Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Learn how improving your soil can lead to a better looking lawn
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GreatUserName
Posts: 5
Joined: March 17th, 2021, 5:54 pm
Location: West Hills, Los Angeles
Grass Type: UC Verde, St. Agustine
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Novice

Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by GreatUserName » March 18th, 2021, 12:47 am

Hello and thank you guys in advance for the help!

West Hills, Los Angeles, California

I have about 819 sqft. of weeds in a south-facing front yard with a 150 ft. pine tree on the east side of the curbside right-of-way easement. There's a 4.5 ft. picket fence, a standing mailbox and security camera pole in the yard also.

The backyard has a 625 sqft. patch of dirt and weeds that will hopefully become a lawn with a kids play-set centered in the middle. There is an 8 ft. wall bordering the west and a largish shed on the southwest corner.

House was built in the 60's and I've seen at least 2 different sod meshes while digging around. I have neglected the yard for the last 8 years.

Both yards are lumpy and uneven and will be evened-out/re-graded before installing anything.

Front: Hoping for UC Verde if it can stand the pine tree, fence and mailbox on a post. If not, I'm leaning towards St. Agustine but haven't determined the variety.
Back: I think St.Agustine is my only hope.
Irrigation: None yet, but planning on installing sprinklers with a zwave/wifi device to control remotely if needed.

Looking to eradicate current weed-fest and install a low-water, low-maintenance solution. Will be mowing high and watering deep and infrequent. I've been spraying soap into my weeds for a couple weeks now. I'd like to get the ground as ready as possible to maximize chances of success. I'd like to do an organic lawn but am fine rounding the weeds up and applying whatever I need to get the lawn as balanced as possible to start off.

Looking for best, most complete approach. I will put a link to this thread in the Soil Test Interpretation Queue thread. Please recommend a nitrogen component.

Experience = Zero, so please don't hesitate to ELI5 but also overwhelm with info. I'll be DIYing everything I can get away with.

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Back
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Thanks again!

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by MorpheusPA » March 18th, 2021, 2:28 pm

This is an interesting soil. And when a reader says that, hang onto your hat. Although in your case, this is very easy in that I have no recommendations (and only one optional). Zero. Zip. It requires absolutely nothing. I'm just going to explain the tests below. I'd love to know who owned it before you, though, because it's already a pretty well-balanced soil with only some unusual thumbs pointing here and there.

I'll fold together front and back where they're very similar and divide them where they're not. Overall, they're so similar that you can do just one test in the future, combining them. The few differences don't really matter.

I tend to write a "Why of Fry" episode on these, so I go a little in-depth without supply the research points. If you want me to explain deeper, you have only to ask.

Exchange Capacity 13-ish: A nice middling soil that holds modest resources. You'd have to jar test because I'm not at all familiar with your area to determine what you have, but from an EC standpoint, I like it. It's similar to my soil.

pH 7.x: A little above neutral, but that's fine. It's no barrier to a great lawn, which usually prefers just a little acidic. But grasses aren't that touchy, nor are most plants. I might not plan on evergreens or blueberries, but...

OM 4%: Quite nice. Certainly mulch mow, mow any leaves that fall, mow in garden waste and whatnot, but this is pretty nice.

Sulfur 12: Totally normal. A little low, really, for the OM, which tells me your OM is older. That's not a problem, just an idle observation.

Phosphorus 700, 1100: Sky high. No phosphorus is needed or desired, and I'd avoid all sources. Try to keep full soil coverage at all times with something because eroding soil from your property is a water pollutant (no, seriously). On the up side, you'll never need any.

Calcium 65%: On paper, both show slight negatives, but they're minor and there's no reason to do anything about it. This is great.

Magnesium 23-ish: Kind of high, but nothing to worry about. Your soil might be tight and difficult to work, that's what magnesium feels like. So it may feel more like clay than something lighter (which is probably what you have). There's no easy way to preferentially dump magnesium, so we live with it.

Potassium 5, 7: About where I like it, good and high. This won't cause problems at the top or a little out of normal range, so it's nothing to worry about.

Sodium around 1: Sodium is a tad high at around 1%, but nothing to concern yourself with. Just keep an eye on it in future tests to see that it doesn't continue to rise. We can get rid of it if it does with gypsum (at the cost of adding some calcium, which really wouldn't be a bad thing as it might get rid of some magnesium, too). But there's no need right now.

Minor and Micro-Elements
These are all normal to high, and nothing needs to be added.
The only optional addition I have is maybe iron. Best color won't be seen at your pH, so if you want to and you're inclined, you can feed with Milorganite or any other iron-containing feed to very slowly enhance iron levels in your soil. It's a slow process, it won't have too much impact at your (high) pH, but...it will help.

Recommendations:

None.
Optional: Feed with Milorganite or other iron-containing food to slowly raise iron levels (iron levels are fine but better color might be achieved with higher levels of iron).

GreatUserName
Posts: 5
Joined: March 17th, 2021, 5:54 pm
Location: West Hills, Los Angeles
Grass Type: UC Verde, St. Agustine
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Novice

Re: Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by GreatUserName » March 19th, 2021, 4:04 pm

MorpheusPA! Thank you very much for such an in-depth analysis! I'll do the jar test today and report back.

Exciting news! Just by how hard the soil has always felt I was convinced that it was in much worse shape. But I also know very little about lawns or soil.

Too bad about being the lawn being a potential phosphorous polluter. I grew up watching Captain Planet and somehow feel like I've let him down. Luckily it only rains about 1.5 times a year here and seeing as how I will water deep and infrequent and plan to leave the future grass high, hopefully everything stays put.

The effect of the magnesium would explain how terrible it is to move the ground around. It always feels dry and hard. The soaping seems to be helping though.

I'll go with the Miloganite if I end up needing it. I'm assuming I'd just follow the directions on the bag. I'm assuming the 4 in the 6-4-0 of Miloganite is negligible as far as Phosphorus?

Thanks again! I'll ask more questions about the other stuff in their respective topics.

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MorpheusPA
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Re: Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by MorpheusPA » March 19th, 2021, 4:29 pm

No problem!

It's not as bad as some soils I've seen, and I've set my phosphorus levels at nearly that point in my flower gardens. They actually like that and it means I don't need to use any P in my fertilization (I mostly just tap in a little K and feed with a lot of N). Most of the issue with P runoff is from agricultural land, anyway, but there's no reason to make the issue worse. Just avoid significant P additions.

Unfortunately, Milorganite does have lots of P in proportion to the nitrogen. I'd almost rather see you use a grain on this property, like soybean meal if you can get it (7-1-2) or cottonseed meal (also 7-1-2), but I'm not sure what's available in California easily and cheaply. I'm in soybean country, so it's actually much cheaper per pound than Milo. If you have a local grain mill, farmer's co-op, or the like, or a local brewer who has spent brewer's grains available (often free, and 4-1-2 dry weight), if you can let me know what's available and the relative prices, I can do a comparison for you.

Yep, magnesium will make that soil tight as a drum, and it's responsible for what you feel; adding organics will also loosen it up, which is why I don't want to give up on organic feeding if I don't have to (and there's no reason to do so). The soap helps, but it's "temporary" (in the sense of years), but becomes more permanent if we can get the natural soil processes to do the work for you.

GreatUserName
Posts: 5
Joined: March 17th, 2021, 5:54 pm
Location: West Hills, Los Angeles
Grass Type: UC Verde, St. Agustine
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Novice

Re: Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by GreatUserName » March 21st, 2021, 10:47 pm

I'm 24 hours into the jar test and it's looking super sandy and the water is still very murky so I'm waiting another 24. There are plenty of feed stores nearby and I may know a few brewers so I'll be calling around this week for organic fertilizer. As far as the other stuff, where is the best place to post questions regarding nuking the weeds, leveling the lawn, choosing an appropriate grass, irrigation etc? Thanks again!


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andy10917
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Re: Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by andy10917 » March 21st, 2021, 10:57 pm

I'll leave the Jar Test stuff for Morph to work with you, but I'll tell you not to worry about the right forum to post things in. We're pretty loose about what is posted in any Forum, but the Admins will move your postings if needed to get some attention/answers to your postings. Nothing bad will ever happen to your postings.

GreatUserName
Posts: 5
Joined: March 17th, 2021, 5:54 pm
Location: West Hills, Los Angeles
Grass Type: UC Verde, St. Agustine
Lawn Size: 1000-3000
Level: Novice

Re: Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by GreatUserName » March 21st, 2021, 11:34 pm

Rog! Thank you!

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MorpheusPA
Posts: 18129
Joined: March 5th, 2009, 7:32 pm
Location: Zone 6 (Eastern PA)
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Re: Goose's Soil Test Results - 2021

Post by MorpheusPA » March 21st, 2021, 11:54 pm

We won't know until day 3, but sand with murk usually means sand and clay, not exactly unexpected as it's not exactly an uncommon combination. It's probably a sandy loam of some type.

For your lawn, St. Aug, I'd start in the Warm-Season Grasses forum as you'll get the best answers there. As Andy noted, there's no penalty for being wrong--if it's wrong, either he or Turf just move it for you and make a note that they did so, and only because it'll get better answers if it's moved. Nobody gets spanked for an honest error. Except me, and only because Andy knows I like it.

:-)

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