North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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

Hi Jerry,

 

There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about the effect of pine needles on pH.  The basic jist seems to be pine needles only lower pH if they are grown on acidic soil to start with.  Pine needles grown on alkaline soil will not lower pH.  Regarding sulfur to lower pH, I don't know if it's the best way, but it's probably the cheapest.  Whether or not you use it may depend on how much sulfur you have in your soil already (although I think it's pretty rare for fruit trees to develop sulfur toxicity).  7.5 pH is not bad out of line, although it's on the upper range for most fruit trees.  Ours was 6.9 last summer and I added a little sulfur to bring it down a bit, but also to counteract the very alkaline water I use to irrigate (9.4 pH). 

 

Mark

Kansas

----- Original Message -----

From: Jerry

To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 8:19 AM

Subject: [NAFEX] soil ph

I posted a question yesterday about lowering ph in my soil which has a fair amount of clay, tho not tons. I had used horse manure, horse bedding actually, which contained manure and absorbed urine, in a sawdust base.  I do not know what the sawdust was from.  I had the soil tested at the local farm bureau, and it was quite fertile, but too basic.--ph of 7.5.  The person doing the testing said it was probably due to the horse urine, which would decompose to ammonium hydroxide, which, of course would be basic.

 

I had read another post, which prompted my question, about adding gypsum to soil to loosen up clay (which is really not that necessary for me as it tills up quite nicely) but which also lowers ph.

 

So here are my questions:

1.  Does gypsum really lower ph?

2.  Do pine needles lower ph?  I've heard they do,  but one person say no way.

3.  Are compost and sulfur the best way to go?

4.  Does horse urine really make soil acid, as several have said?  I'm surprised at that.

 

Thanks for all your help!   Jerry in southern Indiana

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