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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Soil test results

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Greg Bell <gregbell@znet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Soil test results
  • Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:26:09 +1000 (EST)


Ok, here's what the soil testing service told me about these values:

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Electrical Conductivity dS/m 3.7

This is a measure of salinity, and it should be < 0.15. Wow, I'm way off. I'm hoping the recent rains washed this out. They said excessive fertilizer could be a reason, but my low N levels would seem to contraindicate too much fertilizer use. Of course, the tap/hose water I'm using would be the other possible contributor. I'll water with saved rainwater as much as I can, and make sure to water thoroughly with the hose when I have to use that. Any other suggestions?


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pH (CaCl2) pH 6.0

They say 5-5.5 is preferred, but this recommendation surprised me a bit when neutral is 7.0 and a few quick google searches (and the New Organic Grower) say 6-6.5.


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Bray Phosphorus mg/kg 310

They say > 50 is good. Dunno if 310 is too much.


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Total Organic Carbon % 11

They say > 2% is good.


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KCl extractable Ammonium (NH4-N) mg/kg 12
KCl extractable Nitrate (NO3-N) mg/kg 5.6

These are totaled to get about 18 mg/kg. They say > 20 is recommended for growing veggies. This is a suprising result given all the compost I used in filling the bed. Not sure what accounts for this low N, especially considering that the very-high Phosphorus level probably came from my use of Blood and Bone meal (so the high-N blood meal should've given me enough N).

As Ryan indicated in a previous email, perhaps the N is being bound up in the decomposition of the high Carbon materials...


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Calcium cmol(+)/kg 41

should be > 5

Potassium cmol(+)/kg 11

should be > 0.5

Magnesium cmol(+)/kg 9.2

should be > 1.6

Sodium cmol(+)/kg 1.7

should be > 1


They say a Calcium/Magnesim ratio should be > 2 otherwise update of potassium is hindered. Mine's about 4.


Thanks for reading this far, and for any comments. I hope this info was interesting or useful to everyone.

~gb




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