North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Richard Moyer" <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

Alan,

Suggestions for your sites:

1)  Are you sure of pH 7.6?  Is it confirmed by more than one test/lab?  Are the plants thriving there indicative of a basic pH?  I submitted multiple soil samples for our new farm; one came back pH 7.6.  But the broomsedge thriving on that steep hillside indicates a lower pH.  Our NRCS contact suggests testing that hillside again.

 

2)  Can't remember the details, but certain Vaccinium species can thrive in basic pH.  Some NAFEXers or Southern Fruit Fellowship folks have reported grafts of commercial blueberry cultivars on such rootstocks adapted to basic soils.  Is Lee Sharp one such case?  I have also seen wild strawberries (Fragaria) on a variety of soils.  Are certain cultivars more tolerant of

 

3)  For certain sites, it may be easier to remove unsuitable soil and replace it with suitable soil.  My father removed ~2 ft of heavy clay subsoil, filled the area (~200 sq ft) with rotted sawdust and sand, and has had blueberries there for over 40 years.  Only addition has been more organic matter, usually leaves or sawdust.  How deep is the offending soil layer at your two sites?

 

4)  Soil swap.  It may be that the high pH soil could be mixed with low pH soil at another site, and the resultant mix improve the soil at both sites.  (Remember that the pH scale is logarithmic, in determining proportions of mix.)  The pH of several batches could be tested on site, to determine the proportions.  Some mineral amendments may still be needed.

 

Good luck,

Richard Moyer

Castlewood, VA

Moving gooseberry and currant plants today.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 10:55:39 -0500
From: "Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>
Subject: [NAFEX] agronomy question
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID:
       <1f544d60901020755i4421da03peedbe65e1266399e@mail.gmail.com">1f544d60901020755i4421da03peedbe65e1266399e@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I am in the Northeast and in the many years I have dealt with hundreds of
sites and soils I have always been able to deal with pH issues with either
the addition of lime or sulfur.  I only rarely run into base soils and when
I have it is always the result of a lot of native limestone in the soil.

I have been hired as a troubleshooter recently at 2 sites where testing
reveals soils that are very low in calcium, magnesium and manganese
andsodium, but high in most other tested minerals.  The pH at both sites is
around 7.6.  Because measured sodium is low so I'm guessing the soils may be
sodic.  The soils are medium course, without excess clay and have a good
amount of organic matter.

On one of the sites they are trying to modify for blueberry and strawberry
production on the other mixed vegetables (home orchards and veg gardens for
tripple digit millionaires).  Any suggestions, especially amending
proportions per 100 sq.ft?

Does gypsum supply any magnesium as does dolomitic lime?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex/attachments/20090102/32d58b5e/attachment-0001.htm