Albrecht versus conventional soil testing - my experiments

York · Feb 25, 2014

foliars:
they are only a bandage to help under stress situations. furthermore, many nutrients are not transferred downwards in the plant, so you keep on painting the top of a skyscraper and your basement is not getting better but rotten & week.
Do you know how long the effect of a spray lasts like if you want to influence hormones in a plant? Just do your guesses.
next guess: why the majority of foliar sprays have a little sniff of N in them?
Feed the soil which will feed the crop.
York-Th.

Eltjo · Feb 25, 2014

York said:
foliars:
they are only a bandage to help under stress situations. furthermore, many nutrients are not transferred downwards in the plant, so you keep on painting the top of a skyscraper and your basement is not getting better but rotten & week.
Do you know how long the effect of a spray lasts like if you want to influence hormones in a plant? Just do your guesses.
next guess: why the majority of foliar sprays have a little sniff of N in them?
Feed the soil which will feed the crop.
York-Th.

How often is a crop not under stress? If you don't have a good root system you can have all the nutrients in the soil but not enough in the plant. On top of that feeding the plant nitrate-N and you get a plant even more deficient in many nutrients.

There are many different products on the market and some are better than others ..... and some are no good. So you can't call all of them bad. N in foliar fertilizers would not affect the crop when it hits the soil. The amount is just to small. The exception are products which contain only N and one sprays enough of it.

In an ideal world I am all for feeding the soil however you need a biologically active soil to help with the delivery of the nutrients. Since we are often dealing with poor soil structure because of tillage (under wet conditions) and poor crop rotation, help is needed. Building the soil and foliar feeding is the way to go if you ask me. This is especially true when dealing with so many antagonisms like we have in these high Ca soils.

Elmsted · Feb 25, 2014

Eltjo said:
. Building the soil and foliar feeding is the way to go if you ask me. This is especially true when dealing with so many antagonisms like we have in these high Ca soils.

All well and good in an ideal world with assumption of farmed area staying the same. Be it the chermodium of the black sea crescent or the wild reaches of contract farming in East Anglia UK. A one crop fix is practical.

Why give an objective of a soil fix. And equally assume that some fictional ratio is right. It maybe wrong or practicaly unattainable. Where as tissue and leave feeding may not add to the soil levels of nutrition it is practical to use and at end of the day cost nigh on bugger all. Much the same as spraying Nufol N on wheat pre harvest post flowering. And buyer tests Wheat for N and makes a correlation to Protein. Nowt more than smoke and mirrors.

martian · Feb 25, 2014

And we wonder why so many people are allergic to wheat!

Mounty · Feb 25, 2014

@York Wasn't at the seminar. I know samples take time to get results back and thats fine but would have thought a one line reply to an email was possible within a fortnight. Cannot send samples until they reply.

Elmsted · Feb 25, 2014

Eltjo and to an extent others. As far as I am informed you are of Dutch extraction hence maybe your refernce to Growers from there. I also understand you have recently been given/aquired the rights to Kinsey name or system or ideas for parts of Europe. A very breif look at your website seems to indicate liquid fertilsers as the core business. Which seems to draw one to the conclusion that Kinsey/Albrecht feed the soil to feed the plant or use only our laboraty as those results we can understand, seem somewhat thrown out with the bathwater.

Whilst I may not be a Kinsey/Albrecht fan it seems the hard work of York is also going with the bathwater. As it is regarding the tosser who makes Cross slot drills. The entire topic of ratio's of plant nutrients and the mystic is in my view overblown and not much more than snake oil salesmanship.

Renaultman · Feb 25, 2014

Elmsted said:
Eltjo and to an extent others. As far as I am informed you are of Dutch extraction hence maybe your refernce to Growers from there. I also understand you have recently been given/aquired the rights to Kinsey name or system or ideas for parts of Europe. A very breif look at your website seems to indicate liquid fertilsers as the core business. Which seems to draw one to the conclusion that Kinsey/Albrecht feed the soil to feed the plant or use only our laboraty as those results we can understand, seem somewhat thrown out with the bathwater.

Whilst I may not be a Kinsey/Albrecht fan it seems the hard work of York is also going with the bathwater. As it is regarding the tosser who makes Cross slot drills. The entire topic of ratio's of plant nutrients and the mystic is in my view overblown and not much more than snake oil salesmanship.

Or a small part of a complex and infinitely varying jigsaw. I don't think there will ever be a simple nutritional. chemical or engineering plan for crop and soil fertility and everything has to be adapted to match the ultimate variable............
Weather.

Colin · Feb 25, 2014

Surely any sampling system is just all about giving you info. I assume that by and large if you have low copper say, they will say its low, it's just how they tell you to correct it is different. If you think cuprokylt is the way forward, crack on, solid pellets instead then fair enough, chelates if you must!
The best thing to do is give it a try and see. Lee, like myself has tried the whole shebang and it is too pricey. Therefore I pick the parts that. Am sure give me benefit and use less of the stuff that may not. I use mag lime, even though the odd area would benefit from Ca lime but the soil type isn't suffering from the excess Mg, and at the end of the day Mg lime also contains Ca. I don't use kieserite or SOP as they are too expensive, I do use seaweed as it is certainly doing something for certain crops, in fact i would say the carrots are tastier now, but that's a subjective thing.

awkward · Feb 25, 2014

I am not aware of the differences of one sampling method over the other, but when I do sample I would like to get major and minor and trace nutrient levels in the soil and how available to crop they may be , also how excess or deficit within soil might affect nutrient availability. Interesting to see the amount of material mentioned in this treed, all seems of recent publication . But how relevant would older research be ,when nitrogen fret was not available to destort foliage reedings or exaggerate levels of available nutrients in soil ??

Eltjo · Feb 26, 2014

Elmsted said:
Eltjo and to an extent others. As far as I am informed you are of Dutch extraction hence maybe your refernce to Growers from there. I also understand you have recently been given/aquired the rights to Kinsey name or system or ideas for parts of Europe. A very breif look at your website seems to indicate liquid fertilsers as the core business. Which seems to draw one to the conclusion that Kinsey/Albrecht feed the soil to feed the plant or use only our laboraty as those results we can understand, seem somewhat thrown out with the bathwater.

In order to clarify a few things here. I have studied Soil Science for almost 7 years at Canadian and US Universities. The last 2.5 years also included plant physiology. I grew up on a farm in Holland as well as in Canada. Since 1993, I have been studying the Albrecht system. Everyone who chooses to follow the Albrecht system has the freedom to include things like foliar fertilizers. That however does not change the importance of feeding the soil. There is no way one can expect maximum yields just with foliar fertilizers.

Neal Kinsey chooses to teach the Albrecht system of soil nutrients and not foliar fertilizers, soil biology, etc. That does not mean they are not important!

I also use the principles taught by Dr. Carey Reams. He looked at the plant available nutrients in the soil and not base saturation. Both systems have their place. For example, you can have 2 identical soil reports (Albrecht) and very different crop yields. So does that mean the Albrecht system is wrong? No! Having no life in the soil and poor soil structure is enough to significantly reduce your yield! There is no magic pill to fix all of your problems. The Albrecht system is just 1 part of the solution.

I use what I have learned over the past 30 years to grow better crops and I use all of the "tools" at my disposal. This includes the Albrecht system, the Reams system, crop rotation, soil amendments, specific fertilizers and foliar fertilizers.

About 10 years ago I started developing my own liquid fertilizer. Before I was working with several different products which only had 1, 2 maybe 3 different nutrients. A plant needs all of them to grow healthy and strong so that we may maximize yield. I have also added several root stimulants because feeding a plant through the leaf is short lived. Creating more roots helps the plant capture more nutrients already in the soil.

Hope this clarifies matters. If my ideas and/or opinions are not in line with what this forum is looking for, I shall sign off.

Eltjo · Feb 26, 2014

Renaultman said:
Or a small part of a complex and infinitely varying jigsaw. I don't think there will ever be a simple nutritional. chemical or engineering plan for crop and soil fertility and everything has to be adapted to match the ultimate variable............
Weather.

Mother nature is definitely complex so there won't be a simple answer to soil fertility.

SilliamWhale · Feb 26, 2014

Colin said:
Surely any sampling system is just all about giving you info. I assume that by and large if you have low copper say, they will say its low, it's just how they tell you to correct it is different. If you think cuprokylt is the way forward, crack on, solid pellets instead then fair enough, chelates if you must!
The best thing to do is give it a try and see. Lee, like myself has tried the whole shebang and it is too pricey. Therefore I pick the parts that. Am sure give me benefit and use less of the stuff that may not. I use mag lime, even though the odd area would benefit from Ca lime but the soil type isn't suffering from the excess Mg, and at the end of the day Mg lime also contains Ca. I don't use kieserite or SOP as they are too expensive, I do use seaweed as it is certainly doing something for certain crops, in fact i would say the carrots are tastier now, but that's a subjective thing.

This is all relatively conventional stuff though. You use maglime because you presumably your soils are not too high of it in quantitative terms and it is cheaper or more available than calcium lime and you want to maintain pH? Presumably you don't feel your soils are low in calcium? (I don't thank that many soils are usually - the carbonate does the job on pH)

The seaweed seems to be Glensides' add on in the business model - ie sell the albrecht test and the addendums and then make a little bit on the seaweed as well. I have used seaweed in the past and although I prefer FYM etc. I'm sure it doesn't do a lot of harm but equally there isn't much evidence it does a lot of good.

Elmsted · Feb 26, 2014

Seems this is correct to post. http://www.cropfuel.nl/en/

Then ask why a Canadian/dane is gracing us with input. When many/most here are feed the soil to feed the plant types.
I feel maybe wrongly that we are a group with maybe divergent opinions but the undelying principle of profit not yeild coupled with a long term aim of sustainability.

awkward · Feb 26, 2014

Sampling soil is ok but in my experience, when we had trace element problems with herd 20+ years ago it was only hi lighted with milk sampling cross referenced with soil sample, turned out to be locked up by excess nutrients in soil

Elmsted · Feb 26, 2014

Colin said:
Surely any sampling system is just all about giving you info. I assume that by and large if you have low copper say, they will say its low, it's just how they tell you to correct it is different. If you think cuprokylt is the way forward, crack on, solid pellets instead then fair enough, chelates if you must!

awkward said:
I am not aware of the differences of one sampling method over the other, But how relevant would older research be ,when nitrogen fret was not available to destort foliage reedings or exaggerate levels of available nutrients in soil ??

Any sampling system method is by and large fine. Be that soil or tissue. It is the interpreation which is in question surely in this thread.

If I write that from the independent data I feel the figure for MG or copper or boron is X amount does that make the recomendations of a seller of aforesaid nutrients better or worse. Or skewed by marketing.
Hence why I use data from universities or research centres as a means of establishing a base line.

SilliamWhale · Feb 26, 2014

Elmsted said:
Seems this is correct to post. http://www.cropfuel.nl/en/

Then ask why a Canadian/dane is gracing us with input. When many/most here are feed the soil to feed the plant types.
I feel maybe wrongly that we are a group with maybe divergent opinions but the undelying principle of profit not yeild coupled with a long term aim of sustainability.

I bet there is a tidy income to be made from Cropfuel. The mark up on what is a mix of NPK and small amounts of micronutrients must be quite good. But you can get this nutrition from lots of other places too - muck, slurry and big bags of fert.

I don't trust the little side industry developing behind the Albrecht ratios and the attendent barrels of liquid fert supposedly providing the ingredients the big nasty companies have hidden from us. I trust it all less than Monsanto quite frankly. Thats not to say there's nothing to learn from soil science but I'm not sure this is where we need to head.

Feldspar · Mar 4, 2014

Out of interest I had an ask around for prices of different foliar mixes to compare them with the cost of applying products to the soil. Here's analysis of one tailor-made foliar mix with the above tissue test in mind:

3kgsB + 1Kg K + 2Kg MgO + 0.5Kgs Zn = 6.5kgs/ha £19.5/ha

I'm not very experienced with prices for these sorts of things, but that seems quite a lot of money. Thoughts?

Elmsted · Mar 4, 2014

Feldspar said:
Out of interest I had an ask around for prices of different foliar mixes to compare them with the cost of applying products to the soil. Here's analysis of one tailor-made foliar mix with the above tissue test in mind:

3kgsB + 1Kg K + 2Kg MgO + 0.5Kgs Zn = 6.5kgs/ha £19.5/ha

I'm not very experienced with prices for these sorts of things, but that seems quite a lot of money. Thoughts?

What price for the bagged stuff. Then mix on farm. Seems simple to me. So must be missing something.

Feldspar · Mar 4, 2014

Elmsted said:
What price for the bagged stuff. Then mix on farm. Seems simple to me. So must be missing something.

Do you mean bags of the individual foliar constituents like bittersalz, solubor, potassium sulphate etc? I had thought this was the cheapest way. I was just curious to see how much more a premixed product would be.

Andy Howard · Mar 4, 2014

Feldspar said:
Out of interest I had an ask around for prices of different foliar mixes to compare them with the cost of applying products to the soil. Here's analysis of one tailor-made foliar mix with the above tissue test in mind:

3kgsB + 1Kg K + 2Kg MgO + 0.5Kgs Zn = 6.5kgs/ha £19.5/ha

I'm not very experienced with prices for these sorts of things, but that seems quite a lot of money. Thoughts?

Is that 3kgs of actual boron? Careful you do not mix up a herbicide!

Albrecht versus conventional soil testing - my experiments

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