types of lime to try to bring the calcium up. It is not an issue for my area, and a new concept for me, so I best not try to explain something that is foggy to me. But for the future, might want to look into calcium concepts in future years, see if they apply to your soil and goals.

Paul

[Gravytrain]

Originally Posted by rambler

Spend your money on the lime. Anything under 5, and the other numbers don't matter, your plant roots can't pry the other stuff away from the acid soil. Lime takes a few months to do its thing, so getting it on early before planting by several months would be best.

Paul

This! Like Paul said, if the pH is this low nothing else really matters.

When I restored an old 60 acre pasture turned goldenrod field a couple of years ago, the pH was 4.9-5.3 in most places. My extension agent told me it would take the better part of a decade to get it where I wanted for a productive grass/legume pasture. I immediately brush hogged it, dropped a ton of lime per acre and began rotationally grazing it. The next summer I did it again and tested the soil again a few months later. My lowest pH reading was 5.7 with some at or slightly above 6.0. By this time I had knee high clover and more forage than I could use. My extension agent didn't believe my results so he tested them and got roughly the same numbers.

Once your pH gets to the point where more desirable forages will flourish, the pasture will rejuvenate itself as long as it is not overgrazed. Those clover and grass roots will mine for nutrients down several feet. Mowing helps. I highly recommend rotationally grazing your animals. This will help build desirable forages and minimize undesirable ones as well as evenly spreading nutrients into the soil. You may find you won't need as many soil amendments as you think if you manage everything else properly.

[kilgrosh]

I just finished reading "Salad Bar Beef" and there were some great pointers on getting fields back up and running. I know nothing about corrective measures (adding minerals, amendments, etc.) but I think the book might give some good insight since you are planning on running cattle on the 6 acres. Just my opinion....

[SkizzlePig]

Thanks, guys ... I really appreciate it. We've called on the bulk lime and will test again, once the rain has worked it into the soil.

[DaleK]

When are planning on seeding it? Might be worth putting a cover crop down with the lime to work with and hold it

[SkizzlePig]

Originally Posted by DaleK

When are planning on seeding it? Might be worth putting a cover crop down with the lime to work with and hold it

My plan was to lime it first ... and let the rain work that in for a couple of months. Then sow pasture seed on it.

What's your advice?

[agmantoo]

Find a layer chicken house and see if you can get chicken litter. The layer house will have enough calcium to aid the lime shortage and enough micro nutrients to get you started.

This was a worn out cotton farm prior to chicken litter. This pic was taken yesterday. The cattle are on the other side of the hill eating on similar forage.

[Rustaholic]

Originally Posted by agmantoo

Find a layer chicken house and see if you can get chicken litter. The layer house will have enough calcium to aid the lime shortage and enough micro nutrients to get you started.

This was a worn out cotton farm prior to chicken litter. This pic was taken yesterday. The cattle are on the other side of the hill eating on similar forage.

The last layer house I was in had 15,000 hens in cages that were all auto fed and watered. The water would come on hard to flush the trough and the whole cage then it would slow down to fill the trough.
All of the eggs rolled out the back of the cages to a belt that took them away.
All that water and chicken poo went to what looked to be a poured concrete basement behind the barn. It was huge.
There were agitators in that pool of poo water and from there it was pumped out to the tractor sprayers in the fields. There was no way they would sell any of their chicken poo.

[BlueRidgeFarms]

Originally Posted by SkizzlePig

My plan was to lime it first ... and let the rain work that in for a couple of months. Then sow pasture seed on it.

What's your advice?

I think your plan sounds fine. If you can get the legume seed inoculated with the correct nitrogen-fixing bacteria for that legume it will help. Your soils probably do not have much native bacteria in them after being so acidic.

I'd wait a year before retesting the soil. The lime will continue reacting for at least six months, and soil tests aren't that cheap. May as well wait a full year or even two after lime application to let the soil settle out.

[jwal10]

Would have been interesting what the PH was a foot down. You say pine forest, how old? 4" down could have been very heavy to composted pine needle duff. Pine needles are low PH. Might want to check, may do a lot to deep till to mix with deeper soils....James

[jwal10]

I would work that lime in good and plant. Anything you do now will help and why wait, unless the ground is too dry to sprout the seed....James

[SkizzlePig]

Originally Posted by jwal10

You say pine forest, how old? 4" down could have been very heavy to composted pine needle duff. Pine needles are low PH.

It was cut over abooooout a year ago, so the slash has been sitting there for that long as well.

I think we will get a deeper soil sample. If it comes up better, would we just till extra deep to bring that good stuff to the surface?

[rambler]

I would not want to till a cut over pine ground extra deep. Things are better left buried.....

Typical pine forest ground tends to be thin and low in nutrients, so I would not expect to find all that much deeper.

In a pasture environment, the crops you plant should reach down deep by the second year, and will pull up what they want if anything is there on their own.

Paul

[jwal10]

True, but lime needs to be incorporated to start working. SP, I was wondering how old the trees were, Forest? Has it always been pines or was the land just let go and the pines just took over here and there or timber trees....James