Post
by andy10917 » March 21st, 2020, 4:16 pm
FstLaneUA, I see changes in the soil composition that cannot be explained by your published regimen. Listen, I'm not here to be the police (you can do whatever you want to), but in reviewing your postings from last year, I see a question about the use of 19-19-19, and the changes I see would map pretty well to the use of that. I'm OK with whatever you choose to do, but I need to understand what's been done in order to build a plan for 2020...
Did you use stuff that is not listed in what you posted as your 2019 nutrients?
OK, I'm going ahead and using what you said you did -- this may need adjustment if you forgot to post ingredients from last year.
I see a soil that changed very little in structure - the TEC is nearly identical, and the OM% moved from the weakest number of 2019 to still a very weak number, and well-within the sampling error rate. You can ignore it if you wish, but the money and nutrients that you're buying will leach out of that soil very quickly until some part of the budget and effort goes to an aggressive OM campaign. Just sayin'...
There is some evidence that the natural processes that will some day make that soil/fill come back to the natural pH of the Halfmoon area - but again, it could be the use of nutrients not in your list. The drop of 7.7 to 7.3 is larger than I'd expect for a single year.
In the cations, I do see a significant rise in Potassium, but it's still years away from what we'd like to see. Good on the Potassium work! The Calcium and Magnesium essentially stayed flat, and that's good and what I wanted to see happen. They are so flat that it's tough to point at sampling errors as the source of the discrepancies I see overall. Stay with the 2 lbs/K of SOP monthly April to September (including September).
The biggest surprise is the Phosphorus. A jump from 237 -> 340 is a 50% increase from a test that isn't showing much sampling variance. I simply cannot explain it from your published list of nutrient applications.
The Iron level also rose a surprising amount, and while the Iron still isn't available much at pH 7.3, it's a step in the right direction if the pH naturally continues to track lower as natural processes move the soil toward the natural soil of the area.
In the micro's, continue with the Boron applications you did last year - again, they are better but have a long way to go. Next year we'll add Copper and Zinc to the mix, but not yet.
For Nitrogen, use Milorganite at bag rate monthly, or Urea at 2 lbs/K montly. Urea is cheap, but Milorganite will supply some chelated Iron that will help you with lawn color.
Please get back to me with any nutrient applications that were omitted from your previous list -- this plan will not work properly if there are other sources of nutrients that I didn't consider...