Link Smink, the county soil engineer will probably uses MercedesShop like the rest of us.

Trying to grow enough grass for cattle to graze.

I have an email off the the local NRCS requesting info.

Last yr I had a soil analysis done by a local fertilizer dealer. The results was amazing stating that it needed a little of everything they had in stock. No mention of lowering the ph.

Use the link JD furnished, they are not in the fertilizer business. I know that in some soil conservation districts get what they need for a very small cost or free.

usually the fertilizer dealers are pretty dependable -- they want to establish a long term relationship with you. As you raise cattle you will need him again -- cows eat grass, grass goes away in the form of animal tissue requiring replenishment of the soil so the grass can keep growing to produce more meat, etc. Soil amendments should be tailored to the use. It takes different nutrients for cattle, tomatoes, artichokes, and cotton.

You may have come across one of those salesmen who thinks short-term or who does one-size-fits-all recommendations. They're in every industry.

I didn't get a "harrumph" from that man at the end of the table!

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

Bingo. Its free here--the agent and I have become friends. Their only agenda is to help you, and they generally have a lot of free time on their hands because no one uses them.

Watch yer ass, I'm keeping an eye on you.

As one who works in soil much of the time ( engineering; not agricultural) the toughest part of any soils test is obtaining that mythical "representative sample".

I did a job several years ago where the Engineer went with me to collect samples. He took a sample on which we subsequently ran a full battery of tests. We then did the testing for the next 5 years of construction on that site. I am certain that the shovel-full of earth that the Engineer obtained was the ONLY shovel-full of that particualr soil on the entire 200+ acre sit. We never matched it up with any soil used anywhere.

__________________
1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Good point, MS. There's a whole science concerning geographic interpolation of elevation on a surface from known points. It was developed mostly by a South African soil scientist/statistician IIRC. Geostatistical analysis. His method of making maps from point samples is called, kriging. It has found application in other disciplines, too.

http://en.mimi.hu/gis/kriging.html
http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/neurobio/land/OldStudentProjects/cs490-94to95/clang/kriging.html

Bot

I got a guy trying to sell me a "Agri-Grow" a bio-stimulant.

He says it will cure all.
http://www.agrigro.com/aboutus.html


Yesterday afternoon I selected several sample spots in one pasture, dug down below what little organic stuff there was and mixed 'em all together in a ziplock. Sending it off asap to see what it needs.

My top soil is a silt loam with small flakes of limestone. Down about 2 feet, in most areas, its rock, some as shallow as 4". In the areas where its real shallow I've been piling up brush from clearing. I figure nothing will grow there and the organic matter might eventually help. Plus, it offers shelter for small wildlife since I'm clearing their natural shelter for pasture.
They seem to prefer Mercedes though.

Ever since I received two really, really different soil test results from basically the same location at BHF, I've been skeptical about the quality of TAMUs testing. Last fall we took samples again and for grins, one of the samples I split and put into two differently marked bags. Guess what? The same dirt came back with different results.

WmCo in Taylor, TX has a number for an independent testing lab thet does analysis for the same price as TAMU. You might also call Betsy Ross at Ross Farms and see who she uses for soil tests.

__________________
Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

^^^ Back when I used to run elemental analysis on an ICP we'd put a QC check every so often and a blind, spiked sample randomly placed in the sample tray. Knowing those samples were in there kept me on my toes. Any good lab will do that. I am very surprised that TAMU gives unreliable results. Just for giggles, next time you send them a sample tell them that you have some dupes but don't tell them which.

On your end, part of what you need to do is thoroughly homogenize your sample. there are lots of methods of soil analysis. The method I used was (IIRC) 20 ml of hot nitric acid on 2 grams of dry, ground soil to extract P, K, Ca, Fe, Cu, Mg, Mn, Mo, B, S, and Zn ... I think that's all. put the slurry into a sealed teflon vessel and microwave it at 400 watts for something like 15 minutes. Then put it on a shaker table before filtering. We were after total extraction or all soluble elements -- everything except silica, pretty much. each sample was run through an ultrasonic nebulizer and squirted into the ICP.

Each sample was duplicated 3 times in extraction and then each duplicate was split into 2 vials for the ICP run.

You would think that with all of that duplication and QC's and random checks and rigorous attention to detail that we would have nearly identical results. Well, ... I had to re-run an a few samples because of spurious QC results or wildly different pseudoreplicates. It's the nature of the samples, methods, and analytical tools.

If I were you (anybody), I would take extreme care in sampling. Thi is how I did it: remove the leaf litter and expose the soil over about a ft^2 area. Use a soil probe or trowel and scoop a small amount of soil from each of 3 different holes within that 1 ft^2 area. Put the 3 samples together in a large baggy and mix the heck out of the sample, taking care not to let sweat drip into the bag (changes the nitrogen and sulfur content). Make sure all lumps are thoroughly broken and mixed. Remove pebbles and concretions (those lime clods that resist breaking). You now have enough soil for probably 1,000 samples. Take 3 samples from your mixing bag of an ounce or so and put them in 3 baggies. Label the baggies with some random labeling (which you record). repeat that process with a clean mixing bag for each sample.

If your area is homogeneous in soil type then you only need a minimum of 3 separate samples (of 3 pseudoreplicates each). If your area is more variable then you need a minimum of 3 samples (of 3 pseudoreps) per sub area.

By doing this, you will have enough samples to get a mean and a standard error for each area. That will tell you how much variability you have in each area. Also, the fertilizer recommendations can also be averaged and a standard error derived. This will tell you how much variability you can play with in your fertilizer rates.

Also make sure you ask for not just NPK and calcium, but also soil micronutrients.

It is expensive, no question. But you don't need to run the detailed sampling & analysis every year. Next year just take a single sample from each area and run that. You already know how much variability is in each area so you wont have to check that again.

Bot

Thanks for the insight. I like to think we do a good job in getting the soil samples gathered and homognized properly. Of course, anything can happen in gathering and testing.

What I probably should have said in summation, was that if you get an wildly outlying test result, another test should probably be done.

__________________
Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

I went through that lengthy reminiscence to offer insight into the process and to demonstrate where variability might come from and how it can be lessened, but not eliminated. I didn't intend to offer patronization. My fault. If you are certain that you did a proper job of homogenizing your soil then the only thing left is the analytic methodology. It happens -- I've been on both sides of that problem many times.

B

This would have been useful.

http://www.txplant-soillab.com/wallannc.pdf


I'm considering using TPSL.

http://www.txplant-soillab.com/page5.htm