Feldspar
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- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Good point! I will check. I remember there's something in Kinsey's book about the rate of boron that are safe.
Albrecht versus conventional soil testing - my experiments
- Thread starter Feldspar
- Start date
Good point! I will check. I remember there's something in Kinsey's book about the rate of boron that are safe.
now Dr. Feldspar is facing several challenges:
- the plants need to take it up
- hopefully Dr. Feldspar's plants can read
- several of the nutrients are not translocated with the Xylem so how you feed the roots?
I rely do not understand why someone can't follow on just a small area for 3 years the program, re sample each year and put each year 100% of the nee4ded stuff on and after 3 years draw the line and do then the comparison.
Only one example out of many from last year. Hops farmer did sample in late 2'12 a hops field where even his father didn't make a good crop, same to him. Applied 100% of the recommended stuff. In '13, yields where by average 50% down with poor quality, this field was outperforming all the other fields and had normal yields of a normal year with very good quality. Needless to say how many fields he did sample after this. and he is not the only hop grower with this result.
York-Th.
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Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I know you are trying to help, but the above is really not at all useful, and once again your post comes across as a patronising lecture which I find irritating. You are not able to understand why people do things because, in this case certainly, you make assumptions based upon very little knowledge of particular circumstances. Perhaps, as has been alluded to many times before, because you are not having to run a farm on a day-to-day basis, you do not appreciate the difficulty of suddenly ordering and applying a great long list of products. When I spent time last year applying kieserite here and there, I was taking up time when our fertiliser spreader could have been doing other things, and that was only for one product. To do the same with zinc sulphate, manganese sulphate, granular boron, iron sulphate, etc. would have taken up a huge amount of time which we could ill afford in a difficult season.
I think most people who do not form part of the church might see that spending well over 70 £/ha and seeing no discernible difference does not exactly inspire confidence. Once again, you are not writing out the cheques, and you do not see where that money could have been otherwise spent on the farm to better effect. Hell, for that amount I could get each hectare direct drilled several times over. These are not small sums of money.
There is no evidence that I have seen that says that you need to apply a whole raft of nutrients just to raise the levels of Mg in the plant. I put on a vast amount of kieserite "for the needs of the current crop", as the Kinsey recommendation said, and yet nothing happened - as you say, maybe the plants are having trouble reading the recommendation.
I am therefore, for the time being, exploring other options. Foliars have the benefit of being easy to apply and, if one is being lazy, can be supplied ready-mixed, making a quick experiment nice and easy. You cannot do that with soil applied fertilisers in the same way.
Sorry feldspar, that I'm not having a farm. So I keep quiet for the time being.
read the book of N. K. and you will find that only if you did follow the advice 3 years in a row and did 100% you will see the response. So you gave up before you even got a chance to see a responce.
Look if a 100% hired hand / hired farm management operation with 15ooo ha can do the change how more a family owned & operated farm can do it?
As I said I'm in your eyes not qualified to talk because I have no own farm. So, I leave it to the more qualified. saves me also some time to think about responses.
Have a good time at TFF. if people want a opinion, from now on only via e-mail.
York-Th.
SilliamWhale
Member
@Feldspar - have you done any tissue tests yet this year? If you did one every ten days for the next 7 weeks you should be able to build up an interesting picture.
This is what I started doing two years ago. Often the data is more useful the following year but it should point out anything interesting/ noteworthy. Combined with you soil tests you can build up experience of what is going on.
NRM system of doing it is good. Chuck it in a pre paid bag and post it to them and everything on account/referenced so no faffing about. Post it on sunday night.
This is what I started doing two years ago. Often the data is more useful the following year but it should point out anything interesting/ noteworthy. Combined with you soil tests you can build up experience of what is going on.
NRM system of doing it is good. Chuck it in a pre paid bag and post it to them and everything on account/referenced so no faffing about. Post it on sunday night.
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Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Yes, I did one OSR sample last week which I did post on here. I'm going to try a foliar trial and then take two tissue tests, one from the treated and untreated and see if there's a difference. Will also take some in other crops shortly to see what's going on there. I've used NRM the whole way through so far for consistency. Agree that their postage system works nice and easily.
Feldspar
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- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
£29 + VAT for a fairly wide ranging test. £39 + VAT if you want extra things like Mo and Na.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I am finally going to sit down and do what @Elmsted has been telling me to do throughout this thread and try and understand where the recommended numbers in plant tissue analyses come from. How were these numbers arrived at? Are there different methods? How certain are they? What is the temporal dependence upon the optimal concentrations? How does sampling different parts / the whole of the plant differ? Do the optimal levels apply across all soil types? Et cetera.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Here's a start:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00103629409369112#.U2PIb4FdVps
Don't look at ratios between nutrients, just look at absolute concentrations? Also, there seems to be two main ways of determining optimal nutrient concentrations, the DRIS system and the CNL system. Interesting too that it notes that the amount of research on this area is pretty scarce.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00103629409369112#.U2PIb4FdVps
Don't look at ratios between nutrients, just look at absolute concentrations? Also, there seems to be two main ways of determining optimal nutrient concentrations, the DRIS system and the CNL system. Interesting too that it notes that the amount of research on this area is pretty scarce.
@Feldspar this to me is the way that we should be going. Glad I'm not the only one thinking this way!!
Often come up with all sorts of bright ideas but then wonder if I am on the right track or not. That's what I love about coming on here, there's usually someone somewhere with a similar thought process.
You are getting there. Or leastways heading in the right direction. But I sure as heck ain't going to give you the answer. Keep at it. I had to.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I've got this to read tomorrow:
http://eprints.nwisrl.ars.usda.gov/738/1/1170.pdf
and this looks relevant, although you probably can't get the full version:
https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/aj/abstracts/71/2/AJ0710020343
Both look good but as you say can't get in to the full version of the second
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
First six pages of this (same link as above) are definitely worth reading as an intro:
http://eprints.nwisrl.ars.usda.gov/738/1/1170.pdf
It starts out with an overview of the literature and nicely explains the differences between the three main ways to interpret response curves. The first being the critical nutrient concentration (CNC) method, and the second being the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (DRIS). The third is ... actually just read the link.
The DRIS method is designed to give norms which are applicable across varying growth stages in for crops grown in varying environments. It aims to recognise and quantify antagonisms and synergisms between plant nutrients and emphasises nutrient balance.
As far as I am aware NRM, the lab which I've used so far, do not ask for the growth stage of the samples that people send. The CNC needs that information whereas the DRIS does not, or so it seems at least. I can only assume that NRM bases their recommendations based upon the DRIS system.
The problem comes with papers such as this one,
https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/aj/abstracts/79/3/AJ0790030472
which seems to suggest that, when using the DRIS system, for wheat the age of the plant is important.
Certainly last year I noticed that samples taken around GS 30 often show the plants in a pretty good light using NRM. Then samples taken at around GS 39 showed the plants to be deficient in nearly everything. The explanation may be not that all these nutrients have become deficient, but rather that the critical nutrient concentration (see the .pdf link for an explanation) has altered.
Taking a quote from the pdf document:
Nutrient concentrations change with plant age. Most nutrient concentrations are highest in the vegetative portion of the plant during early growth and development.
The document even points out that diurnal variations in nutrient levels should be expected as well as genotypic variations.
http://eprints.nwisrl.ars.usda.gov/738/1/1170.pdf
It starts out with an overview of the literature and nicely explains the differences between the three main ways to interpret response curves. The first being the critical nutrient concentration (CNC) method, and the second being the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (DRIS). The third is ... actually just read the link.
The DRIS method is designed to give norms which are applicable across varying growth stages in for crops grown in varying environments. It aims to recognise and quantify antagonisms and synergisms between plant nutrients and emphasises nutrient balance.
As far as I am aware NRM, the lab which I've used so far, do not ask for the growth stage of the samples that people send. The CNC needs that information whereas the DRIS does not, or so it seems at least. I can only assume that NRM bases their recommendations based upon the DRIS system.
The problem comes with papers such as this one,
https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/aj/abstracts/79/3/AJ0790030472
which seems to suggest that, when using the DRIS system, for wheat the age of the plant is important.
Certainly last year I noticed that samples taken around GS 30 often show the plants in a pretty good light using NRM. Then samples taken at around GS 39 showed the plants to be deficient in nearly everything. The explanation may be not that all these nutrients have become deficient, but rather that the critical nutrient concentration (see the .pdf link for an explanation) has altered.
Taking a quote from the pdf document:
Nutrient concentrations change with plant age. Most nutrient concentrations are highest in the vegetative portion of the plant during early growth and development.
The document even points out that diurnal variations in nutrient levels should be expected as well as genotypic variations.
You are working hard on this Feldspar. As a help in my fiddling with this for some decades. If one searches out the data for total mass which are freely available which gives one for instance how much in stems, in pods, in seeds, leaves. etc. Then to a an extent do not ask for an opinion. Calculate it back to kg or % mass make your own judgement Over time one builds a database shove it all in a spreadsheet. put in a mean >< then bingo you are away.
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Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
And presumably this is why you often post up the diagram of the uptake of plants throughout their growth stages in mass units.
I suppose the question I would then ask is what total mass is the optimal total mass and how do you find that out? Also, what is the yield sensitivity to variations in total mass of various nutrients? I.e. how wide should the band be in Fig. 13-2 in the pdf document?
Should you, as suggested in my pdf document, take two statistically distinct groups, a high yielding group and a low yielding group and obtain data for total mass of each nutrient at different growth stages from plants in each group to give an idea of the sensitivity?
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Damn, wish I had got further with Elmsted on the question of tissue testing. 
Have just found this whilst looking up things to do with grey partridges:
http://www.rase.org.uk/images/Downloads/Loddington Bioscence FINAL Report 3 June 2014.pdf
Better than I managed, although as I'm discovering, given the vagaries of combine yield mapping, I'm not totally convinced that their method of assessing relative performance is very robust.
Have just found this whilst looking up things to do with grey partridges:
http://www.rase.org.uk/images/Downloads/Loddington Bioscence FINAL Report 3 June 2014.pdf
Better than I managed, although as I'm discovering, given the vagaries of combine yield mapping, I'm not totally convinced that their method of assessing relative performance is very robust.
matttargett4
Member
Field spar,
Maybe I'm asking the obvious but where are you with the albrecht idea now?
One question I always wonder about is phosphate, I was always under the impression that albrecht called for 1:1 p to k ratio?
Do people do this? I'd be very interested to see it if they do, I don't have enough in absolute terms to get lots available but what I'm seeing where I can get it up a bit is it has a good effect on disease pressure, I know York alluded to phosphate and take all being linked, maybe I could see that.
Maybe I'm asking the obvious but where are you with the albrecht idea now?
One question I always wonder about is phosphate, I was always under the impression that albrecht called for 1:1 p to k ratio?
Do people do this? I'd be very interested to see it if they do, I don't have enough in absolute terms to get lots available but what I'm seeing where I can get it up a bit is it has a good effect on disease pressure, I know York alluded to phosphate and take all being linked, maybe I could see that.