I'm trying to figure out what these results are telling me, how much lime am I needing to put out? We are planting multiple plots, anywhere from 1/4 acre to 2 acres. We have a tractor with implements.
Its telling you what your ph is in the chart. Then below the chart it says what1,2 and 3 tons of lime or fertilizer will do. You need to have at least 5 tons to have a great yo grow what ever you want.
Hopefully you have a tiller attachment so you can put down more than 4 tons an acre (the max per year when disking in) of lime because you are going to need it. Your soil is very acidic. I called your lab because they didn't make the proper recommendations for you and because you had some very unusual liming results. They said they had expected somebody would red flag those results (apparently nobody did) so they still have some of the soil sample you sent in and they are going to retest what they have left for pH recommendations. They asked me to call back Friday. As it stands, my guess is that you would need at least 8 tons an acre to even consider growing clover and to have "OK" growth of most other common food plot plants, but it should have more like 12 tons an acre. You can't add that much all in one year, but if you have a tiller you can add 6-7 tons an acre as long as you go over it SLOWLY a few times. Also the finer ground lime you can find the faster it will bring up the PH. They also told me you have a silty clay loam soil. The good thing about this is the lime should stay put quite well and you will never have to add such a huge amount of lime again. You may have to add a light application several years down the road for maintenance, but that's about it. Also, you want to make sure to use Calcitic lime NOT dolomitic lime. The reason I say this is because your Magnesium is extremely high and dolomitic lime would raise it even more. So again, make sure you use Calcitic lime. Your sulfur is low so I would use 100 lbs an acre of Ammonium sulfate as your nitrogen source, but if you can't find it (it shouldn't be a problem) you can also use 200lbs an acre of 34-0-0-12 fertilizer instead. After that use a different source for your nitrogen like urea or ammonium nitrate. You can also use 100lbs an acre of Gypsum (0-0-0-22). Since there is no nitrogen in Gypsum you can put it all out at once and well before the crop if you want. Your phosphorous is so low it is virtually nonexistent. I have never seen it that low before. I would put down at least 200lbs an acre of 0-46-0 and if you can afford it put down 300lbs. Assuming you get the lime down this spring I would say this year you are looking at keeping it simple with a cereal grain like oats. Next year with a second application of lime you could do some Round Up ready corn with some RR forage soybeans so you could kill off the weeds and then frost seed clover the following spring. Also, how deep did you take your soil sample? My comments are based on a 6" deep soil sample.
P.S. Once your done doing all this you will be able to grow crops that will make many a food plotter jealous.
Wow, thanks for all of the information. We don't know much about all of the liming and fertilizers, so the more information the better. We only have a set of disk for planting and liming, so I guess we will have to take the slower, more gradual approach. Our land is all woods, no fields are even in the area. We have a few small food plots that we are going to plant. We just bought the land in Oct '10, so we haven't been able to do much with it yet. I've heard the soil in wooded areas is very acidic so we figured we would be having to put a lot of lime out over the next few years. We dug the dirt from in the woods, not actually in one of our food plots since we plan on creating a few more food plots. The dirt we used was basically from the top soil, to about 4 inches down. I'm not sure what all we will plant over the next few years, but we will probably just keep it simple for the next couple of years. Just wheat, oats and maybe some vetch in the spring. Thank you again for all of the information and anymore would be appreciated.
It sounds like you have a lot of work to do clearing your land. I assume you told them that the soil sample was from a depth of 4" correct? Is that all the deeper your top soil is? Also, will your food plots be primarily surrounded by evergreens or deciduous trees?
No, I just gave them the soil. I didn't know what to tell them, other than fill out the information on the form when I turned in the soil. The woods are primarily hardwoods, with some pines mixed in on the ridges and high areas.
