Better soil sample test

[Two Tone]

Are you using the seaweed products that Glenside sell?

Seaweed isn’t the answer, but can be a small part of it. There are cheaper alternatives to the Glenside version of it too.

How do you define what an excess of Calcium is? And iron?

I think its a total misnomer to say there should be a certain ratio of Ca, Mg and K for ideal plant growth as espoused by Albrecht Soil balancing. Plant growth is palpably not affected by ratios of nutrients because its been tested quite rigourously. furthermore the size of your soil sample vs your growing medium is what 1 million times smaller?

You either have enough P and K in the soil for your needs or you are mining it - albeit very slowly possibly if chopping straw etc. But you still have enough "quantity" of P and K - even normal NRM soil tests are only a snapshot and as limited as any other soil test.

It may be the case that high pH soils could take sulphur in order to temporarily acidify the soil zone a bit but the parent material is still the same. I can also accept that an very high calcium soils will limit plant uptake of other nutrients but it still doesn't lead to a ratio

Without dragging the files out, I am not going to be able to go through what is iron to excess. But I can tell you we are “ very” iron to excess.

This combined with the calcium causes triple super phosphate to form insoluble calcium phosphate which is what our teeth are made of.

Any guesses as to what we can do to break that cation bond and make the phosphate soluble again?

This farm followed RB209 for years and it was obvious that something was wrong. It was as if the phosphate we were applying didn’t have any phosphate in it. It did of course, but something was preventing it from getting Ito the plant. There is so much of it locked up now, that I probably won’t need to apply any more in my lifetime.

But you are right, we could actually mine some of our fields for potash.

 

[Brisel]

Magnesium?

 

[Two Tone]

Magnesium?

Magnesium is not an issue here. Also not the answer to unlocking the Phosphate.

But you raise an interesting point. If we test for pH, the test will probably show a low figure. What would be the point of using a Calcium lime on an already Calcium rich soil?

If you were to believe the pH test (which actually tests Hydrogen, not acidity),
You might want to use Dolmitic lime from Derbyshire which is Magnesium lime.

The trouble is that there are many farmers here who get conned into using masses of calcium lime and tsp on high calcium, very high iron soils. Then topped off by using far too much nitrogen And wonder why they don’t get good yields.

As I said, RB209 might work on some soil, but certainly not this part of the Cotswolds.

 

[Warnesworth]

I think its a total misnomer to say there should be a certain ratio of Ca, Mg and K for ideal plant growth as espoused by Albrecht Soil balancing. Plant growth is palpably not affected by ratios of nutrients because its been tested quite rigourously. furthermore the size of your soil sample vs your growing medium is what 1 million times smaller?

I am sorry Will but I have to disagree. The problem is people have mis-intrepreted what Albrecht was actually on about. I agree that there are plenty of trials and peer read reviews which don't agree with his work. But they are missing the point too, which is that it may not bring you extra yield in one single year. But over a number of years it will bring about a more consistent yield, and a soil which is more active, i.e. has more pore space to allow better air and water movement, more biologically active, and free's up the nutrition by bringing the pH more into line with where it should by not having excesses of magnesium or calcium. It's about calcium and magnesium, not about lime, don't confuse the two.

 

[Warnesworth]

Because the balancing ratios is pointless if you dont have enough of a nutrient. Law of minimum etc.

It doesnt show anything "locked up" at all.

Usually when farmers start getting into "Albrecht" they start showing an interest in soil fertility per se and of course they reap the benefits. Can you tell me what youve done to save the £180k?

You are right to an extent, it doesn't show whats locked up, but it leads to greater understanding of what's going on. So if you have an excess of magnesium you then know that nitrogen and potassium (for example) will be compromised and can therefore plan your spend better to account for it. Similarly an excess of calcium will also start to cause issues.

 

[Brisel]

@Two Tone what is your solution to breaking up the fairly inert Ca PO4? My chalk theoretically will never ever require calcium though odd spots of clay or gravel cap do need liming. I've switched to Mag lime despite the extra cost - Buying kieserite is even more expensive though I use it rotationally for extra sulphur in crops like osr or beans. It will be interesting to look at base saturations to see how much Ca is actually available though tissue tests have never shown a Ca deficiency, not unsurprisingly.

 

[Two Tone]

@Two Tone what is your solution to breaking up the fairly inert Ca PO4? My chalk theoretically will never ever require calcium though odd spots of clay or gravel cap do need liming. I've switched to Mag lime despite the extra cost - Buying kieserite is even more expensive though I use it rotationally for extra sulphur in crops like osr or beans. It will be interesting to look at base saturations to see how much Ca is actually available though tissue tests have never shown a Ca deficiency, not unsurprisingly.

Well actually its a lot more simple than you would imagine and something we already use: Sulphur.

The sulphur breaks the bond and attaches itself with the Calcium to create Calcium Sulphate (Gypsum / Plaster of Paris).
As anybody who has ever broken a bone, you can't let it get wet because it is highly soluble. In the soil, the gypsum gets washed down the profile, leaving the phosphate to become available and do its work.

I am sure the scientific explanation sounds a lot more complicated, but that is the simple one.

I started off using 3 x1l of Glenside Biosulphur split at T0,T1and T2 and 2 x3l on the Rape. The 1st IBC arrived with a Stanchem Industries label on it and a Gt Yarmouth telephone number and a product name of BioSulph. So next year I rang up and asked if they could sell it to me direct. The price was less than half of that of Glenside!

But it isn't nice stuff to use and get into the sprayer. I was also using Urea as my Nitrogen and as it is slower to work than AN and doesn't work if it is cold. It occurred to me to use Doubletop as my 1st dressing to get both the N & S on and that the N would work quickly to get into the plant with the S. So I have been doing this the last 2 years and it seems to work.

We do use some seaweed to help the rootball mop up the P as it becomes available. Glenside do a product called Marrinure or Marriphite which also contains Phosphite. Stanchem do a cheaper version called Seaphite.

 

[Brisel]

I use Yara liquid fertiliser. Currently on N32 9.4 SO3 so that's a ratio of 3:1. UAN plus UAS liquid. Would that do the job? For plant sulphur the S demand matches the N demand hence applying S throughout the season.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I am sorry Will but I have to disagree. The problem is people have mis-intrepreted what Albrecht was actually on about. I agree that there are plenty of trials and peer read reviews which don't agree with his work. But they are missing the point too, which is that it may not bring you extra yield in one single year. But over a number of years it will bring about a more consistent yield, and a soil which is more active, i.e. has more pore space to allow better air and water movement, more biologically active, and free's up the nutrition by bringing the pH more into line with where it should by not having excesses of magnesium or calcium. It's about calcium and magnesium, not about lime, don't confuse the two.

I don't mind that you disagree

I'm saying that the data doesn't appear to support the claims and that also the general trend is that it results in expensive fertiliser advice (and probably overapplication of some ferts). I would welcome some replicated trials in the UK to demonstrate that I may be wrong. I don't think trials I have read are missing the point, here is quite a through one of the state of play

http://themodern.farm/studies/Catio...ion saturation ratio and the “ideal” soil.pdf

 

[Renaultman]

Magnesium is not an issue here. Also not the answer to unlocking the Phosphate.

But you raise an interesting point. If we test for pH, the test will probably show a low figure. What would be the point of using a Calcium lime on an already Calcium rich soil?

If you were to believe the pH test (which actually tests Hydrogen, not acidity),
You might want to use Dolmitic lime from Derbyshire which is Magnesium lime.

The trouble is that there are many farmers here who get conned into using masses of calcium lime and tsp on high calcium, very high iron soils. Then topped off by using far too much nitrogen And wonder why they don’t get good yields.

As I said, RB209 might work on some soil, but certainly not this part of the Cotswolds.

And the reverse over here on our high Mg soils. I think conned is a bit harsh, just a lack of knowledge about the type of lime required.
Love these threads as I am still/always trying to learn but much like the DD ones you take from them what you want and try to keep an open mind.

 

[Two Tone]

And the reverse over here on our high Mg soils. I think conned is a bit harsh, just a lack of knowledge about the type of lime required.
Love these threads as I am still/always trying to learn but much like the DD ones you take from them what you want and try to keep an open mind.

I need to correct myself re Magnesium. Thanks to a very interesting meeting with @Warnesworth yesterday morning, I’ll rephrase what I said in post #23:

Magnesium is not a problem here because we are short of it. In fact in most cases we have too much of it! That might not sound bad, but the problem is that we also have too much Calcium.

Ideally we want a balance totalling 80, such as 68 Calcium to 12 of Magnesium.
What we have ranges from 84Ca + 8Mg = 92 to 68Ca + 26Mg = 94!

However, this is made even worse here by the fact that we suffer from Iron to excess.
But to correct this, the answer is still to use Sulphur.

I too @Renaultman find it all fascinating.
Irrespective of which type of lime is used, much of it is rubbish. It might have the correct neutralising analysis, but usually too much of the wrong size particles that will totally confuse any NRM tests that follow any applications for years!
Those bigger particles that will not break down in the soil, get crushed by NRM, which then fools the test into thinking soils are more alkaline than they really are and have a higher Ca proportion.

Albrecht tests are for more accurate at determining the true picture and what fertilisers policy we should be following.
RB209 might be a reasonable benchmark to start off with regards fertiliser, but if everything else is reasonably in balance, generally it is promoting far too higher use of Nitrogen than is necessary. This means going over the top of the response curve and actually reducing yield.

What amazes both @Warnesworth and I is that RB209 guidelines are Government organisation figures, which is far from being beneficial to the soil, water or the environment!

 

[Renaultman]

I need to correct myself re Magnesium. Thanks to a very interesting meeting with @Warnesworth yesterday morning, I’ll rephrase what I said in post #23:

Magnesium is not a problem here because we are short of it. In fact in most cases we have too much of it! That might not sound bad, but the problem is that we also have too much Calcium.

Ideally we want a balance totalling 80, such as 68 Calcium to 12 of Magnesium.
What we have ranges from 84Ca + 8Mg = 92 to 68Ca + 26Mg = 94!

However, this is made even worse here by the fact that we suffer from Iron to excess.
But to correct this, the answer is still to use Sulphur.

I too @Renaultman find it all fascinating.
Irrespective of which type of lime is used, much of it is rubbish. It might have the correct neutralising analysis, but usually too much of the wrong size particle that with totally confuse any NRM tests that follow any applications for years!
Those bigger particles that will not break down in the soil, get crushed by NRM, which then fools the test into thinking soils are more alkaline than they really are and have a higher Ca proportion.

Albrecht tests are for more accurate at determining the true picture and what fertilisers policy we should be following.
RB209 might be a reasonable benchmark to start off with regards fertiliser, but if everything else is reasonably in balance, generally it is promoting far too higher use of Nitrogen than is necessary. This means going over the top of the response curve and actually reducing yield.

What amazes both @Warnesworth and I is that RB209 guidelines are Government organisation figures, which is far from being beneficial to the soil, water or the environment!

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Albrecht promote a Ca Mg balance and to aim for that is the ideal? Like I say, still learning. Agree on the limes and if your PH is right, another argument in itself, I understand you need a neutral form of Ca or Mg?
Anyway my main aim is to get as much OM into my soils as possible, the payback being the extra traffic and subsequent damage to soil structure that that may bring about. (particularly with digestate at the huge rates it needs to go on at). 3 to 5 years in, tied with a no plough strategy seems to be improving the soils and hopefully the yields will follow. Disconcertingly neighbours who still use a plough and combi set up, albeit on better land, are still getting better yields than me.

 

[Two Tone]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Albrecht promote a Ca Mg balance and to aim for that is the ideal? Like I say, still learning. Agree on the limes and if your PH is right, another argument in itself, I understand you need a neutral form of Ca or Mg?
Anyway my main aim is to get as much OM into my soils as possible, the payback being the extra traffic and subsequent damage to soil structure that that may bring about. (particularly with digestate at the huge rates it needs to go on at). 3 to 5 years in, tied with a no plough strategy seems to be improving the soils and hopefully the yields will follow. Disconcertingly neighbours who still use a plough and combi set up, albeit on better land, are still getting better yields than me.

I hope @Warnesworth will jump in here, because he can explain it far better than me, but yes you are correct re balancing of Ca and Mg.

I went down the min-till route and almost totally buggered up this farm with an explosion of Blackgrass. Then returned to ploughing and Combi drilling and got it back under control again. Yields are back to where they should be and improving all the time.

OM is very important and now far more vital to me because I have had to return to ploughing. I need more because I have to get it into all the plough depth profile rather than the top few inches that a no plough policy provides.

Like everything else in life, the way we farm evolves and involves a lot of compromises. We all search for the system that works best for each individual farm.

There is no definite “right way” of doing anything in farming. We all just choose a system that works best for each of us, whist gleaning useful tips from others that might improve our own systems.

 

[Renaultman]

I hope @Warnesworth will jump in here, because he can explain it far better than me, but yes you are correct re balancing of Ca and Mg.

I went down the min-till rote and almost totally buggered up this farm with an explosion of Blackgrass. Then returned to ploughing and Combi drilling and got it back under control again. Yields are back to where they should be and improving all the time.

OM is very important and now far more vital to me because I have had to return to ploughing. I need more because I have to get it into all the plough depth profile rather than the top few inches that a no plough policy provides.

Like everything else in life, the way we farm evolves and involves a lot of compromises. We all search for the system that works best for each individual farm.

There is no definite “right way” of doing anything in farming. We all just choose a system that works best for each of us, whist gleaning useful tips from others that might improve our own systems.

Exactly me ethos.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I need to correct myself re Magnesium. Thanks to a very interesting meeting with @Warnesworth yesterday morning, I’ll rephrase what I said in post #23:

Magnesium is not a problem here because we are short of it. In fact in most cases we have too much of it! That might not sound bad, but the problem is that we also have too much Calcium.

Ideally we want a balance totalling 80, such as 68 Calcium to 12 of Magnesium.
What we have ranges from 84Ca + 8Mg = 92 to 68Ca + 26Mg = 94!

However, this is made even worse here by the fact that we suffer from Iron to excess.
But to correct this, the answer is still to use Sulphur.

I too @Renaultman find it all fascinating.
Irrespective of which type of lime is used, much of it is rubbish. It might have the correct neutralising analysis, but usually too much of the wrong size particles that will totally confuse any NRM tests that follow any applications for years!
Those bigger particles that will not break down in the soil, get crushed by NRM, which then fools the test into thinking soils are more alkaline than they really are and have a higher Ca proportion.

Albrecht tests are for more accurate at determining the true picture and what fertilisers policy we should be following.
RB209 might be a reasonable benchmark to start off with regards fertiliser, but if everything else is reasonably in balance, generally it is promoting far too higher use of Nitrogen than is necessary. This means going over the top of the response curve and actually reducing yield.

What amazes both @Warnesworth and I is that RB209 guidelines are Government organisation figures, which is far from being beneficial to the soil, water or the environment!

Did you read the attachment I put in about how they came up with the ca/mg balancing theory and how its scientific.basis is flawed?

I appreciate that we are all hear to learn and that we have both nailed our colours to the mast as it were but I dont think it stands up to soil balancing.

Either you can get a yield peak from a soil ratio of 68/12 or you cant. There isnt really evidence to suggest as you get closer this ratio yields increase (but yields may increase because youve put more of a certain element on anyway).

 

[Renaultman]

Trouble is IMO, there are so many variables in growing a crop, it's hard to quantify what's good and what's not, what works and what doesn't. Also what works one year probably won't the next.
Continuing the IMO theme, the best tool is experience and gut feeling the best aid to this is an open mind.
Tony

 

[Two Tone]

Did you read the attachment I put in about how they came up with the ca/mg balancing theory and how its scientific.basis is flawed?

I appreciate that we are all hear to learn and that we have both nailed our colours to the mast as it were but I dont think it stands up to soil balancing.

Either you can get a yield peak from a soil ratio of 68/12 or you cant. There isnt really evidence to suggest as you get closer this ratio yields increase (but yields may increase because youve put more of a certain element on anyway).

Can’t find your attachment on this thread. Was it on another one and which post was it?

You are obviously sceptical re Albrecht, whereas I am not. Why (am I not)?
We followed RB209 but weren’t getting anything like the results we should have been. That starts to question your own sanity and belief in oneself!

By chance, one of my seeds salesman suggested we look at Albrecht. Several expensive soil tests highlighted problems we hadn’t even thought of and we adopted their recommendations to see if it made any difference. I was told we might not see a huge improvement straight away and it might take a few years to get the full benefit. But we did see a huge improvement on year one! I have been using a weigher on the Combine for 30 years now and conduct my own in field tramline trials. So I can quantify if something works or not.

I am not a Chemist or Soil scientist. So I am not qualified to give in depth answers to specific Ca/Mg proportion questions. I do understand that we have a problem within this on this farm, further exaggerated by Iron to excess. Following recommendations, two things have happened here, yields have gone up and are more consistent. On top of which we see savings of £15k/ year

We have a Labour and Machinery share farming agreement with our neighbours, whose Agronomist follows the RB209 system to the letter. Guess which farm has the highest yields and lowest COP?

If you want scientific proof, I’d suggest that the next time you are at Cereals, go to the Glenside stand and speak to Ian Robertson. He explains and will show you side by side plots of what the RB209 recommendation for the site are and what the Albrecht recommendations are. He will show you how much fertiliser has been saved and thanks to ear and grainsite counts, can predict how much better the yield will be in the Albrecht plot.

Both the Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire sites are quite different to the situation here in my patch of the Cotswolds. But it seems to me that the proof is in the pudding and it at least works on all three of these sites.

If RB209 works for you and you are happy with it, carry on. I am just suggesting that there is an alternative that might work better, giving higher, more consistent yields at far less cost.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Can’t find your attachment on this thread. Was it on another one and which post was it?

You are obviously sceptical re Albrecht, whereas I am not. Why (am I not)?
We followed RB209 but weren’t getting anything like the results we should have been. That starts to question your own sanity and belief in oneself!

By chance, one of my seeds salesman suggested we look at Albrecht. Several expensive soil tests highlighted problems we hadn’t even thought of and we adopted their recommendations to see if it made any difference. I was told we might not see a huge improvement straight away and it might take a few years to get the full benefit. But we did see a huge improvement on year one! I have been using a weigher on the Combine for 30 years now and conduct my own in field tramline trials. So I can quantify if something works or not.

I am not a Chemist or Soil scientist. So I am not qualified to give in depth answers to specific Ca/Mg proportion questions. I do understand that we have a problem within this on this farm, further exaggerated by Iron to excess. Following recommendations, two things have happened here, yields have gone up and are more consistent. On top of which we see savings of £15k/ year

We have a Labour and Machinery share farming agreement with our neighbours, whose Agronomist follows the RB209 system to the letter. Guess which farm has the highest yields and lowest COP?

If you want scientific proof, I’d suggest that the next time you are at Cereals, go to the Glenside stand and speak to Ian Robertson. He explains and will show you side by side plots of what the RB209 recommendation for the site are and what the Albrecht recommendations are. He will show you how much fertiliser has been saved and thanks to ear and grainsite counts, can predict how much better the yield will be in the Albrecht plot.

Both the Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire sites are quite different to the situation here in my patch of the Cotswolds. But it seems to me that the proof is in the pudding and it at least works on all three of these sites.

If RB209 works for you and you are happy with it, carry on. I am just suggesting that there is an alternative that might work better, giving higher, more consistent yields at far less cost.

The link is on the last post

http://themodern.farm/studies/Catio...ion saturation ratio and the “ideal” soil.pdf

I get that you may have a problem with high iron, I get that you may have a problem with low sulphur but are you sure you can attribute that to Albrecht type soil balancing? I thought we were talking about balancing cations? I mean you often say yields were down and blackgrass was up with min till etc. Its not that I'm saying RB209 is gold dust but I am saying the evidence seems to point out that the quantity theory is more reliable than the Albrecht soil balancing one. I know this may upset anyone who has invested heavily in the Albrecht thing for various reasons but I'm only suggesting the scientific literature doesn't appear to match the claims.

Ian Robertson of Glenside is not scientific proof. He is someone who has invested in the system for his business and conducts trials. I'm saying is that is not scientific proof. We can all do a fertiliser holiday on a trial plot. I agree you are not a soil scientist, neither am I and neither is seemingly anyone from Glenside. I'm not talking about micronutrients, I'm not talking about seaweed etc I'm saying that the theory of "soil balancing" appears to be flawed not least because the reason for the balancing ratio in the first place appears to be spurious.

 

[scholland]

Quite an interesting article on Albrecht in the newest direct driller magazine.

 

[Warnesworth]

Morning all
Thanks to @Two Tone there for thoroughly dropping me into it .

Yes Albrecht advocates Ca & Mg percentages totaling 80%, with varying percentages of each depending on the soil texture. I prefer to think of it in this way; calcium is a beneficial element, magnesium less so, excesses of both cause problems; magnesium more so, deficiencies cause problems;calcium more so. Deficiencies are much easier to correct than excesses and a lot of excesses probably cannot be fixed economically. So we use alternative strategies to deal with them.

Again, I reiterate what I said in a post above, it is about much more than simply getting an increased yield in one single year, it is about greater consistency, coupled with plant health, water management, air management etc etc.

If you look at work Rothamsted carried out, calcium leaches readily from the soil in massive amounts, calcium leaching increases with soil pH, and also be affected by the types of fertiliser used. If you calculate how much is being lost per annum I don't believe we are replacing this. Yes the soil analysis may show adequate quantities of calcium but is it actually plant available? I don't know. But this is something we are looking at in more detail.

Had an interesting day day at the Calcium Conference on Wednesday, which if nothing else confirmed my opinions that most Aglime isn't up to specification and far too often we confuse calcium and lime.