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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau
In an effort to answer the original question, I would emphasis the importance of soil testing before attempting to do very much soil amending. Adding the wrong things or too much of the right things can both mess up soils for years.
From reading her posts, it appears PP is looking for organic approved fertilizers. That's fine, organic methods can work well but they take more planning and preparation.
It sounds as if legume interseeding is the best acceptable way for PP to supply Nitrogen to her pasture. That's a good method to improve pasture, but you need to provide a good environment for the legumes if you want them to work for you.
Legumes don't like acid, but they also really like phosphorus. And that leads to a Catch-22. If you add too much lime you will tie up your phosphorus.
So it's really important to know exactly where your soils are at before you start throwing things at them. Ideally you probably want your soil pH testing between 6.2-6.8,
IF the soil test suggests that your soils are low in phosphorus, look into Soft Rock Phosphate. It should be available in NC as an approved organic fertilizer. If you decide to use SRP, then your ideal pH range is more like 6.0-6.5. Higher pH levels mean your plants cannot utilize the SRP as well.
Just a few thoughts I had while reading through this thread. Hopefully they help, and if I can help in any other way please let me know.
You wrote, "and hand broadcast behind them. She said that over time the pH would come up".
Hand broadcast seeds. Grass, legumes, brassicas, chicory, etc. I am not applying lime. I've said that. I've talked about hand broadcasting seed many times. You've read it before. I clearly stated "no lime spreading." Please don't mix things up and create lies about other people's practices. Don't put words in my mouth.
I also don't broadcast manure. The animals do that. As I've stated many times, our land is too steep, stumpy and stony for much in the way of machine work. So I use other methods - mostly the animals grazing plus some of us hand broadcasting seed.
The extension agent's said the liming and fertilizer application recommended by the lab was not necessary. She was right. Our fields's pH has risen from around 4.5 to about 6.5 or so (varies) over the years from grazing and forages growing. We now have lots of clover, grasses and other things that do better with the more neutral soils.
Hand broadcast seeds. Grass, legumes, brassicas, chicory, etc. I am not applying lime. I've said that. I've talked about hand broadcasting seed many times. You've read it before. I clearly stated "no lime spreading." Please don't mix things up and create lies about other people's practices. Don't put words in my mouth.
I also don't broadcast manure. The animals do that. As I've stated many times, our land is too steep, stumpy and stony for much in the way of machine work. So I use other methods - mostly the animals grazing plus some of us hand broadcasting seed.
The extension agent's said the liming and fertilizer application recommended by the lab was not necessary. She was right. Our fields's pH has risen from around 4.5 to about 6.5 or so (varies) over the years from grazing and forages growing. We now have lots of clover, grasses and other things that do better with the more neutral soils.
some of you might find the book...the essentials of agriculture by henry jackson waters(1915).....very interesting....many things in it are practices a few modern ag men are rediscovering.get yaself a copy if you can find one or look at this link.
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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau
Thanks for that link, Geo. I'll go check it out. It's not actually my claim but rather what the soil extension agent recommended. We had done the lab tests and then she came out to do a pasture walk with me to make recommendations of what we should do. This was back in the mid-1990's. Her recommendation stemmed from several factors including I didn't have a huge amount of money to spend, we weren't adverse to going slowly and how steep our land is. Some of it is drive-able with a tractor but I keep my wheels spread out at 8' and tend to go up and down, not across to avoid rolling. Every year I hear of someone getting killed rolling a tractor and I would rather not do that...
ElkHound, thanks for that reference too. I'll check it out.
To be fair, any time PP (or others) has a question, we jump in on her and try to pull her over to use real fertilizer or what not. That isn't ours to say, she can do things her way on her garden and pasture.
I do hope she can read some of what we are saying as just giving her different options and the pluses and minuses of those different options.
I was wondering if that was just my imagination.
Of course most all of us keep coming back for the advice and can sort through the pomp and circumstance with broad shoulders and a strong conviction of the heart. I can take the heat (I usually prepare in advance for the advice that I am not looking for from the usual suspects ) and sort through the rest to get to the best solution for what I want for my land.
I do not mean to stir the pot, I swear I don't. I just don't have anywhere else to go for the guidance, as my grandparents are dead or very old and my mom - well bless her heart she stands on the porch and looks in the direction of the barn and grits her teeth with an obligatory, "Very nice" when I want to show her a new goat or something else that might be smelly or dirty or both.
Regardless, this is still the best group of friendly and knowledgeable folks I've ever come across and I'm eternally grateful for the support and advice.
"Organic compounds such as sphagnum peat moss, compost, and manure can be used to lower soil pH. Table 5 provides the approximate application rate used to lower soil pH by one unit."
Perhaps it depends on how your soil is where it is at, clay, peat, lack of drainage, or what is causing the wrong ph.....
When I did a search for "does manure raise or lower soil ph?" About half the results said raise it, about half the results said lowers it.
"Organic compounds such as sphagnum peat moss, compost, and manure can be used to lower soil pH. Table 5 provides the approximate application rate used to lower soil pH by one unit."
Perhaps it depends on how your soil is where it is at, clay, peat, lack of drainage, or what is causing the wrong ph.....
When I did a search for "does manure raise or lower soil ph?" About half the results said raise it, about half the results said lowers it.
So, that is interesting.
Paul
My experience is that manure either lowers or doesn't affect pH.
Typically plants, especially legumes, won't grow well outside their optimal pH range. I only guess about the milk affecting the pH... Otherwise it doesn't make sense to me.
Back on topic -
Soil test first then managing number of animals to the amount of forage produced.
Keeping animals off the pasture is the most important step in healthy pasture. That is why rotational grazing works so well because the ground needs the rest periods. If your pasture isn't up to snuff the best thing is to let it establish for a season without animals and periodically mow.
Utilize your local extension and university people this is their area of expertise!
When the soil is acid, or to put it another way, low ph, plants cannot absorb the nutrients in the soil. These nutrients are locked out. The same thing for highly alkaline or high ph soils.
Most lime is Calcium (like what your bones are made of) Carbonate (like what most growing things are made from). Some lime is Magnesium Carbonate and can be used if your soil is low in Magnesium. It is often called Dolomite.
If you started off with a perfect field, pasture grasses and clovers would grow. Livestock takes in the nutrients when they consume the grass and clover. Livestock put back bits of fiber, N, P and K. Clovers capture N from the air, a bit of N comes down after lightening storms. But all that the livestock took off does not return to the soil. The nutrients also run off the soil in a heavy rain. The reactions in the soil cause nutrients to break up and go out into the air. Nutrients soak into the ground, moving out of reach of plant roots. This happens slowly in clay soils and fast in sandy soils.
Over a hundred years ago, every large city had massive amounts of horse manure to dispose of. If your farm was near a big city you might have access to a great manure resource. But the hay that fed those horses was often shipped from far away. Those hay farms had to either mine the soils of the resources left by the last ice age or add commercial fertilizers. Most did both.
We only started getting dairy a little less than a decade ago. We've been raising chickens, sheep, ducks, geese and pigs on pasture since before that, everything but the pigs since the early to mid 1990's. We added species gradually. The pH has been gradually rising. It has nothing to do with the dairy which is only about 7% of their diet. According to the extension agent it has everything to do with the animals grazing, the carbon being deposited from the plants growing, the nitrogen being deposited. Above in the thread someone else linked to an article that supports this. Our experience shows it as well.
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Originally Posted by rambler
When I did a search for "does manure raise or lower soil ph?" About half the results said raise it, about half the results said lowers it.
Sounds like there is another variable like soil type or something that needs to be identified.
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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids
Soil is acidic because of parent material. If plants growing reduced pH the forest would have done it for you thousands of years ago.
Plants can mine alkalinity if basic minerals are present deep in the soil and rock. Trees are particularly good at this as their deep root system can mine deeper than smaller plants.
If I recall correctly from my travels...the mountains of NY and Vermont have large deposits of limestone. I'm not sure if this is the case where Walter lives or not.
If you are downwind from a power plant, the acid rain can lower Ph. So, maybe it is possible that if you were downwind from a concrete plant you could get alkaline rain?
Of course most all of us keep coming back for the advice and can sort through the pomp and circumstance with broad shoulders and a strong conviction of the heart.
Regardless, this is still the best group of friendly and knowledgeable folks I've ever come across and I'm eternally grateful for the support and advice.
Yes, it is, and I don't mean to be hurtful, but I think part of the problem with your posts is you just want people to agree with what you want to do, and you are not actually seeking advice.
In the year I have been on this forum, and the year before that just reading it, you ask for advice, but then you do what you want to do anyway, so why ask??
Yes, it is, and I don't mean to be hurtful, but I think part of the problem with your posts is you just want people to agree with what you want to do, and you are not actually seeking advice.
In the year I have been on this forum, and the year before that just reading it, you ask for advice, but then you do what you want to do anyway, so why ask??
Wrong. But perception is reality. I hardly "do what I want" when I don't know what to do!!!
Besides-the post I quoted mentioned what you say I do. PP said that everyone posts and tried to lure me and others to do it their way. If I don't have a clue what to do I can't do whatever I want. I asked about lime or legumes; I got back lots of info and then it went into the "you need fertilizer and don't turn your nose up at chicken litter and chemical stuff because the grass doesn't know any better". I *get* the reason the other info was posted but man, in a year don't you know that I'm not gonna put conventional stuff on my land?
Soil is acidic because of parent material. If plants growing reduced pH the forest would have done it for you thousands of years ago.
Sometimes. But not always. Depends on the type of rock, that is to say parent material. The type of plants has an effect on the soil acidity and it is more acidic in the pine forested areas. The soil acidity influences the types of plants as well so clovers and grasses grow best where the pH is a bit higher more towards neutral.
There are outside influences. We are downwind from the mid-west and it has long been known that the industry and power plants in the mid-west have been sending us acid rain for a century. This has helped to make Vermont and New Hampshire's lakes so lovely and clear, killing the aquatic life and our forests.
Adding more carbon shifts the soil toward a more neutral pH according to the soils extension agent. She's the expert on this. That was her advice, grow grass, legumes and graze it. It worked. Probably this is the build up decaying organic matter in the soil. As the soil sweetened (pH rose) it became more hospitable to grasses and then to legumes so they have done better and better over the years. It's a victorious cycle. If you look at the cyclic back and forth between forest and open land forages you see how the grazers interact with pushing back the forests. Perhaps there is a acid warfare going on between the plants as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by haypoint
If you are downwind from a power plant, the acid rain can lower Ph. So, maybe it is possible that if you were downwind from a concrete plant you could get alkaline rain?
Interesting thought. But then we would have started with alkaline soil if that was the cause. I don't think that is the issue in our case. The acidity changed with doing managed rotational grazing. We put grazing animals on the land and seeded grasses and legumes behind them. Then later brassicas, chicory, millet and other things. Our pastures went from full of mosses to full of grasses, clovers (which like a more neutral pH and we didn't have before), brassicas, etc. The pH rose to near neutral. It was successful and has no correlation with a concrete plant.
I can't lime because of our terrain - I would if I could as it is a faster way to adjust the pH and there are good forms of lime that are long lasting.
I'm not selling anything. Just reporting what the extension agent suggested and how it worked for us.
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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids
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