Albrecht / Kinsey or bust?

[SilliamWhale]

So who else can I attribute the idea to. You see everybody knows what your on about if you mention Albrecht?

Strictly speaking I'm not sure but a quick google implies it has been around since 1901 at least.

http://www.soils.wisc.edu/extension/pubs/A2986.pdf

But Base Saturation soil testing was not the preserve of Albrecht. I think Kinsey promotes it as an Albrecht system under a trademark as one way of providing Base Saturation soil testing. Its interesting enough but there's no perfect set of numbers alas, too many variables.

 

[warksfarmer]

think samples can be done for about £55 each now

not convinced that precision is needed but if it was the best approach (kinsey seemed to think) was to EC scan field to identify soil type variation and sample the different areas rather than grid sample Soyl style - that way maybe 3 or 4 samples per filed could let you use Albrect principles in a VRA way

Out of interest Lee of you 26 filed samples how much did they vary ?? was there a common pattern in the balance ?

Bar the odd blip the trend varied from block of land to block of land, rather than drastically from field to field. So home for example 12 fields tested produced similar results but you can see the difference between lighter clay loam through to the heavy clay. This was on the latest test which basically means to me that what we have done over the last 10 years cant be to far off otherwise the results would be more varied like they were before. I would also say we have seen a very steady increase in yield over than time, but not massive amounts so maybe 0.25t/ac up for wheat for example.

Just to point out the soil sample sent in for each field was created by taking a small sample from 1ha grid squares but not using gps or recording the location points. So average field size of about 14 ha meant 14 samples went into the bag which was then sent off for a single result - hope that makes sense. So its not uber accurate but good enough for me when blanket applying compost out of muck spreaders and gypsum/slag out of lime spreaders.

 

[joe soapy]

Probably got it completely wrong and please excuse me if i ramble a bit.
Have lived here 60 + years looking at a patchwork of farms, mostly thinnish soils on shale.
from early 60's on marked differences became apparant between intensive dairy and other livestock
so much so that each dairy farms fields could easily be identified by colour of grass.It did not seem possible
for non dairy to replicate this by the use of more N. this changed again when quota came in, with less cake being used, the
colour difference lessened.. Have often wondered if some mineral in bought feed has the abilty to unlock soils potential

 

[Will Blackburn]

Probably got it completely wrong and please excuse me if i ramble a bit.
Have lived here 60 + years looking at a patchwork of farms, mostly thinnish soils on shale.
from early 60's on marked differences became apparant between intensive dairy and other livestock
so much so that each dairy farms fields could easily be identified by colour of grass.It did not seem possible
for non dairy to replicate this by the use of more N. this changed again when quota came in, with less cake being used, the
colour difference lessened.. Have often wondered if some mineral in bought feed has the abilty to unlock soils potential

Zinc? Our fields away from the dairy tested low for this, everything else ok. What is the best way to supplement zinc?

 

[Pedders]

Arthur Hosier used to consider the concentrates he fed his outdoor milking cows to be a form of fertiliser useful for improving the pasture they grazed

 

[SilliamWhale]

Arthur Hosier used to consider the concentrates he fed his outdoor milking cows to be a form of fertiliser useful for improving the pasture they grazed

Sure. You're buying in another farms fertility.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Zinc? Our fields away from the dairy tested low for this, everything else ok. What is the best way to supplement zinc?

Do you have excess Calcium or a high ph? I'm guessing your not chalky?
Also do you think it is a big problem, do you grow maize?

 

[Will Blackburn]

Do you have excess Calcium or a high ph? I'm guessing your not chalky?
Also do you think it is a big problem, do you grow maize?

Zn roughly half where it should according to Yara soil tests. It is consistent with heavier ground (not chalky) that is also away from the dairy. I suspect it is more to do with soil type as previously arable land with no muck, tests similar to that with a silage ley and muck application history. Never had a problem with maize before this year.

 

[joe soapy]

Arthur Hosier used to consider the concentrates he fed his outdoor milking cows to be a form of fertiliser useful for improving the pasture they grazed

Dont think its a pure fertility problem, p and K usually test over 2.

we once cleaned out a dairy farms dirty water tanks and brought home and spread, the effect was noticable for the entire season

 

[SilliamWhale]

Dont think its a pure fertility problem, p and K usually test over 2.

we once cleaned out a dairy farms dirty water tanks and brought home and spread, the effect was noticable for the entire season

Biological food?

 

[Cab-over Pete]

The best fields on any farm are always near to old steadings, which would have all housed stock years ago.

 

[Elmsted]

Put this on your I phones clive and lee.
http://www.pda.org.uk/app/index.html

Read this: http://www.pda.org.uk/leaflets/24/leaflet24-1.html
Which I have used for about a decade.
Us Data for tissue tests. http://www.nrm.uk.com/files/documen...f?phpMyAdmin=e74c3ed609ea3e3b1031074d884358e6
Use Kinsey/albrecht to learn/understand what you read.

Though on tissue I believe/use and experience suggests these as an average over.: As a guide to wheat, rape, Beans
Nitrogen 4.58 ( % dry matter)
Sulphur 0.6
Phosphate 0.6
Potash K. 3.8
Mg 0.4
Calcium 0.8

Fe 125 ( PPM )
Mn 90
Boron 40
Copper 15
Zinc 40

Of course an avaerage is just the numbers for each crop added and divided by 3 being the number of crops. However. As Kinsey said soil that grows maize, soya, wheat is just always about right for all crops. In terms of nutrients available. And that the advanced course is the maths of working out analysis results. Could one extrapolate a soil that provides the above given that for example Sulphur can go from 0.31% to 0.6% in the range I suggest on tissue tests.

I found this the other day whilst it was snowing some more. It is UK based. http://www.nrm.uk.com/files/documen...f?phpMyAdmin=e74c3ed609ea3e3b1031074d884358e6

 

[Feldspar]

Elmsted, that pdf about you posted about the statistics of the nutrient levels in the NRM plant tissue tests is very interesting, particularly when viewed against the other report which does the same for the soil tests that NRM take (http://www.nrm.uk.com/files/documen...f?phpMyAdmin=e74c3ed609ea3e3b1031074d884358e6).

For example if you look at the tissue tests for peas. Nearly all tissue tests show a deficiency in Mg yet only 20% of soils tested had a Mg index of less than 2. Clearly then the index method doesn't work very here.

On the other hand if you look at the figures in wheat there is a pretty even spread for Mg - there are as many deficiency cases as excessive cases. These findings marry pretty well with the soil test Mg figures - an even spread again. So the index system seems to be better here. (Although would would be really interesting from a Kinsey POV would be to see the correlation between soil test indices and tissue tests.)

The same thing happens for K. In OSR there is widespread deficiencies in K even though the soil test results suggest that there shouldn't be.

Does this mean that Kinsey is wrong to say that the ideal soil is ideal for all crops? Or, rather, is it that certain crops are more tolerant of deficiencies. For example, if wheat is more tolerant of Mg deficiencies than peas then this would explain the results.

 

[Clive]

@

Put this on your I phones clive and lee.
http://www.pda.org.uk/app/index.html

Read this: http://www.pda.org.uk/leaflets/24/leaflet24-1.html
Which I have used for about a decade.
Us Data for tissue tests. http://www.nrm.uk.com/files/documen...f?phpMyAdmin=e74c3ed609ea3e3b1031074d884358e6
Use Kinsey/albrecht to learn/understand what you read.

Though on tissue I believe/use and experience suggests these as an average over.: As a guide to wheat, rape, Beans
Nitrogen 4.58 ( % dry matter)
Sulphur 0.6
Phosphate 0.6
Potash K. 3.8
Mg 0.4
Calcium 0.8

Fe 125 ( PPM )
Mn 90
Boron 40
Copper 15
Zinc 40

Of course an avaerage is just the numbers for each crop added and divided by 3 being the number of crops. However. As Kinsey said soil that grows maize, soya, wheat is just always about right for all crops. In terms of nutrients available. And that the advanced course is the maths of working out analysis results. Could one extrapolate a soil that provides the above given that for example Sulphur can go from 0.31% to 0.6% in the range I suggest on tissue tests.

I found this the other day whilst it was snowing some more. It is UK based. http://www.nrm.uk.com/files/documen...f?phpMyAdmin=e74c3ed609ea3e3b1031074d884358e6

Some really useful stuff there - thanks !