Often times people report there is a significant difference between front and back soil. This could be due to excavation from the home being piled in one or the other and then spread or topsoil turcked in for the front but not the back, or in larger yards it could be natural occuring differences from historic deposits. Use observations to help you decide. If you do not see significant soil type differences and you have not seen differences in the same turf grass between the yards (for instance yellowing KBG in the front but not the back), one test should be fine from samples from both yards mixed together. Next year, if you are seeing significant differences in the front and back turf, you can get separrate tests. I initially used only one test and it worked fine for me. If I had seen differences between my turf after the first year, I had planned on going to two tests. There is a government geological site that maps soil types and in some instances mapping them to allotment level. Sorry but I can't seem to find the link in my bookmarks, but I'm sure if you google soil profile mapping you'll find it. Soil type is only one variable to consider though. This post was edited by grass1950 on Thu, Feb 7, 13 at 11:03

Okay, I see what you're saying. I missed Albert's part about wanting a cation exchange capacity. Anyway, it's a good value to know in your organic amendment if you're deciding between a couple of choices and increasing nutrient holding capacity is a major concern. As one of the deciding factors, CEC can be one more thing to consider when choosing. To assume that one type of testing has no use because another type of testing is useful is a one-sided approach. That's usually not a good way to address any situation. One should strive to see the whole picture. I do agree that the results of the other tests that you mentioned would be nice to know to get the whole picture, but I was addressing why you would do a chemistry test. (since you asked) When it comes to chemical hazards, I wasn't talking about poisons and herbices. I was talking about salinity, pH, boron, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) and the like. Are any of those going to be a problem in coffee grounds? Probably not, but it's never a bad idea to test something to ensure that what somebody says you're getting is what you're actually getting. I've had situations where a company sells a contractor "nitrolized fir shavings" only to find dangerous levels of boron because their "shavings" were actually ground-up, recycled, pressure-treated plywood. When it comes to salinity yes, testing just one contributing ion one would be a mistake and all of those nutrients are necessary for plant growth. That's why the lab tested all of them. The ECe, gives the overall salinity and addresses it as a single number to give you an idea of the osmotic potential of the salts when combined. Osmotic potential means that they pull and hang on to water. With enough combined salts, this osmotic potential is great enough that the salts can actually pull water with more force than plant roots can pull the water up. In those cases, salts pull water right out of the roots osmotically. That is where the burn on roots comes from. It depends on which plants you're talking about but for salt sensitive plants, that starts at an ECe of around 3.0 dS/m or so. A lot of stuff will start showing symptoms at 4.0 dS/m or greater. Then you look at specific ions because some (notably sodium) also have "specific toxicity". That means that in addition to the problem of osmotic potential, they are also taken up into the plant and act as a poison. So it is a good idea to look at specific ions in addition to as the overall salinity to get the whole picture. When it comes to balancing those minerals, yes. They are all nutrients and they need to be in balance. However, that will only get you so far. You need the whole picture to really address the issue (Gee, I'm sensing a theme). Let's say you have an ECe of 8.0 dS/m and your plants are burning and you find that your salinity is coming largley from magnesium, which is also at a 2(Mg) to 1(Ca) ratio with calcium. Sure, that ratio should be flipped so that you have a 2(Ca) to 1 (Mg) ratio but adding calcium at that point will also raise your salinity. You'll balance that ratio, but your salinity problem will still kill your plants. A different approach should be considered. The ECe is an important tool to help guide those decisions. I think that the confusion regarding organic material comes down to the definition of the term. Lots of people use the term very loosely to mean that the material in question is derived from something that was once alive. That isn't a good definition to use because, as we see here, it leads to confusion. In the particular case I used as an example, nitrate is considered an inorganic substance because it is the product of the neutralization of an acid (and microbes play a big role here). The acid in this case was ammonium (NH4), which is considered a weak acid because of it's ability to make a solution more acidic as it releases hydrogens. The nitrate is then an inorganic polyatomic (more than one atom) anion (an ion with a negative charge). And like I said before, this stuff happens over and over again with lots of different compounds. As materials break down, all sorts of acid and base neutralizations (that's a big reason why composting usually pushes the reaction of stuff towards neutral) and oxidation reduction reactions, microbial activity and all sorts of other stuff take place, and inorganic compounds are formed along the way. Back to blood meal. The nitrogen is more available in blood meal than in other nitrogen sources. However, if you're broadcasting it, the nitrogen material still needs to break down and work its way into the soil. It happens pretty quickly, but it still takes some time and doesn't happen all at once. Is that a pretty high rate? Sure. Would I go that high? Probably not. But nitrogen does not present that "specific toxicty" problem we were just talking about. It's the osmotic potential of the stuff. If it is placed on top, works its way into the soil over time, and is accompanied with sufficient irrigation to ensure that there is enough water to over-come the osmotic pull of the nitrogen, the roots shouldn't burn. I say that because I've seen similar rates of blood meal used successfully in the field time and again by different individuals and agencies. I've also seen rates like that burn plants when poorly managed. It depends primarily on the competency of the person applying. Again, would I recommend that rate? No, you can trust people to be competent. Is it a tactical nuclear strike on plants every time? No, it can be managed. As I said previously, it isn't too awful high.

Hi All, I need some assistance with IAQ installation. I called Honeywell and setup the R jumper to the DHM1 and DHM2 to BK on the A/H board. We turned off Comfort-R for now on jumpers 5 and 6. I pulled out my hand dandy multimeter and measured V at DHM1 and DHM2. I'm measuring 23.x V from DHM1 like I would espect? Also, I would think that I should be measuring lower V at DHM2 when the system is trying to lower humidity, but I don't seem to be. Still measuring in the 23.x range. I have the Stat set for 1 on 370 and 379. I set the humidity lower on the stat as well, but I don't see any voltage drops on the EIM to signify the stat controlling fan speed. What gives? Anything else I can check or I could be doing wrong? I noticed there was no jumper between R and BK on my A/H board already and nothing hooked into BK at all. So I ran the DHM2 wire to the BK connection on the AH board. I've checked for posts in history and it seems I'm doing everything right. I understand the IAQ only lowers fan speed 80% and it doesn't lower voltage that much? I think at one point I did see it at 22V, but I'm not sure now. 80% doesn't seem like very much. Makes me wonder if the IAQ DOD is really better then Comfort ramp up schedule. thanks all, Dale

A SPST (single pole single throw, or plain on-off) switch normally has only 2 terminals. How the NO (normally open) terminal aligns with the switch position depends on the switch's internal geometry. It won't necessarily be the terminal under the depressed side. You should be able to figure out which terminal is which by tracing the wiring of the heater. A SPDT (single pole double throw) switch would have 3 terminals, but there'd be no reason for the manufacturer to use one in your heater. Not that I've never seen it done (with the 3rd terminal left unused), but in this case, since your switch has a lighted handle, the third terminal is for the neutral return of the internal pilot light. Most likely (but not absolutely certainly) the pilot light is a neon bulb. One side will be internally connected to the load terminal. The other side will be connected to the third (neutral) terminal. One side or the other will have a small resistor in series to limit the current through the bulb. You should read essentially infinite resistance across this bulb and resistor, because your ohmmeter doesn't produce the ~90vdc needed to pass a current through a neon bulb. If the pilot light is an LED, which is possible but less likely, the ohmmeter may or may not read a resistance across it, It depends on the voltage your meter presents at its test leads, and the forward voltage of the LED. If your meter has a diode test position, you can use that to test an LED. It should read some lowish voltage (probably around 2 to 2.5v) in one direction, and zero if you reverse the test leads. To answer your question, as I said above, IF that's the load terminal, it should read continuity with the line terminal only when the switch is in the on position.