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dcs_woodworker

Soil Test results

14 years ago

Hi,

New to the forum and to gardening. I recently had my soil tested and I was hoping someone could help explain the results to me. I know my ph is rather high (7.7) Should I be concerned about the other measurements? The water in my area is very hard...and that might explain the high ph. I've added some compost this fall to help bring the ph down. My garden is a semi raised bed 10'x10'. I had some success this year doing a square foot gardening technique.

Thanks for your input.

Doug

Comments (5)

  • 14 years ago

    I have similar soil with ph=7.6 and too high P and K. That is too much compost typically. Well, you will never have perfect potatoes, or very large tomato plants, but most everything else grows well at 7.6 (and tomatoes and potatoes are still productive).

    Elemental sulfur may help, but only if you have good reason to change the pH (if, for example, you want to grow grapes). I find this soil to be the best for virtually all brassica, chard, beet, cardoon, lettuce, so I add nothing but leaves, wood chips, and nitrogen.

  • 14 years ago

    Mn soils tend to run high pH's...great apple growing area as a result.

    It's hard to determine how effective elemental S additions (or how much to add, rather) would be without knowing the soil's CEC (cation exchange) because it's almost useless until you can get the base saturation of basic cations (+charged) lowered. The pH would remain basically the same until you can overcome this threshold.

    It's kinda weird/disappointing the soil's CEC isn't listed on the soil report. It's useful information.

    There might be general guidelines based on the soil classes in your area that your extension office can suggest. When your pH is hovering around 7.5 it's very hard to damage your soil with additions even if they're generalizations. Generally, not adding enough is more dangerous (to your pocketbook via ineffectiveness) than adding too much.

    If it's a smaller garden you're after you can always build some raised beds where you can control the soil you fill it with sitting in the first 6-12"+ of the root zone. It's not a total solution, but it gives more acid-loving plants a better chance at thriving. That can get kinda costly, though, depending on your sources and construction.

  • 14 years ago

    CRN is right. On the other hand, my soil test was exactly like his, except they gave me Mg and Ca content too, they just do not give that info to you. The poor man test for adding sulfur is: take a lump of soil, dry and pulverize it, then add wine vinegar. If it bubbles, you are stuck with that pH. If not, you can add, assuming a target pH of 6.5, something of order of 2-3 lbs for a 10X10 thing.
    It will take time.

    Adding wood chips (pH=5-5.3) or peat (pH about 4) will not help long term, the ions are bound, and then as the decay is completed, released again.

    As I say I am perfectly happy with 7.6. There are a lot of veggies that love the high calcium (In my case, 0.44% of soil), and I tend to prefer those veggies too. Other plants that prefer it a bit acidic (such as any squash) give me sufficient production. I just wish for a little more acidity to make better melons. I did add sulfur under the grapes.

  • 14 years ago

    I figured I would look again at my soil test, and in fact the CEC was given. Here it is. You can see from P, K and OM that I have always been liberal with leaves and chips, although when I started this was light brown clay (it is now Worm City).
    I also recycle all vegetable refuse at the end of season by burying it into one of the unused beds.

    P 90ppm
    K 274 ppm
    Mg 857 ppm
    Ca 4800 ppm
    CEC 0meq/100gr
    pH 7.6
    Organic content 20%

    Given the CEC I could put down some sulfur and it would work, but as I say, I am very happy with the soil. Here in the North, leaves and roots are what keeps you strong, not short season solanaceae fruits.

  • 14 years ago

    Thanks for everyone's responses. I guess I'll keep up with the compost and maybe add some sulfur.