I'm wanting to spread some pelletized lime on my food plots. Would I be ok to do this without bush hogging or discing? I'm talking about just spreading it over the grass left from this past season.

Sure hope so. That is what I am doing. Do not see a problem with it.

Would think disking it in may actually be counterproductive as whatever is at depth would leach down into soil too deep for plants to benefit from. My first time doing all this so I can't speak from experience.

disking won't put the lime too deep for the plants roots.....

Alright, good to know.

Soil type, dictates how fast and how far lime will leach into the soil profile. On sandy soil, lime leaches readily, just like salt at your mineral lick. Clay on the other hand, not so much. If i had clay soils, i would try and disk the lime in, but on sandy or a sandy loam, top dressing works just fine.

Remember, the plant is not using the lime. It's like this. Put a piece of plastic on the ground and put seed on it. Won't grow. Lime removes that piece of plastic and enables the seed to get to what it needs to grow. I prefer disking in but is not necessary. I personally would go slightly heavier if I weren't disking in. As blumsden said, soil type should be incorporated into the decision.

All good advice. Personally, I wouldn't disc it in. It will leach through the soil on its own. You primarily want to get the pH and nutrients right in the top 4" of topsoil where the plants would get the most use. Granted, some plants send roots deeper than 4" but you don't want to speed up the leaching process if you don't have to.

Yeah, that is kind of what I was thinking.

Agree, If it does then you are doing it wrong.

Discing is to break up the clods to give a good seed bed. Lime won't penetrate hard clods and plant seeds wont grow in a clod.
I always lime after plowing and before discing.

Why use pelleted lime? It takes longer to get into the soil and you only lime where the little pellet lands.
I'd recommend using coarse Barn Lime or the standard Garden Lime.

you dont have to disk it under but remember lime only seeps through the soil at a rate of one inch per six months it needs to be about 6-12 below surface

I carried my soil test results to the guy over the Co-Op today that has been in the business a long time. My test called for about 1 1/2 tons per acre. He said I need to put the 1 1/2 tons per acre out for 3 straight years to get my soil in good shape. Never had heard it, but when he explained the why behind it I understood.

Never heard that one before either. What was the reason he gave?

I've got some spots that I can only get a smaller tractor with a FEL to so have to use the FEL to carry the lime to them. What is the best way to spread the lime in this situation? Just dump it slowly in multiple spots in the plot and then disk it in??

He said after the first application wait 6 or so months and take a sample and there won't be much change, that you had to have the 3rd application + 6 months to see an appreciable change. He said one application will not do it. I know on a .7 acre plot I have I put 1,000 pounds of granulated lime out and after a year there wasn't a change in my test. My test now call for about 1 1/2 tons per acre now on both plots tested, almost the same on both plots.

Another thing he said was if you have turkeys on your hunting land that you should not use chicken house fertilizer especially in early spring. Turkey chicks can become infected with any kind of diseases that might be in the litter. He knows of a few areas that lost the majority of their turkeys and that was the common denominator of the areas.

Look at it this way, you can dump a load of Limestone rocks on the ground and then check the soil pH under the pile in 6 months and there won't be much if any change. It's because the rocks didn't dissolve enough to have much effect. Lime needs to dissolve to get the full benefit. That's why powdered lime works faster than pelletized lime. It takes a while for the pellets to dissolve. This is yet another reason I wouldn't disc it in. I would want the rain to hit the pellets and help dissolve them. Bury those pellets 6" deep and it's no wonder your fields don't show much improvement from one test to the next. Pelletized lime that gets buried probably takes a very long time to fully dissolve.

It depends on your soil type as to how easy it is to adjust ph. I had a sandy plot that we put 2 tons/acre on and the ph went from 4.5 to 6.5 in just a few months. Never heard of liming 3 years in a row, but if you have some dense clay, it could take a bunch

Don't hold me to this one but I don't think that lime actually "dissolves". I think it is broken down and incorporated into the nutrient cycle by the microbial community.

This might be helpful.

Dissolve, breaking down, I think we're still illustrating the same principle. Lime works by bonding to excess hydrogen ions. The lime can't bond to hydrogen if it's bonded to other lime particles, hence the need for the clumps to break down, dissolve, whatever. It's widely accepted that fine lime works faster than coarse lime. It may not actually dissolve in the true chemistry sense of the word.