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Ontario, Canada.

Any growers out there having trouble bringing your PH down.
I have two patches that are fairly well balanced but refuse to come into the compliance ph range of 6.5 to 7.
This has baffled me for awhile until recently when I came upon an article which suggested higher PH can be driven by high Al and or FE levels. When I checked out my numerous soil test results "BINGO". I had extremely high levels of Iron. Now I anm forced to diluted my soil with additional amounts of new virgin soil. Is there any other way to lower fe ppm contents.

11/2/2004 6:39:50 PM

Puyallup, WA

Can you give us your Fe reading? Mine is 66 ppm. pH 6.8.

11/2/2004 11:07:30 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

Patch #1 pH= 6.82, Fe=6109

Patch #2 pH= 6.63, Fe= 5497

July soil test results

11/3/2004 5:25:32 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

ppm

11/3/2004 5:25:42 AM

Walkerton Ont

with my patch i dont know what it is, i have 8.1 ph as of last year, going to check in fall, should i take soil sample before manure goes on. My iron/ nitrogen was lacking as the end of season leaves got yellow and pale. My calicum levels were close to where they should be, i know my soil needs tweaking but what ever im doing must be right as i got good results this year

11/3/2004 8:12:50 AM

Utah

I have a fairly high pH ... 7.8 as do many people in the mountain west. That's just the way the soil and water are around here. I'd have to add like 20 tons of pure sulfer to bring it down. but I did OK this year even with it at 7.8. I think one can do well even with a slightly higher than recommended pH.

11/3/2004 9:29:39 AM

Ontario, Canada.

Patch 1 ph = 7.6,
fe ppm = 162.4 Elevated.
Base Sat k 2.9, mg 6, ca 88

Patch 2 ph = 7.6
fe ppm = 140 Elevated.
Base sat k 5.8, mg 14, ca 77

Now this test with low fe. of 50.8ppm
Ph = 6.6
Base sat k 1.2, mg 10, ca 83

11/3/2004 5:54:31 PM

Ontario, Canada.

Stan, Here is a link to the article.

http://www.soilfirst.com/soil_first_2_2.htm

Dr. William Albrecht, former head of the Agronomy Department at the University of Missouri, found that if a soil's base saturation is properly balanced the pH will always fall in the 6.0 - 6.5 range which is where the most nutrient availability is found. That balance of base saturation percentages is as follows:

Ca 60 - 70%
Mg 10 - 20%
K 2 - 5%
Na .5 - 3%
H 10 - 15%
Others 2 - 4%

Perhaps the most important elements to consider here are calcium and magnesium and their relationship to each other. They should make up 80% of the base saturation on any given colloidal site. If Ca, Mg, K and Na are all within this range hydrogen can only be 10 to 15% of the soil make up. Therefore, pH is going to fall within that 6.0 to 6.5 range.

There are always exceptions to the rule. If the cations are within this desired range and pH is off in either direction then the question must be asked "what is driving pH?" It could be an excess in Aluminum or Iron

11/4/2004 5:10:36 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

My post shows that excess FE doesn't have to be the cause, did any of you see my numbers?
My soil test results, that I regularly post from time to time, and are for real, are completely ignored each and every time I post them, no comments whatsoever. Why? Because they blow out everyone's theories on high this, high that, inhibited uptake this and that.....my results don't support all these nice theories I keep reading about, so they're ignored.
I certainly don't have the skills or experience yet to crank out 800#+ yet, but I will eventually. My plants are sitting in what some would call "toxic" soil, yet grow just fine, healthy, and with no apparent deficiencies. My believe is that a plant won't take up more than it can use and if all is *balanced*, it doesn't matter how high your numbers are, at all. My #'s are outraegeous, but fairly balanced...that's all the proof I need as I see how normally and healthy, my plants grow.
High numbers mean little, *balanced* (as you pointed out) means everything. Folks can keep theorizing this and that, but grow in super-juiced soil and you'll see...high numbers do not mean anything, balanced does.

11/4/2004 7:14:41 AM

Sask, Canada

Kyle:

So what is the rest of your soil test.

In lbs/acre you are looking at 12,218 and 10,994

Seems a little more than toxic when the range for normal gardens are suggested at between, 200 to 450 lbs/acre or 100 to 250 ppm.

TTYL
Ernie
Giant Veggies

11/4/2004 9:27:31 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Russ,

Albrecht did his research in the '50s in New Jersey I believe. The soil science community has moved away from those philosophies. Those findings are not likely to hold true on our crop & your soil.

Focus on adding acidic organic amendments like non-pH adjusted Peat Moss for the long term & possibly adding some garden sulfur to lower the pH in the short term.

I hesitate to encourage adding potash since the Pounds per Acre Available isn't in your posts. What are those values for the Cation Nutrients K, Ca & Mg?

11/4/2004 12:29:34 PM

Ontario, Canada.

Steve, these are examples from some of my prior test results. They represent a possible explanation that something more is driving the high PH levels of the first to samples. I understand that Albrecht's views are
somewhat old news to the new agronomy school of thought. I have pushed my soil heavily to the Calcium side of the scale. It has been a challenge to understand why some the most recent sampling reports are high in PH when its base saturation numbers are balanced. I was merely intriqued by the possible correlation that the article presented.

We then tested Roy's peat muck soil which is rich in OM at 18.7 and loaded with Calcium to the tune of 8990 ppm. With base numbers all over the map. K was only .4%, MG 5% and Ca at 92% my thought was it would be highly alkaline but the test came back with ph sitting at 7.2. This why I can't understand the results. His fe was 246 ppm and was listed as evelvated. It should have been way over the top of 7.2 ph when you look at the numbers. Now I am searching for the correlation.

Here are the numbers you requested for the three samples listed above.
Patch 1, PH 7.6, Sample date March 2004
K = 346 ppm, MG = 210 ppm, Ca = 5308 ppm.

Patch 2, PH 7.6, sample date Sept 2004
K = 794 ppm, MG = 498 ppm, Ca = 4848 ppm.

Patch 3, PH 6.6, sample date Sept. 2003
K = 96 ppm Mg = 242 ppm, Ca = 3487 ppm

11/4/2004 1:58:20 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

It ain't toxic if the plants grow just fine now is it?
Toxic means= capable of causing injury or death
My plants look great!

11/4/2004 6:41:06 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

BTW...look up "soil test results" in Search, under Southern...they've been posted several times in the last few months

11/4/2004 6:42:17 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Thanks. This has been interesting reading. My results were more like Stan's with PH 7.0 and Fe 86.7 PPM. My lab indicated that they were both "optimum" for pumpkins although Fe could go slightly higher.

Glenn

11/4/2004 8:39:23 PM

Ontario, Canada.

Kyle, OMG! are those numbers for real.

11/5/2004 8:09:06 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

Yes, they are real...and my plants *really* do grow quite well, and normal, in that soil and compost. That's what I've been trying to say...high numbers don't necessarily equate to "toxic", or borderline dangerous for the plants.

11/5/2004 10:56:31 AM

Ontario, Canada.

Kyle, do you have the H% saturation levels for any of your tests? If so any of them above >6%. and <15%?

11/5/2004 12:03:41 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

Russ...On my soil tests there are CEC% and BS% reported. When I've sent samples in for a "Waste Analysis" (measures what's in the sample at hand, no extrapolation for expected results per acre, or whatever measurement is used) there is no CCE% or BS% ratings.
Not quite sure what you mean by H% sats? Are you referring to Cation Exchange Capacity?

11/5/2004 12:36:53 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

As Calcium leaches from the cation sights Hydrogen (from water) takes the place. Thus acidity rises. When corrected with Lime, the Hydrogen comes back down again.

pH = potential Hydrogen

11/5/2004 3:16:51 PM

Ontario, Canada.

Kyle, yes hydrogen takes up cation exchange space too. It is often not included in the base saturation numbers though. Hydrogen also drives PH levels lower as Steve has perfectly described above. Thanks, Steve. Mine apparently are lower than most of the samples I have looked at recently on the AGGC. This may also explain my higher than nuetral ph numbers. Also I have found that many of the big boys numbers are shifted with Ca to Mg ratio's as low as 2.5 to 1 in some cases with the average being around 5 to 1. There are some exceptions to this although but not many. Sure would be nice to know who grew what and on what soil content. Did Marv HicKs keep any data on this topic?

11/5/2004 4:43:42 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Hy Hydrogen is almost always 0% as it is now.

11/5/2004 5:12:51 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

Hmmm...learn something from you guys every day it seems. Steve has always impressed me, but lately Russ is showing his stuff too! If I only knew 1/2 as much.
Thanks fellows :0)

11/5/2004 7:31:19 PM

Ontario, Canada.

Thanks Kyle, The science of soil is very complex. The learning curve is very long for me. I continue the agonizing search to find the master key of this finite art of agronomy and how it relates to the AGP.

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

From the linked article above.

PH represents the "power of hydrogen" or perhaps better stated the "percentage of hydrogen". This is a cause
If a soils' base saturation is properly balanced the pH will always fall in the 6.0 to 6.5 range, which is where the most nutrient availability is found.

For example: base saturation percentages will always add up to 100%. Therefore if one cation is low another is high. If we add one cation to the soil it pushes out, or masks, another. Since hydrogen is a major cation, and pH is being driven by the percentage of hydrogen, it is easy to understand that the way to affect pH is to adjust the balance of the base saturation cations.

An important question is: "what is really driving the pH?" If pH is being driven by this balance of cations it goes with reason that any one of the cations can and will affect the soil pH.

A complete base saturation test will consist of Ca, Mg, K, Na, H and other cations. Since these are percentages they will always add up to 100%. Many labs leave out Na and other cations which could throw off the results by as much as 10 - 15%. When trying to balance the chemistry in the soil this difference can be significant.

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11/5/2004 10:16:43 PM

Ontario, Canada.

My recent discovery that a fair percentage of the soil test results in the AGGC do not list the H% cations. Think of this omission as hinden or trojan files on your computer. As long as they pose no problem you have no concern. But when High Ph begins to tie up nutrients its a big problem for the "trilobites" in your soil. What is a grower to do? "You need the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey said. The test results that do report H% can most times be correlated to a Ph level that makes sense to the average grower like myself.

Thanks to all for the discussion. My eyes are being opened as my soil begins to naturally give back its abundent Ca and adjust back to better AGP PH levels. Many of us juice up our soils with ca & mg and through it out of wack as I have noticed in the AGGC test reports. Getting it back quickly is the key that can lead you 1000 pounds and may in fact take years of effort if your not cautious.

11/5/2004 10:17:49 PM