I sent off a soil sample for a few of our plots and they came back with a low PH from 4.1 to 4.5 which I was expecting. I would say that is not helping at all being that low. The fertilizer was kinda all over the map P from 0 to 90 and K from 0 to 70 which I figure just split the difference and call it good. But on the N it called for 100lb which seems like a lot. For you guys that sent these off before is 100lb of nitrogen per acre pretty common.

What crop and yield goal you put down for that fert rec? And is that 100lbs or 100 units as the rec?

Results from Auburn. I put down food plot wheat, oats and rye. It says 100 lb/acre

I mainly did it to see how much lime we needed to put out. The fertilizer amount just seemed high.

100 lbs of N is much at all. Now 100 units is roughly what we put under a high yield wheat crop

So let’s say the results called for N 100 P 50 K 50. That would that would be 500lbs of 20-10-10 per acre correct.

That would do it

500 lbs of 20-10-10 seems like a lot of fertilizer. More than I have ever put out anywhere.

You’re reading it in units. Ok you need to put say 40-50 bushel per acre on yield goals for plots on avg. they’re assuming you are row crop farming fertilizing. I’d never recommend 100 units for plots. It’s a waste of $$

Definitely on the high side for a food plot. We do 200-250 lbs triple 17 at planting and 100 lbs of ammonium nitrate mid December. Add extra p and k at planting if soil test calls for it

You can sling dumptruck loads of fert but until you raise that ph it won’t help. But you know that cause that’s what you stated you wanted mostly was PH reading.

If it were me once I got PH addressed which you better do ASAP I’d put down a 50-30-30-15 for plots. Can’t go wrong there. And fert prices are way down year over year

Well I plainly wrote Food Plot on the paper. And under recommendations it says N pounds/acre 100. When they say 100 do they not mean 100lbs of actually nitrogen. Which would 200lbs of 46-0-0 or 300lbs of 33-0-0- that is the way I have always read these things is that wrong.

We are putting lime out. Not sure what 50-30-30-15 never seen that in bags.

100lb of nitrogen. If you dont fix your ph the plants will only use 35-40lb of that nitrogen, the rest is wasted. Spend your money on lime.

I understand that part. Gonna spend money on both.

Ok when I tell one of my customers he needs a 100-50-50 I’m not talking in pounds. Talking in units. So is AU on your rec. cause they don’t know if you’re putting out 100lbs of urea or 100 lbs of nitrate. Huge difference in N between those 2 products. Or if you’re gonna use DAP for your P poundage.

So what I said was correct. If the report says 100 it means 100 pounds/units of actual N. Which could be 200-300-400 pounds of actual fertilizer depending on which you use.

Pounds and units are not the same thing. . It’s what I’m trying to tell you.

I had actually bought one of those little kits to test the soil PH kinda like a pool water tester. I tested the 4 plots and then sent it to AU to see if they were accurate. I tested all 4 plots and the results of the home test kit was almost exactly 1.0 higher than the soil test results from AU on all four plots.

So if the results from AU say add 100 N per acre how many 50 lb bags of 33-0-0 do you need to attain that 100lbs.

Right at 6 of 33-0-0. Would give you 99 units of N. That’s 300 lbs per acre

Let me warn you too. AU soil lab and recs are WAY outdated. Use A&L or waters Ag lab if you want current up to date legit procedures and Recs.

It’s best to always refer to your needs in units instead of lbs

That’s what I thought. We was on the same page all the time.

And was saying you only need half that the whole time. That’s way too much for a plot.

10-4.

The N recommendations aren't based off of any test done on your soil......it's just generic amounts based off of a predicticed yield. How much you need to "yield" may vary from plot to plot due to variaes like the size of the field, deer density, browsi g pressure, etc....Use your eyes and tailor your needs to each situation. Small it's that get hit hard will need to maximize your she larger fix in low density areas may get by using very lite N....

They all need to grow as much as possible.

If you have sandy soil then you'll do better to break it up into small, frequent applications depending on what's feasible for you to do.....something like 50-100 lbs of 33-0-0 every 4-6 weeks

we've used the Auburn soil testing lab for years. our results from the AU lab were recently all over the map from comparable samples taken over the last 5 years. for fun this summer is sent the same 10 field soil samples to AU and LSU soil testing labs.... the LSU recommendations were much more consistent w fertilizer recommendations as compared to the actual K/P levels in each field. the field PH levels were consistent from both labs- with the AU PH levels ALWAYS lower.. now out of 10 fields- both AU and LSU had the identical top (or bottom) 3 fields that need K/potassium or P/phosphorous etc. but the AU numbers were just not consistent.. w/ respect to the actual lbs of recommended fert. i think AU needs to re-calibrate their equipment. my 2 cents.

note: from both labs it was consistently clear that our sandy soils are always higher in P but lower in K. soils with more clay are higher in K but lower in P.

Your waisting your money fertilizing, until you get your ph up. In the 4's, literally, you wont get any benefit. I would spend my money liming and planting cereal rye and crimson clover, this year.

We will lime and plant like usual.

Well got about 7 tons of lime spread today 7 more tons to get spread and about 60-70 bags to places you can’t get a truck to.

Money well spent. Don’t know how many acres that’s for but our ph was low last summer, put 3 tons per acre out and spring samples this spring showed everything up at least a full point to 6.5-6.7 on all tests. We will plan on putting out a ton per acre going forward to maintain unless tests show it getting to high which I don’t think is going to happen in our soil.

I try to put a ton a year. It’s just sound maintenance on no till ground

Hmmmm.....a paradigm shift

Not throw and mow. I do no till tho with a drill. That’s placing seed in the soil. In moisture

Was about 4.5 to 5 acres. Soil sample called for 1.5 tons an acre to make a truck load work out we spread it at a rate of 1.75 tons per acre. It worked out perfect had probably less than 200 pounds left after last field.

3 tons per acre that is twice what ours called for and the PH on ours was terribly low. I guess maybe your soil was more loam or clay than ours which as I understand it takes more lime than a sandy soil.

Anything over 2 tons per application is wasting lime.

For many, many food plotters.....I'd say the vast majority.....a drill will never be a feasible option no matter how you "sell it"....I'm one of the people and it's the very reason I started experimenting with different techniques....How can I achieve the same.....or close to the same results and benefits of no-till without having to use a drill. The process may not be as efficient but the benefits are just the same....

Ours called for different rates. We took the highest, rounded up and then looked at what made sense to order for the coop to spread. We are pleased with the results and being as though it was our first time taking care of this property we wanted to go overboard not under.

Did you see a difference in the growth or just overall quality of your plots.

We didn't plant all of the plots this summer and only the 2nd year to own the property, so really won't tell until planting this fall. But I'm mostly talking about how quickly it modified our soil PH to where it needed to be...but also from the plots we did plant this spring, they appear to have gotten all of the potential available from the fertilizer - maybe we could have done that with 2 tons per acre, but no way to know at this point. At $60 a ton spread by the coop, we don't regret it and wanted to err on the side of over liming instead of under liming. Unfortunately the deer slaughtered our WMS Pea patch plots we did plant, so not much left at this point. Our corn on the other hand is doing better than I could have ever imagined.

Resilience to stress is one of the big attributes to having your pH and nutrients balanced.....Also y'all keep in mind that this is a balancing act with soil nutrie ts. It's not always a situation of more is better. Your soil had a holding capacity.....it can only hold so much. The goal is to have the proper balance of each nutrient within that capacity

Yep. But what they are seeing is like on waters sample it refers to units as lbs/ac of nitrogen. Then folks think it means pounds of actual product. Gets confusing when trying to explain.

Yes it does.

Have to be careful, high ph is worse than low ph. Harder to lower ph than to raise it. I like keeping in the lower to mid 6's. Soil type is going to dictate how often you'll need to lime. I have soil type 3 which is Clay's with high organic matter. If I put out lime on the same plot every year, it would get too high. I do it every few years after a test.

Got the rest of my lime spread today in total about 15 tons with a truck and 62 bags of pellitized where a truck couldn’t get to. Wish I could have got a truck to all of them. Faster easier and cheaper. Hopefully will be able to see a difference if not this year by next year. With the PH as low as it was it will have to help some.

Got a new lease this year in Safford. Very hard Prairie dirt. Will send off soil samples first of next week I hope. How hard is ph to maintain on that kind of dirt? Easier or harder than sand? It’s got some lime outcropping a that are pure white chalk looking and most of it is a nice brown color.

I’m betting that safford land will be naturally higher ph. Be interested to see

Seen some large deer come out of safford over the years - good luck

If it's sure enough prairie gumbo, it may never need lime. That chalky stuff might have ph in the 8's. Better put some knobby tires on your vehicles, it's like grease when it gets wet