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bit north of London, UK | Hay,
I had noted your advocacy for tissue testing. Something i must get round to this season.
Re Phosphate - i hear what you are saying. Indeed the large size of my KAS recs for phosphate fert used to suprise me, but less so now. I do plan to make phosphate (and others) more available by acidifying some soil by point injection of ammonium sulphate solution in early spring. We will see..
Actually the biggest problem i have, affecting about a fifth of my acres, is marginally low manganese allied with disasterously low iron levels. eg 30ppm Mn with 2ppm Fe. There (must) be iron in the subsoil, but the surface 4 inches where i pull my soil samples from is a problem. Crops are very slow growing in the autumn on these fields, and need a lot of protection from predators such as slugs and rabbits. Come the spring they grow on OK, albeit from a backward start.
A need to unlock iron, and a financially driven desire to unlock calcium phosphates are the reasons i am persuing plans to use fall applied AS , in bands or points, to acidify parts of the soil. You guys do this all the time with your fall applications of fert, knifed into the groung. But here it is unheard of and actually illegal due to (often wholly inappropriate) N management / application rules. | |
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Soil Tests and knowing your soils
