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How much fertilizer?

lazy_turtle

Member
My soil test did not come with recommendations for fertilizer amounts.

Is there a good way to calculate how much ag lime I would need on some of these plots?

What about P&K and micros?

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It appears your phosphorus in these samples are your limiting factor here on the fertility side. Your samples P1 & P2 show those results. VH-very high, VL very low, L-Low, etc. P1 shows what’s available to the crop, P2 shows what’s in the total soil profile that was sampled. I would assume since your P1 is low and your P2 is Very high, you’re dealing with clay soils that aren’t allowing the Phosphorus there to be up-took by the crop. But to dumb it all down into deer hunting terms, those areas of your farm you sampled with P1 tests that are VL to L I would fertilize with a removal rate. You don’t want to spend the insane amount of money it would take to fertilize your ground to build that PPM levels from 4 ppm to say 30 ppm. That will come over the years of taking care of those soils.

Looks like your micros are in good shape as well minus the sulfur, which a lot of soils in Iowa/midwest are deficient in sulfur. I would suggest putting some in when you fertilize, good, cheap form would be AMS. It’ll give you some nitrogen and sulfur together.

Soil ph should be in that neutral anything above a 6.0 is considered neutral and acceptable for “deer food plots” which yet again looking at your sample results most of your farm is at or below that number. Midwest soils can only break down so much lime in a single year so putting a bunch out, yet again isn’t going to make sense $$$ wise. Liming a field is a several year process, I would start out with 1-2 ton per acre and go from there. Lime will be the single handily most important component of getting, good successful plots established. I refer to soil ph as a hole in the bottle of the whiskey barrel, if you don’t fix it first; it won’t matter how much whiskey you put into the barrel, it’ll never fill up.

Hope this help, shoot me a PM if you have any other questions.
 
It appears your phosphorus in these samples are your limiting factor here on the fertility side. Your samples P1 & P2 show those results. VH-very high, VL very low, L-Low, etc. P1 shows what’s available to the crop, P2 shows what’s in the total soil profile that was sampled. I would assume since your P1 is low and your P2 is Very high, you’re dealing with clay soils that aren’t allowing the Phosphorus there to be up-took by the crop. But to dumb it all down into deer hunting terms, those areas of your farm you sampled with P1 tests that are VL to L I would fertilize with a removal rate. You don’t want to spend the insane amount of money it would take to fertilize your ground to build that PPM levels from 4 ppm to say 30 ppm. That will come over the years of taking care of those soils.

Looks like your micros are in good shape as well minus the sulfur, which a lot of soils in Iowa/midwest are deficient in sulfur. I would suggest putting some in when you fertilize, good, cheap form would be AMS. It’ll give you some nitrogen and sulfur together.

Soil ph should be in that neutral anything above a 6.0 is considered neutral and acceptable for “deer food plots” which yet again looking at your sample results most of your farm is at or below that number. Midwest soils can only break down so much lime in a single year so putting a bunch out, yet again isn’t going to make sense $$$ wise. Liming a field is a several year process, I would start out with 1-2 ton per acre and go from there. Lime will be the single handily most important component of getting, good successful plots established. I refer to soil ph as a hole in the bottle of the whiskey barrel, if you don’t fix it first; it won’t matter how much whiskey you put into the barrel, it’ll never fill up.

Hope this help, shoot me a PM if you have any other questions.
Thank you so much! I may message with some follow up questions.
 
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