roblanderson's soil test - 2021

[roblanderson]

Here is my 2021 test (I did remember the AA test this year), along with the link to my 2020 test:
March 2020



Bluegrass & TTTF blend.

I would like to work on the micros this year again if needed.

Thanks!
Rob

[andy10917]

Morph, I've got this one. It's one of my "Humates on Calcitic Soil" test members

[andy10917]

OK, Mr. Rob. You have earned Rock Star treatment for your efforts related to the Humates/Calcitic testing and I'm ready to put extra effort into your plan.

Do me one favor - give me your impressions here of the progress made in the past year (visually). Please stay away from any specifics related to the Humates program here (although I'd like to see your impressions in the limited-access forum, if you have time).

I'll get this done today, if you respond. I've got all the stats, but visual improvement counts a lot too...

[roblanderson]

First I'll detail what I did last year, as I did a poor job of sticking to the plan:

4/19/20 - Cracked Corn - 20 lb/K
4/19/20 - 13-13-13 - 7.5 lbs/K
5/16/20 - 10-10-13 - 8 lbs/K
5/30/20 - BLSC
6/6/20 - Milorganite w/ boron - 160 lbs
6/6/20 - Merit 0.5 G
8/31/20 - 10-10-10 - 8 lbs/K
8/31/20 - Cracked Corn - 20 lb/k
9/19/20 - 13-13-13 - 7.5 lbs/K
9/20/20 - Peat Moss (top dress front lawn)
10/6/20 - Cracked Corn - 20 lb/k
11/23/20 - Urea - 2 lbs/k

Humates added to the test area as documented in our other thread.

Visually, very happy with the progress. The turf grows very aggressively and requires frequent mowing, probably twice as often as most of my neighbors. Definitely the nicest looking lawn on the street. Very thick and very few weeds.

The middle of our back yard gets full sun, and is the only part of the yard that suffers during the hottest parts of the summer, even with regular irrigation.

I plan to top dress the back yard this spring with either peat moss or compost. May do the front again as well.

[andy10917]

Wow - the AA test sure paints a clearer picture...

You're never going to get rid of the Calcium, but I know that you know that. All we can do is keep the soil and the grass healthy and aggressive, and it seems like we're succeeding.

The structure of the soil is in need of work. A structure with a OM% of 1.48% isn't going to work long-term, even with the experimental techniques we're trying - they can only buy you time. I'm not trying to be mean, but the day will come when we're out of rabbits-in-the-hat. You need to up your attention on the OM to e equal to the other nutrients - really, it's not moving and won't until it gets real attention.

In the cations, Potassium remains an issue. Since Phosphorus is also an issue, stay on the balanced fertilizer every month April to September.

Iron is just short of our target, but mostly unavailable at your pH of 8.2. I'm glad that color is working for you.

In the rest of the micro's, Manganese is crazy good, and Zinc and Boron are lacking. Do you think you'll get to them this year?

Rob, you've got some talent for this stuff. You can do it if you want to -- or not.

Let me know how I can help...

[roblanderson]

I was very disappointed to see the drop in OM% from my 2020 test at 2.15% down to 1.48% this year.

We mulch mow 100% of the time (8 year old lawn now), including all leaves in the fall (plus a small amount of leaves I can get from the neighbors). Definitely open to taking further action to address the issue.

I have top dressed the front and parts of the back with peat moss - about 15 3-cu ft bales in total over the last few years. I can keep doing this as often as possible and I can look into top dressing with compost as well.

As for the zinc & boron, I will do both whenever I apply Milorganite, but that might only be 1-3 times as I don't want to overdo the N while also adding the balanced fertilizer monthly. That is part of the reason I did cracked corn 3 times last year - OM without the N.