Soil test results.

16 years ago

Let me start by saying that I intend to stop by the extension office for help understanding the test results and the recommendations that came with them.

I got two soil tests done. One specifically for the area where my two citrus trees are growing. The other was general samples around the yard in places I may put veggie garden beds.

The owners of the house before me use lots of chemical fertilizers and did nothing to build up the sandy soil.

Citrus-

Target pH: 6.5

pH (1:2 Sample:Water) 6.1

A-E Buffer Value: 7.84

Melich-1 Extractable

Phosphorus (ppm P) > 335 above Very High

Potassium (ppm K) 60 Med High

Magnesium (ppm Mg) 129 Very High

Calcium (ppm Ca) > 2064

They gave a lime recommendation of 519 lbs per acre

It looks like they forgot to fill in the amount of recommended nitrogen

They don't recommend any Phosphorus

and they seem to have forgotten to fill in the recommended amount of potassium.

There are also some footnotes attached.

Veggie Garden-

Target pH: 6.5

pH (1:2 Sample:Water)5.7

A-E Buffer Value: 7.89

Mehlich-1 Extractable

Phosphorus (ppm P) > 132 above Very High

Potassium (ppm K) 26 Low

Magnesium (ppm Mg) 86 Very High

Calcium (ppm Ca) 966

They recommend;

Lime: 1.3 lb per 100 sf

Nitrogen .2 lb per 100 sf

Phosphorus 0 lb per 100 sf

Potassium .3 lb per 100 sf

There are also some footnotes attached.

I find all this quite interesting. I had done some of those home soil tests and the pH alwasy seemed to show close to neutral. I've also used one of those probe pH testers but it must be malfunctioning as it was showing a pH above 7. I had figured with the sandy soil and hard water that the pH would be closer to neutral. Does using chemical fertilizers cause the soil to acidify?

I suppose the high Phosphorus shouldn't suprise me as phosphate mining is kinda a big deal here in FL.

What are some good sources of Potassium?

They test for Magnesium but it doesn't look like I need that right now.

They test for calcium, I'm not sure why unless it has something to do with the lime recommendation?

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Comment (1)

Kimmsr
16 years ago
What influences your soils pH is the number of free hydrogen ions floating around in there, and one of the problems that is being discovered today is the high amount of phosphorus in many soils and that this phosphorus, once thought to be fairly stable in soils, is ending up in our lakes and streams and causing large amounts of algae to grow that is choking our water supply. The soil test labs no longer test for N because how much will be available to plants is strongly influenced by soil temperatures, ie. the soil bacteria working away in your soil feeding your plants.
One good source of any of those nutrients is organic matter. The amount of lime recommended is about .012 pounds per square foot, a really negligable amount and not really worth trying to spread. You want a soil pH between 6.2 adn 6.8 because that is where most all soil nutrients are most easily available for plants, and increasing the amount of humus in your soil will also influence the soils pH.
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I know next to nutthin 'bout reading soil tests but a couple of advisories. Depending on who did the testing, some labs give recommendations for lime for agricultural purposes where they expect the lime to be mixed into the soil rather than spread on top. Keep in mind that grass does best in soil that is at a PH of 6.5ish or so.and that it is much easier to increase PH than it is to reduce it. So if you add to much lime... Second thing to keep in mind is that you do not want to add more than one pound of N per month at a time to an existing lawn. Also too much N in a seed bed is not beneficial to seedlings and can kill germenating seeds Thirdly, N and P leach pretty quickly, so adding more than the plant can use before they leach out is both a waste of money and bad for the enviorment. Maybe there are some soil test readers here, If not, I'd suggest you re-do the test with Logan Labs and pay for them to make recommendations. Just my two cents.
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Whatever you do, you do not need Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) on your lawn. Excess magnesium ions, which you have in spades, causes the soil to become gummy as if it were clay. That might have been the reason you got the soil test to begin with. The cation exchange value of 12.4 says the soil is not clay but has a healthy amount of particles which do not hold onto cations. In other words, sand. That means your soil has some ability to hold ionic nutrients, but nothing like clay does. It is entirely possible to have gummy, sandy, soil. Your organic matter looks good. Still I would use organic fertilizer rather than chemical fertilizer. That's just me. Soil pH is below 7 making it slightly acidic. The ion that often makes a soil acidic is sulfate, so stay away from fertilizers heavy in sulfate, for example ammonium sulfate. It would appear the soil has plenty of calcium, which is normally how people raise the pH of their soil, but you're already up there with both Ca and Mg. It could be that previous owners simply did what their neighbors did and dumped lime every year just because. I am not a soil test guy. The real soil test folks recognize the interactions between the current chemistry and the consequences of adding additional chemistry. I cannot tell you what to use, when, how often, or where to find products. What morpheuspa did not mention was that you could get the $25 soil test from Logan Labs in Ohio and get it read on the other website. They will do the Logan Labs reading for free, and do a much better and more authoritative job than I'll ever be able to do.
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IME water is most likely to be the issue as others have said. Unamended soils in the Cleveland area (where I started gardening) tend to have very high clay content and water tends to move very slowly through it. Since you are adding a moisture retentive mix like the Miracle Grow garden soil where water tends to move easily, what is most likely happening is that you are creating what gardeners refer to as a bathtub effect. Water moves easily into the MG you added to the hole, but the tight clay soils that surround it prevent excess water from moving away so the roots remain sitting in water and the plant drowns. You want to do a home perc test in the area you want to plant which will test how well water drains. Then come back and share the results, and we can talk about what to do next. In general, however, research has shown that adding anything other than native soil to an individual planting hole is an issue because it typically causes water movement problems, but that does not mean that there is nothing you can do to have a garden. Directions on how to do a perc test: https://todayshomeowner.com/diy-soil-drainage-perk-test-for-your-yard/ And if you want to know the percent of the three general sizes of soil particles (sand, silt, and clay) in your soil, you can do a simple home texture analysis. https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/soil-texture-analysis-the-jar-test/ and congratulations to you for taking the time to come here and ask about what is causing the problems!
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Soil test results.

Comment (1)

Kimmsr

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