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Little River, TX | GTD,
Those numbers as to the reliability of soil test results are in the same ball park as what I remember from the Journal of Production Agriculture. (Sure wish ASA still produced it)
I do not fault the Laboratories because they are producing the results we are paying for. We have them run a Qualitative
Analysis not a Quantitative Analysis, and there is a big difference.
As it is they can produce consistent results using their prepared samples within 10% day in and day out.
Our soils are not a monolithic uniform substance but is a loose mixture of elements. The opportunity to miss diagnose when the elements are just a few parts per million is staggering. This is why test results for the micro nutrients is so inaccurate. Say to be accurate each probe would hold one molecule of boron. This time only half your probes found a boron molecule, and the next time each probe had three molecules. This is possible with only inches separating the probe sites.
Ed Winkle is a strong advocate for tissue analysis and for good reason. If we did not agree on anything else we would agree on tissue analysis.
An advantage of the hay business is I can and do pull hay samples from each field for each cutting. The mineral analysis a rough gauge for mineral uptake by the hay crop.
Edited by Hay Wilson in TX 11/2/2008 21:18
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Zone Sampling - Revisited
