Albrecht versus conventional soil testing - my experiments

[Feldspar]

Just breezed through this thread and I am afraid I think that a lot of this 'alternative' science is real crap, let me give my reason.

Conventional ag science gave us huge yield gains for the decades from 50's to 80's and then stopped. We got increases from fertiliser use, improved varieties that could use the fertiliser and crop protection products to keep the crops healthy and machinery to plant and nurture it better.
Now these year on year gains have stopped and people are looking for reasons and I believe turning to basically quack science.
You all know your farms, are any two fields identical? are any fields completely uniform? Thought not so there is a problem here, some of the differences are the mineral differences of the parent material, some are drainage some are a legacy of some event many years ago (hedge/pond removal etc).
If you are going into a micro nutrient hunt then your problem is with this lack of uniformity. The complex reaction of various nutrients is badly understood but we all know that it is not simple as a oversupply of one can lead to lock up of another. If you test for X and it appears defficient you may apply X to the soil but perhaps those areas not defficient now lock up Y you are no netter off. This is very simple but throw in other factors such as pH, soil water, temperature and past treatments etc. and I think you will disappear up your own fundament.
Sure there is a lot to learn but where I really differ from the new messias
is that with most micronutrients it is probably better to feed the plant not the soil and therefore there is no elemental 'interference' by banging on a relatively huge amount in one go.
I ask a question, if you think your soil is defficient in micronutients that are not within the realm of conventional thinking why not put them all on as you are bound to get a huge payback?
If there are any gains to be made they will probably be minimal and will be shown to be a blind alley. As with most things I think the answer is simple, we have got near to the end point of yields as they are always harvesting the sun. Good sun at the right time=good yields, Scottish yields are good because they have longer days in summer. You cannot increase the radiation level and this is one reason why you get the tail off in yield increase with high nitrogen levels. The world record wheats are grown with more nitrogen but a lot more light.

Obviously a longer reply needed to address this fully, but on the particular point about sunlight there is an important extra factor to think about. That is the efficiency with which plants capture and use incoming sunlight. Magnesium plays an important role in this respect by improving the efficiency of the plant's photosynthesis.

 

[mikep]

Obviously a longer reply needed to address this fully, but on the particular point about sunlight there is an important extra factor to think about. That is the efficiency with which plants capture and use incoming sunlight. Magnesium plays an important role in this respect by improving the efficiency of the plant's photosynthesis.

Maybe but if it is at the sub clinical level can you quantify the response you would get to treatment?

 

[SilliamWhale]

Just breezed through this thread and I am afraid I think that a lot of this 'alternative' science is real crap, let me give my reason.

Conventional ag science gave us huge yield gains for the decades from 50's to 80's and then stopped. We got increases from fertiliser use, improved varieties that could use the fertiliser and crop protection products to keep the crops healthy and machinery to plant and nurture it better.
Now these year on year gains have stopped and people are looking for reasons and I believe turning to basically quack science.
You all know your farms, are any two fields identical? are any fields completely uniform? Thought not so there is a problem here, some of the differences are the mineral differences of the parent material, some are drainage some are a legacy of some event many years ago (hedge/pond removal etc).
If you are going into a micro nutrient hunt then your problem is with this lack of uniformity. The complex reaction of various nutrients is badly understood but we all know that it is not simple as a oversupply of one can lead to lock up of another. If you test for X and it appears defficient you may apply X to the soil but perhaps those areas not defficient now lock up Y you are no netter off. This is very simple but throw in other factors such as pH, soil water, temperature and past treatments etc. and I think you will disappear up your own fundament.
Sure there is a lot to learn but where I really differ from the new messias
is that with most micronutrients it is probably better to feed the plant not the soil and therefore there is no elemental 'interference' by banging on a relatively huge amount in one go.
I ask a question, if you think your soil is defficient in micronutients that are not within the realm of conventional thinking why not put them all on as you are bound to get a huge payback?
If there are any gains to be made they will probably be minimal and will be shown to be a blind alley. As with most things I think the answer is simple, we have got near to the end point of yields as they are always harvesting the sun. Good sun at the right time=good yields, Scottish yields are good because they have longer days in summer. You cannot increase the radiation level and this is one reason why you get the tail off in yield increase with high nitrogen levels. The world record wheats are grown with more nitrogen but a lot more light.

The thing is people expect yield increase' to be a gradual year or year thing as if progress is a nice diagonal line of increasing height. In reality it is just large leaps of movement that occur less frequently (dwarfing, herbicides, etc.).

There is nothing wrong with looking at micronutrients for yield increase but they are micro for a reason in the main. I'm still not sure on where I stand on the feed the soil/plant thing. I think if you can afford it it is still best to concentrate on the soil first.

Albrecht stuff uses way way to much acidifying Ammonium Sulphate for my liking (though I accept some soils my need it more that my naturally acidic ones)

 

[mikep]

The thing is people expect yield increase' to be a gradual year or year thing as if progress is a nice diagonal line of increasing height. In reality it is just large leaps of movement that occur less frequently (dwarfing, herbicides, etc.).

There is nothing wrong with looking at micronutrients for yield increase but they are micro for a reason in the main. I'm still not sure on where I stand on the feed the soil/plant thing. I think if you can afford it it is still best to concentrate on the soil first.

Albrecht stuff uses way way to much acidifying Ammonium Sulphate for my liking (though I accept some soils my need it more that my naturally acidic ones)

I must say I have not gone into this in depth for the same reason I have not done much research on alien abduction. Of course all nutrients are important and some gains may be there for the taking if you experiment enough but they will not be huge unless your ground is very deficient and in that case you would know anyway. To think that some new way of looking at soil science will lead to a new wave of large incremental yield increases is about as realistic as believing in fairies. I think that these new experts bring nothing much to the party and are most interested in making a living for themselves or selling some snake oil to the believers.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I must say I have not gone into this in depth for the same reason I have not done much research on alien abduction. Of course all nutrients are important and some gains may be there for the taking if you experiment enough but they will not be huge unless your ground is very deficient and in that case you would know anyway. To think that some new way of looking at soil science will lead to a new wave of large incremental yield increases is about as realistic as believing in fairies. I think that these new experts bring nothing much to the party and are most interested in making a living for themselves or selling some snake oil to the believers.

Fair enough. Personally I have gone into detail on it in the past and I wanted to think it was useful and could make a difference, but it doesn't seem to stack up, beyond a few farmer testimonials. I do value farmer testimonials but in this case it doesn't seem terribly conclusive and I reckon i'm just trying to be rational.

That is not to say things like gypsum doesn't have a good effect on some soils, or that biological additives can have a place.

 

[mikep]

Fair enough. Personally I have gone into detail on it in the past and I wanted to think it was useful and could make a difference, but it doesn't seem to stack up, beyond a few farmer testimonials. I do value farmer testimonials but in this case it doesn't seem terribly conclusive and I reckon i'm just trying to be rational.

That is not to say things like gypsum doesn't have a good effect on some soils, or that biological additives can have a place.

True enough we need to watch manganese and boron as these can go awry in some crops. I just go on instinct about some things and it seems from what you say I may have been right this time to not bother. I think what happens is that some people believe and travel the route but also they are more interested and maybe raise the general quality of their farming so get a positive result that they put down to the theories.

 

[SilliamWhale]

True enough we need to watch manganese and boron as these can go awry in some crops. I just go on instinct about some things and it seems from what you say I may have been right this time to not bother. I think what happens is that some people believe and travel the route but also they are more interested and maybe raise the general quality of their farming so get a positive result that they put down to the theories.

The thing is there is a bit of value in "believing what you see" at times. For example I couldn't really prove (to myself, or my dad or anyone really) that no till crops can yield as well or better than conventional until I started doing it for a few years. I can say now without hesitiation that (I think) no till crops are every bit as good as conventional cropping (actually I think they can do better sometimes but I won't push it too much). but you know what we all have an internal bias somewhere so everyone's decisions and results are compromised in a way.

So if a farmer has a gut feeling that some Albrecht techniques will improve his farm I wouldn't argue much but I would be interested in the results after and how the conclusions are drawn.

 

[tafka]

Will, be honest , you never gone through details with Albrecht.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Will, be honest , you never gone through details with Albrecht.

I've read Albrecht stuff, read Kinseys book (poorly written) and articles online and subscribed to Acres USA for 4 years and have done a few Albrecht tests in the past. One problem with it all is all the practioners are fighting for the upper hand on the best lab to use and argue over which is the "proper" lab to use. I found Kinseys monthly articles in Acres USA full of something and nothing to be honest - I'll give you some examples of what I mean on a rainy day if you like.

To be honest my ca/mg ratio's aren't bad anyway. But I couldn't see any evidence that chasing ratios will make an economic difference. I'm happy to be corrected - why don't you show me some more evidence, even anecdotal is fine. What are you doing on your own farm that has changed the yield, productivity or economics of your crop production by using Albrecht tech that you couldn't not have noticed using tradtional analyses?

What am I missing out on? At some point Albrecht came up with the conclusion that the ideal balance of cations for soils was: H, 10%; Ca, 60 to 75%; Mg, 10 to 20%; K, 2 to 5%; Na, 0.5 to 5.0%; and other cations, 5% and he didn't believe pH was important and therefore didn't control the pH in his experiments. For me pH is the starting point!

 

[tafka]

I've read Albrecht stuff, read Kinseys book (poorly written) and articles online and subscribed to Acres USA for 4 years and have done a few Albrecht tests in the past. One problem with it all is all the practioners are fighting for the upper hand on the best lab to use and argue over which is the "proper" lab to use. I found Kinseys monthly articles in Acres USA full of something and nothing to be honest - I'll give you some examples of what I mean on a rainy day if you like.

To be honest my ca/mg ratio's aren't bad anyway. But I couldn't see any evidence that chasing ratios will make an economic difference. I'm happy to be corrected - why don't you show me some more evidence, even anecdotal is fine. What are you doing on your own farm that has changed the yield, productivity or economics of your crop production by using Albrecht tech that you couldn't not have noticed using tradtional analyses?

What am I missing out on? At some point Albrecht came up with the conclusion that the ideal balance of cations for soils was: H, 10%; Ca, 60 to 75%; Mg, 10 to 20%; K, 2 to 5%; Na, 0.5 to 5.0%; and other cations, 5% and he didn't believe pH was important and therefore didn't control the pH in his experiments. For me pH is the starting point!

Anecdotal evidence.

We did our first Kinsey soil tests after local gurus told our w-wheat will be fine, just wait when it getting warmer in springtime. Wheat was purple and did not tiller at all. So we ended 3t/ha average on that field, but yield monitor showing sometimes 6t too. Makes you wondering? Meclich3 tests showing pH 6.2-6.5, P and K very good levels, Ca desired level, Mg average, micros low. Should be like alright for groving crops, just spray some micros?
Came back Kinsey tests. Base saturations Ca80-83%, Mg 6-7%, K 6-7%, P two times higher than needed, micros low. Where K% was higher than Mg% more P deficiency was visible.
Could it be some nutrients blocking others? Every time comparing low/high yielding areas in one field, better yielding parts have better base saturation numbers.
Our solution is to acidify root zone to get nutrients into plant and it has worked every time. Cultan and AMS or with CS in spring drilling. Broadcast N and you can loose half yield. We also spreading Mg sulfate every year much as we can afford.

Albrecht knew pH is not everything. Beliving and knowing are very different things. They did measure pH and grew crops in acid soils using Ca and Mg chloride which don't change pH.
That you missing.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Anecdotal evidence.

We did our first Kinsey soil tests after local gurus told our w-wheat will be fine, just wait when it getting warmer in springtime. Wheat was purple and did not tiller at all. So we ended 3t/ha average on that field, but yield monitor showing sometimes 6t too. Makes you wondering? Meclich3 tests showing pH 6.2-6.5, P and K very good levels, Ca desired level, Mg average, micros low. Should be like alright for groving crops, just spray some micros?
Came back Kinsey tests. Base saturations Ca80-83%, Mg 6-7%, K 6-7%, P two times higher than needed, micros low. Where K% was higher than Mg% more P deficiency was visible.
Could it be some nutrients blocking others? Every time comparing low/high yielding areas in one field, better yielding parts have better base saturation numbers.
Our solution is to acidify root zone to get nutrients into plant and it has worked every time. Cultan and AMS or with CS in spring drilling. Broadcast N and you can loose half yield. We also spreading Mg sulfate every year much as we can afford.

Albrecht knew pH is not everything. Beliving and knowing are very different things. They did measure pH and grew crops in acid soils using Ca and Mg chloride which don't change pH.
That you missing.

Not many farmers I can think of get 3t/ha of Winter wheat. Have you a history of that all over the farm?

What were the absolute levels of P and K on the mehlich test - were they high? You did the Kinsey tests in detail by comparing various high yielding/low yielding areas of the field - did you do the same detail for the normal test? I'd imagine doing that with the Kinsey test would have got expensive but in your case I can see your interest, but what about the guys who would fairly routinely get 9-10t/ha? Sounds to me that P&K levels naturally high, magnesium low (excess potassium?) and your soils were naturally less acidic anyway?

We know that altering one nutrient relative to another can change the concentrations of plant nutrients ie a heap of Ca lime will affect plant uptake of Mg or that excess K can affect Mg. That can be explained by boring old normal techniques.

pH = who measured pH and grew crops in acid soils using just the ratio technique? Whilst some plants can do ok because they are acid loving not many farmed crops will thrive on a low pH. I don't believe a farm crop can thrive if it had a pH of 5 but a technically "good" Ca/mg ratio.

 

[Colin]

Latest update, did tissue samples on the carrots, cam back low in P and K, we have broadcast more MOP on but have left a check area untreated so we will test that today and see if it has made a difference.

 

[mikep]

Anecdotal evidence.

We did our first Kinsey soil tests after local gurus told our w-wheat will be fine, just wait when it getting warmer in springtime. Wheat was purple and did not tiller at all. So we ended 3t/ha average on that field, but yield monitor showing sometimes 6t too. Makes you wondering? Meclich3 tests showing pH 6.2-6.5, P and K very good levels, Ca desired level, Mg average, micros low. Should be like alright for groving crops, just spray some micros?
Came back Kinsey tests. Base saturations Ca80-83%, Mg 6-7%, K 6-7%, P two times higher than needed, micros low. Where K% was higher than Mg% more P deficiency was visible.
Could it be some nutrients blocking others? Every time comparing low/high yielding areas in one field, better yielding parts have better base saturation numbers.
Our solution is to acidify root zone to get nutrients into plant and it has worked every time. Cultan and AMS or with CS in spring drilling. Broadcast N and you can loose half yield. We also spreading Mg sulfate every year much as we can afford.

Albrecht knew pH is not everything. Beliving and knowing are very different things. They did measure pH and grew crops in acid soils using Ca and Mg chloride which don't change pH.
That you missing.

Is your land light light or heavy and does it tend to lie wet? Does it warm quickly in the spring or slowly? Is it level or hilly? Is it in valley and shaded? These and many other factors will affect your crops and how they respond. Temperature and water level will be the most important as these affect the mobility of a lot of nutrients or the ability of the plant to use them.
My land can hang wet and some years you can trace the drains in the growing crop, I know no matter how much I soil test or throw at it those areas between the drains will yield less than that over the drain.
Purple colour in cereals can be either a sign of some deficiency or a sign of stress usually brought about by temperature. It seems from what you say yours was showing in the cold, when its cold the plant has less demand for nutrients as it is not growing fast enough. Most symptoms show up as the plants start to grow away in the warmer weather.
Do yourself a favour and mark an area of a field and soil test it by albrecht methods four times in a year and see what the results are.

 

[Old John]

Anecdotal evidence.

We did our first Kinsey soil tests after local gurus told our w-wheat will be fine, just wait when it getting warmer in springtime. Wheat was purple and did not tiller at all. So we ended 3t/ha average on that field, but yield monitor showing sometimes 6t too. Makes you wondering? Meclich3 tests showing pH 6.2-6.5, P and K very good levels, Ca desired level, Mg average, micros low. Should be like alright for groving crops, just spray some micros?
Came back Kinsey tests. Base saturations Ca80-83%, Mg 6-7%, K 6-7%, P two times higher than needed, micros low. Where K% was higher than Mg% more P deficiency was visible.
Could it be some nutrients blocking others? Every time comparing low/high yielding areas in one field, better yielding parts have better base saturation numbers.
Our solution is to acidify root zone to get nutrients into plant and it has worked every time. Cultan and AMS or with CS in spring drilling. Broadcast N and you can loose half yield. We also spreading Mg sulfate every year much as we can afford.

Albrecht knew pH is not everything. Beliving and knowing are very different things. They did measure pH and grew crops in acid soils using Ca and Mg chloride which don't change pH.
That you missing.

Where in the world are you farming?

 

[marco]

Where in the world are you farming?

estonia i think

 

[Renaultman]

Will, be honest , you never gone through details with Albrecht.

Hi mate. Nice to see you have come out from behind the screen

 

[Renaultman]

estonia i think

Yip

 

[Feldspar]

I have finally found a bit of paper which I lost a while back. I was told, when I said that I couldn't see from the combine yield meter any difference in yield between parts of the field with kieserite and parts without, that I should take hectolitre weights because this wouldn't be picked up by the combine.

So here's a snapshot of hectolitre weights from a field of wheat from 2013 harvest that had 0, 100 and 263 kg/ha of kieserite (and no other additions):

0 kg/ha - 71.7
100 kg/ha - 72.72
263 kg/ha (a) - 71.3
263 kg/ha (b) - 70.9

Conclusions? Not much difference. Certainly the higher rate hasn't helped.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I have finally found a bit of paper which I lost a while back. I was told, when I said that I couldn't see from the combine yield meter any difference in yield between parts of the field with kieserite and parts without, that I should take hectolitre weights because this wouldn't be picked up by the combine.

So here's a snapshot of hectolitre weights from a field of wheat from 2013 harvest that had 0, 100 and 263 kg/ha of kieserite (and no other additions):

0 kg/ha - 71.7
100 kg/ha - 72.72
263 kg/ha (a) - 71.3
263 kg/ha (b) - 70.9

Conclusions? Not much difference. Certainly the higher rate hasn't helped.

How much would have been the extra spend? £50/acre? @ the 263kg level?

 

[Feldspar]

How much would have been the extra spend? £50/acre? @ the 263kg level?

Will check.