What you are telling me is don'y worry? Not at all. A professional soil test is a great thing to have. But your expectations of what a soil test is and isn't have to be realistic too. A soil test isn't a cure-all in any way. And it isn't a static thing anyway. It changes constantly depending on weather and what you do to it. That is one reason why many labs no longer test for N levels - they change weekly or even daily. Why don't you think that you should know everything about your soil? First, because it isn't possible. Like I said soil isn't a static thing. It is alive and it changes. Second, because minute testing for non-relevant things don't exist or are cost-prohibitive. Soil testing is done for the purposes of fertility. So you only need to be concerned with what is relative to plants growing in the soil - the items I listed above - and how those test results relate to the norms. That is what most any soil test will provide. Sure if someone wanted to fork out several hundred dollars they can have it tested for all sorts of extra things like mercury and other toxic metals, specific types of bacteria, dissolved N vs. free N, the number of specific soil dwellers per sq. foot, and so on and so on unlimited. And yes, there are labs out there that will give you anything you want whether you need it or not as long as you are willing to pay for it. For example, when you say "Never told me if there was anything tied up.if anything was tied up.". I'm not sure what you mean but no soil test is going to tell you that. You can't test for "bound up nutrients" if that is what you mean. But they will tell you your soil pH and that is what will determine if the nutrients are available tot he plants. And most reputable labs aren't going to tell you specifically what to add since the choice is yours of the many things available - both organic and synthetic. All they make is general recommendations such as "x amount of nitrogen in some form" and "pH needs to be reduced to optimal levels by the addition of one of the following. Interpretation of the test results is up to the gardener. so I know that the soil well give my plants the minerals best and that nothing will be tied up as fare as minerals so the plants well be able use use everything and they well give the best yield. Please don't fall into the trap of believing that you can somehow create perfect garden soil. You can't. If that were possible then we would all have the perfect gardens. Instead it is always changing, it is always in need of something. Nor can having what some test tells you is perfect soil today can guarantee the perfect plants with the perfect yield. It just doesn't work that way and never has for any of us. While good soil is important of course, many gardeners are very successful with a WIDE variety of different soils all with a wide variety of different shortcomings. Soil is only one of the many variables of gardening. I hope this helps clarify things. Dave

Thanks for the tips on interpreting the water report. Here's my take on what I'm reading at the PDF linked below. pH: avg 8.11, max 8.64 - From the tap, my aquarium test kit tells me I get water closer to the high end of the reported pH range: 8.4. I understand this to mean that I should add vinegar to the water when I water the plants, to bring the pH closer to 6 or 7. I will mix up some samples at various concentrations and use the test kit to determine how much vinegar to use. Alkalinity (Total as CaCO3): avg 94 ppm, max 107 ppm - Based on Oxboy555's recommendation above, with alkalinity around 100 ppm I plan to flush the pots regularly using Al (Tapla)'s techniques, to wash salts out of the 5-1-1 potting mix I will use. Using the indices described on the Wikipedia page for Hard water, I can determine: Ryznar Aggressive Index: avg 7.58, max 8.29 -- "For 6.5 For RSI > 8 water is under saturated and, therefore, would tend to dissolve any existing solid CaCO3 For RSI Langlier Index: avg 0.27, max 0.76 -- "In practice, water with an LSI between -0.5 and +0.5 will not display enhanced mineral dissolving or scale forming properties. Water with an LSI below -0.5 tends to exhibit noticeably increased dissolving abilities while water with an LSI above +0.5 tends to exhibit noticeably increased scale forming properties." Calcium Hardness: avg 104 ppm, max 125 ppm -- Moderately hard to Hard water Calcium: avg 41.7 ppm, max 50 ppm Magnesium: avg 16.6 ppm, max 19.6 ppm Potassium: avg 3.86 ppm, max 4.26 ppm Sulphur: not listed -- This is where I'm lacking any useful context. Is 41 ppm a lot? A little? What target should I be comparing these numbers to? I would appreciate some input from our brilliant experienced growers, soil scientists, and chemists in the group. Thanks! Here is a link that might be useful: Physical, Mineral, and Metal Characteristics

piedmontnc summed things up rather nicely but I'll just chime in with this: When testing something, isn't it counter-intuitive to introduce additional ingredients? : Actually, the majority of lab work is done by adding other ingredients. As we've been discussing, a deflocculating agent is added for the textural analysis. In regards to the chemistry portion, the lab has to knock stuff off of the surface of soil particles so that they can be measured by machines, which is done by adding a lot of different stuff, depending on your needs. Sometimes it's an acid, sometimes it's a chelating agent, sometimes is bicarbonate, sometimes it's a cocktail of reagents,etc. Many times, something is detected and measured through a titration in which you keep adding a chemical to a solution until you get the expected reaction and the amount of the chemical that you used tells you how much of the thing you are looking for is in the solution. Lab work is all about adding stuff to what you're testing. Arsenic - strikes me as ubiquitous from the get-go. Yes, it is. How much is too much? That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question and the answer depends on a number of factors. Are you concerned with human exposure to the soil? Plant toxicity? Toxicity to you due to uptake of arsenic by the plants? Ground water contamination? All of the above? Because they will all have different thresholds. Then the answers depend on a whole slew of things including, but not limited to, depth to the water table, soil texture, organic percent, soil pH, the form that the arsenic is in, what you're growing and on and on. Again, I don't think that every time someone uses ironite an angel cries or anything. I just think that there is an, as yet to be determined, potential for crossing one of those thresholds. When there are other options available, I tend to take the cautious route. That's just how I roll. kimmsr and since the professor of soil science I long ago got this simple test from stated that nothing exceopt the soil and water needed to be added to get a good result I've met some brilliant soil science professors, some that pretty much know what they're talking about and some that I have an urge to call after every good rain just to make sure they didn't drown while looking up to see what was falling on them. Don't be too star struck by the title "professor". I see no reason to add anything to flocculate or hold in suppension I know ya don't, buddy. I know ya don't.

Arid soils are typically high in sodium, and the alkalinity is separately derived from the carbonate that is usually associated with calcium, but can also be associated with any other metal cation (eg., magnesium, or sodium). Was the soil tested for sodium level and calcium, along with the pH ? You can have "high calcium", but high is relative to the soils ability to bind and hold positively charged metal ions (that's CEC). As I noted in my previous post if you don't have free lime in the soil then reducing sodium levels is usually accomplished by adding more calcium. If the soil is alkaline, which arid soils that are sodic typically are, then you don't want to add more carbonate which would further raise pH, hence the use of gypsum which adds the calcium as a soluble and pH neutral sulfate instead of lime (calcium carbonate). If you have enough free lime, then adding sulfur along with using very clean water (low in both sodium and carbonate and pH neutral to slightly acidic) can do the job. The recommendation to add both sulfur and gypsum suggests your soil is high enough in sodium that it is a concern for plant growth and health, and that the available calcium is not sufficient to mobilize the sodium. It further suggests that you don't have any appreciable free lime in the soil (mine has chunks of it - enough that adding sulfur at any reasonable rate won't much touch the pH). The other culprit that plays a role in the whole thing is water quality. If your water is high in sodium then it becomes difficult to mobilize and remove sodium with that water source. If your irrigation water is very hard and alkaline with high calcium and carbonate levels (as is mine), then using sulfur to lower pH and effect free lime conversion doesn't really work (in my case I add ~0.5 lbs of lime per 1000 sq feet for every inch rain equivalent of irrigation). So what was tested other than pH, and who did the analysis? Did they report analytical levels, (eg., ppm or lbs per acre)?