Thursday, April 23, 2009

Soil Test Results

The University of Massachusetts test results of my lawn soil are back:

pH: 7.2 (a touch high...3.2 point shift in 3 years)
Buffer pH; 7.1
N: 10 ppm (organic lawn)
P: 9 ppm (a bit low)
K: 321 ppm (off the charts)
Ca: 3185 ppm (way off the charts)
Mg: 269 ppm
Ca/Mg Ratio: 11.8 (thoroughly wrong)
Organic Matter: 4.6% (up from 0.1%)
CEC: 15.9 Meq/100g
Aluminum: 19 ppm
Boron: 0.4 ppm
Manganese: 7.0 ppm
Zinc: 1.8 ppm
Copper: 0.5 ppm
Iron: 1.4 ppm
Sulfur: 45.7 ppm
Soluble Salts: 0.26 dS/M (normal range 0.08 - 0.50)
Percent Base Saturation: K: 4.4, Mg: 11.7, Ca: 84.1 (Ca/Mg ratio here is 7.1, though)
Lead: Undetectable

The soil pH is OK given the amount of raw organic material I apply and it'll drift down in a year or two as I back off and the fungal mass drops. Kicking in a little P (phosphorus) is a good idea. Iron's very low, so Milorganite would be a good addition to get both iron and P. I should ignore any potassium sources for the remainder of the year as that's quite high.

A whisper of boron is a good idea, too, but not much.

I've applied 7 bags of Milorganite for iron and phosphorus, plus I broke down and put down 3 bags of Ironite (which I would rather not repeat but will probably have to). I also purchased 20 Mule Team Borax, diluted 1 teaspoon in 1 quart of water in my sprayer and applied that over 1,000 square feet of the lawn with around 20 gallons of water dilution on top of that. That should bounce the boron levels a touch.

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