Food plot question

Got my soil sample back , says I need 1 1/2 ton of lime 20 lb of nitrogen and 40lb. Of phosphorus pentoxide . I plan on doing the lime 6 months before I plant . Do I apply the other 2 then or when I plant ? Thanks

Wait until you plant.

I would not put the liming on a set date.I would do it as soon as it dries up enough and get on it.Dont wait on a set date and than it turn around and rain for 3 weeks straight and be to muddy to get in there.stuck tractors and muddy slopes make for miserable conditions.it takes a year for the lime to really work into the soil anyway.I would get on it ASAP

I'd put the lime out a week or two before planting. I'd put the fertilizer out at time of planting.

Yes, Lime about 6mo in advance and fertilizer when you plant. Your fertilizer should be good for about 120 days if I remember right

We are in the same area. Who did your soil samples? If I let the CoOp do them Results are 3 tons of lime per acre. The last results i got from Auburn said no lime. (go figure)

why 2 weeks?it takes lime Months to work into the soil to even be effective.I would lime it up now and throw down a cover crop that will be easy to grind up in the fall like sorgum.than by time he tills it up in the fall the soil will be perfect.If anything i would do a ton now and than a half ton before planting

Here are 2 articles about applying lime.It takes up to a year to make a measurable difference.The first dry spell we get i would put it down.Things are way easier on dry roads and dry plots.Do NOT wait till its to wet to deal with a 2 ton lime wagon and slippery roads and stuck buggys.Trust me been there done that.on dry roads what will take a day will take you a week in wet conditions.I have done hours of research on lime and AG versus pelletized.
here are 2 links to AG lime applications.

Mash Here

Mash Here too

We limed ours at that time and it worked very well. I would do it earlier if it were pelletized lime.

x2 on this.... Lime needs to go down now.... It won't even make a big difference until next year.... Now is better...

Are you using pelletized or pulverized lime? That will dictate when you need to put it out.

Auburn did my soil sample,right now the ph is 5.7 .I'll be using pulverized lime and renting a buggy.I wanna get the lime down next month because I'm planning on plant a summer plot in may.

We disked, then spread the lime out. Then we disked it in. We done ours a couple weeks before we planted. Ours turned out great. You should like your results.

they would have been twice as good if you limed in the spring.my fall plots smoked my spring plots planted right after we limed.huge difference.

What lime are you using? Pelletized or pulverized?

I'm a little confused. I always thought that lime needed to be put out as soon as possible to have time to work into the soil. Why are some of you waiting until you plant?

I've got several fields that need lime and I'm planning on putting the lime out as soon as it gets dry.

Am I missing something?

AG.Multiple studies have shown that pelleted lime has no quicker effect on the soil as claimed by the rip off company's that put it on the bag.In reality all lime will start to work immediately but to what percentage is the difference.AG lime will last 3 years in the soil pelleted Not.also pelleted is EXPENSIVE.anyone who uses it has more money than sense.The soulution is simple.get buggy from CO OP and get the amount your landscape and tractor can handle.set the desired number and spread it out as soon as possible.It will take up to a year to work into the soil.My plots this year will be even better than last year.

Pulverized, disked in lime has almost immediate results.

We did the CO-OP route. Why would anyone think the pelletize lime would act faster? The pulverized, disked in lime will, however, see almost immediate results.

Im planning on liming after turkey season. probably early may. you can pick up a buggy at Loxley, or Robertsdale, and be done and have the buggy returned in half a day or less.
My ph runs between 5.5 and 6 and I used to wait 3 years between liming.Im not far from summerdale. last few years I have been putting ~1-1.5 tons every other year. I think In our sandy soil and low ph it would be $ well spent to put out less but do it every year.
There are a few guys in the area who say use 10-10-10
because it has the trace elements, but you can have it blended into which ever fertilizer you want. as for the nitrogen, I think crimson clover looks good,it puts nitrogen into the soil, and the birds as well as the deer get some good after season goes out.

If you are using regular ag lime, spread 4-6 months before fall planting. Other goodies at the time of planting.

Do y'all disc your seed in or drag something over it.

I think most folks will tell you it depends on the seed. For sunflowers, soybeans, and bigger type seeds I disc in. But for wheat and things like clover it's better to top sow, especially if you can cultipack. If you cover them too deep, they're not going to make it.

We run a section harrow over our large seeds and top sow our turnips and clover.

What's the odds you would blow a transmsission if you tried to spread 2 tons with a buggy in a level food plot, Z 71 4 wheel drive?

One of the reasons you guys with sandy soils are having to constantly add lime is because you have nothing to hold the Ca in your soil. My sandy soil is probably just about the same as the rest of you. It has a CEC value of just over 3. CEC is basically a measurement of your soils ability to hold nutrients such as Ca and N, among others.......and a value of 3-5 is horrible. You don't have the ability to hold much of anything really at these low levels. If you want to make better use of the lime that you apply then try leaving the plow at home for awhile and work on building organic matter on the top of your soil. The black layer of dirt that you see on the top of the soil profile has approx 50 times the nutrient holding capacity than that of the sandier base soil below it. The black dirt rich in OM will hold a much higher volume of Ca and keep your pH from constantly bottoming out and the constant need to keep dragging in lime buggys so often.

High

WHY?As long as hes not gonna get stuck i cant see how its any different than towing the buggy from the coop and down the dirt road that gets there with the same truck.put in 4 low with the trans cooler engaged and roll with it.

On the topic of liming why anyone would hold off and lime 4 to 6 months before planting is beyond me.

I wouldn't do it.

I would lime NOW or as soon as you can.

I have never believed that you can "lightly disk" your seed in. Especially if you have uneven ground. Some seed gets covered too much and some, not at all if you attempt to lightly disk seed in or that's been my experience and what I've heard and read in articles and professional food plotting books.

I prefer a drag of the food plot before you put out seed to level the soil up and then spread your seed and drag it. Brassicas and clover seed... just broadcast it and don't cover.

I have never heard of anyone suggesting to wait until planting or just before planting to put out lime. I've always heard and read and heard from professionals that know that the best time to spread lime out is as soon as you can.

Go to the Co-op and ask them if anyone ever "burns" up a auto trans in a 1/2 ton pick up with a fertilize / lime buggy. Nothin' will get a tranny in a 1/2 ton quicker.

Don't understand what ya mean by saying "holding off" and "before". Regular ag lime should be put out a few months before planting if you want the effects for that crop. Farmers I know have already spread their lime on fields that need it, well before spring planting.

You can spread pulverized lime just before you plant and it will work just fine. You can also use the chinese steam shovel method (ie load a trailer up, get two fit men on the back with shovels, and drive around the food plot shoveling lime out) and disc in the lime in with fine results. This info comes from guys that sell you food at farmers markets year round and rely on growing vegetables for income. I've also tried it myself on a few crops that needed higher PH. I limed the week before and it worked out just fine.

Sure, ideally you would want to spread lime a month or two before. But a whole year? Please. Just do it when you can, you won't notice a difference, I promise.

And what CNC said about the holding capacity of your land is true. If you have sandy soil that lime is going to flow through it like a mesh screen, but soils higher in clay or organic matter will hold onto the lime, and may not need liming at all, with proper applications of OM (organic material). Say if you grew a cover crop of sunn hemp or lab lab before your fall plant that basically takes the need to lime your field away (every situation can be different though), large amounts of OM basically do the same job lime does (balances the PH of your land), as long as you are willing to till the crop back into the soil and break it down.

I have always been told it takes up to a full year to get the full benefit of lime. In other words, sure, you will get some pH change if you put it out a month or two before planting, but you won't get the full benefit in pH changes for up to a year after the lime application.

Here is how NC ag website answers the question:

"With adequate soil moisture, lime begins to react immediately, and pH changes should be evident within a couple of months. However, it takes about 6 to 12 months for the total benefit of lime to be realized. As soil pH increases, the reaction rate of lime decreases due to a lower concentration of soil acids: e.g., the lime reaction rate is higher at pH 5.0 than at pH 6.0"

So this suggests that both groups in this thread are right in their beliefs (kinda). The first couple of months after applying the lime, the pH will change the quickest. Then over the next several months (even out to one year) the pH will continue to change as the lime continues to work.

Bottom line: it would be best to get it out ASAP so you get the very most out of the lime by the time you plant. If you can't get it out soon, you will still gain some pH benefit getting it out a month or so before you plant.

That’s a good point. The only thing I would argue with you though is that there’s no need for disking in organic matter. That’s not the way soil is built. Is there anyone out in the woods with a tractor and a disk incorporating all the organic matter that falls from the trees into the ground? No…..but if you’ll pull back the leaf litter you’ll find rich black dirt. Actually there IS someone out there that’s incorporating that OM into the soil for you. It’s your microbial community. The plot I showed in the picture hasn’t been disked or plowed now for nearly two years and all of that OM was built through using cover crops and no tillage. There’s no reason to do some of the things we do in food plotting. We create our own headaches and this is one of the times. We have to haul in buggies full of tons of lime to correct problems that we caused to start with.

When I started cover cropping a couple years ago, it was after years of plowing and my soil profile looked like the pic below. Disking in sandy soils such as this is the very thing that eliminates OM and leads to this type of situation. It chops up the organic matter into smaller pieces and greatly increases the amount of surface area of OM that is then in direct contact with the soil….which speeds up decomposition. It also introduces tons of oxygen into the equation, which also greatly speeds up the rate of decomposition. It speeds up decomposition to the point that you are actually experiencing a net loss of OM over time instead of a net gain. After a few years you end of with soil like pictured below which is void of OM and void of any real nutrient holding capacity. You then start dragging in lime buggies every year or two trying to fix the issue……instead of ever seeing the real underlying issue. The problem is that you’re not really holding much of that lime you put out and even the very little you are able to hold is for a very short term. Focus on the root cause of the issue……build OM.




Compare to now...........

depending on rain fall . lime 30 days before if you work it in ,,, 90 days if you don't . the other when u plant .

lol ,,, i'm good i harrow it all in . i have trouble with heavy dews sprouting the clover then turning dry as heck .

i use the old style pull 5' harrow for a super A . it works great for covering seeds.

Listen to crimson, sound advice. Two things dictate how quick lime works on your soil. Type of soil, and mesh size of the lime particles. The stuff you get at most co-ops, has a larger mesh size and can take 6 months or more in some soils, whereas a finer mesh size will work a lot quicker. Pelleted lime typically works quicker because of its mesh size.