North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark or Helen Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

Some time ago, several of you helped me with questions on soil testing.  I
finally got the fertilizer on.  In case there are others like me who know
little about fertilizer, I thought they may be able to learn from my
experience, or lack thereof.

I got my soil testing done by A&L Labs.  I chose them because I wanted
micronutrients/trace elements checked and they were very reasonably priced
for the amount of work done.  (Most universities won't check for trace
elements.  Cornell will, but they will only give fertilizer recommendations
to NY residents)  It cost me 5 bucks to mail the soil sample and another $20
to have the soil analysis done.  They will tell you how to take the soil
sample.

My soil recommendations for peaches indicated I needed 65 lbs. of N; 100
lbs. of phosphate; 95 lbs. of potash; 2.5 lbs. of zinc; 1 lb. of boron per
acre.

I had a hard time locating some of the fertilizer ingredients.  I only have
one acre, so it's not a very big fertilizer order.  Lawn and garden supplies
carry only standard fertilizer blends and they don't carry things like zinc
and boron.  I went to two different fertilizer coops.  I found one that
would fill the small order.  They sold me 260 lbs. of DiAmmonium Phosphate,
DAP it's called (18%N;46%P;0%K) and 200 lbs. of Potash (0;0;60).  It was a
little more DAP than I wanted but the man dumped too much in the mixing bin.
That mix should yield about 120 lbs. each of P and K and 47 lbs. of N.  It
is a little less N than recommended, but the trees are all young and growing
vigorously so I don't need much N right now.  It cost about $75 including
tax for the load.  They augured the mix in the back of my pickup.  This was
much cheaper than buying it bagged at the local garden supply and trying to
mix it myself.  The garden supply wanted $17 for one 50 lb. bag of
MonoAmmonium Phosphate-MAP (11;52;0).

I still had to get the boron and zinc.  Although it is available on-line, I
wanted to avoid having to purchase 50 lbs. bags and pay shipping costs if
possible.  Bob Purvis suggested I use agricultural Borax for a source of
boron.  I'm pretty sure laundry borax is the same (14% boron), so I bought
two 5 lb. boxes of 20 mule borax at the grocers.  Cost about $5.  I used
about 7 or 8 lbs.  The rest we'll use to whiten our laundry.  The Borax
should yield about 1 lb. of actual boron.  Be careful with the boron, too
much and it sterilizes the soil.  I found zinc sulfate at a coop in
southeast Kansas while visiting relatives.  I could only buy it in a 50 lb.
bag.  The cost was $30.  It contains 35% zinc.  I only used ten pounds which
gives 3.5 lbs. of zinc.  By the way, I have 40 lbs. of zinc sulfate left
over if anyone wants a small quantity and doesn't want to buy a 50 lb. bag
(see below).  It wasn't too bad mixing the zinc but the borax didn't want to
mix very good because it's a powder and all the other ingredients are
granules.  I applied the 480 lbs. of mix with a broadcast spreader.  The
total cost of the testing and fertilizer was $135, not including the cost of
a broken broom from sweeping out the pickup.  I won't plan on doing any soil
testing again for a few years to give the minerals a chance to move down in
the soil.

Mark Angermayer
Zone 5 Kansas- 11F been the coldest so far this season

P.S.   If anyone is interested in a small quantity of zinc sulfate, I would
sell it for the same cost I paid (60 cents/lb.) plus postage and cost of box
to mail it- 10 lb. minimum please.  It is manufactured by
TetraMicronutrients and contains 35.5% zinc and 16.5% sulfur.