North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Jim Fruth" <jimfruth@charter.net>]

Mark,
   Most soil contains buffers and you may have to add more acid to achieve 
the desired pH.  That is why I advise people to wait a year before planting 
an acid-loving crop.  Get the soil to the proper acidity, then plant.
   Before I planted my blueberries, I visited the University of Minnesota 
Blueberry Test Plot.  There I learned that plants in too high a soil pH 
didn't exhibit choruses, rather they took on a purple color.  I didn't think 
to ask how it affected yield.

Our soil is 7.0  pH based on two different soil tests (A&L Labs).  Last fall 
I decided I wanted to plant blueberries.  I rented a skid loader and dug out 
room for two blueberry beds.  After removing a significant amount of topsoil 
and piling it up. I put a generous amount of leaf litter down.  Then added 
some sulfur on the leaf litter.  Then added the topsoil back to make a 
couple of terraces for the blueberry plants.  Then added more sulfur and a 
little urea.  In the spring I planted the blueberries.  So far they show no 
signs of iron chlorosis.  The funny thing is though, I checked the pH of the 
soil at the blueberry root zone (about 4 inches down) about a month ago.  It 
measured still measured 7.0.  It appears to take awhile for the bacteria to 
lower the pH and for the sulfur to leach down.


Mark wrote:  "Our soil is 7.0  pH based on two different soil tests (A&L 
Labs).  Last fall I decided I wanted to plant blueberries.  I rented a skid 
loader and dug out room for two blueberry beds.  After removing a 
significant amount of topsoil and piling it up. I put a generous amount of 
leaf litter down.  Then added some sulfur on the leaf litter.  Then added 
the topsoil back to make a couple of terraces for the blueberry plants. 
Then added more sulfur and a little urea.  In the spring I planted the 
blueberries.  So far they show no signs of iron chlorosis.  The funny thing 
is though, I checked the pH of the soil at the blueberry root zone (about 4 
inches down) about a month ago.  It measured still measured 7.0.  It appears 
to take awhile for the bacteria to lower the pH and for the sulfur to leach 
down."