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Jasper, Indiana

Here are numbers from my first soil test. Please help with recommendations


PH 6.5
Phosphorus 12ppm
Potassium 41ppm
Calcium 1284ppm
Magnesium 156ppm
Organic Matter 6.1% ENR 166

Calculated Cation Exchange Capacity 6.9 meq/100g
Calculated Cation Saturation
%K 1.4
%Ca 73.5
%Mg 17.3
%H 7.5
Hmeq 0.5

K : Mg Ratio
0.08

4/2/2010 4:07:33 PM

South East

dont know your patch size. But you could use: a little bit of dolo lime, some bonemeal for your phosporus, you need pottasium bad: sulphur of potasch. pelletized humic acid before season start to crank up cec a bit. A bit of epsom salt for magnesium and gypsum for calcium wouldent hurt either, but since your just starting out,,,you might want to keep it simple

After that grow and start fresh in the fall by adding lots of organic matter in the form of manure, grasclippings, leafs etc. and then do another soil test.

4/2/2010 5:31:37 PM

Willamette Valley, Oregon

You're soil looks pretty low overall. I'd add a couple inches of well rotted/aged manure or compost ASAP (although it is getting late for that) and (sorry organic folks, but) go with 30 or max 35 lbs of 16-16-16 per 1000 sq ft (30 ft by 30 ft), ~1 lb of Epsom salt, ~3 lbs of Gypsum. Till that all in when it dries out enough.

4/2/2010 7:28:12 PM

Willamette Valley, Oregon

I should say that's a pretty agressive rate for the 16-16-16. I would do it, but a more conservative approach would be more like 10-15 lbs. That's up to you.

4/2/2010 7:43:30 PM

Paradise Mountain, New York

35lbs. of 16-16-16 is way, way to much. Farmer use 200 lbs. per acre for corn

4/2/2010 11:36:34 PM

Willamette Valley, Oregon

Farmers use 200 lbs for a good reason. Take a look at the first table on this webpage (Crops Utilize Large Amounts of N):

http://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/N_basics.htm

It doesn't have giant pumpkins on there, but look at Tomato. It is probably the closest thing in terms of N use - a heavy feeder like AG pumpkins. Yield is 50 tons per acre (Coincidentally that's about an 1800 lb pumpkin in 800 sq ft). N removal (on the far right) is 373 lbs N/acre or almost 8.5 lbs of N per 1000 sq ft. That's just the amount the plant itself needs (fruit+leaves+roots), not accounting for soil tie-up.

Compare that to 35 lbs of 16-16-16 which (only) provides 5.5 lbs of N (that's actually less than the plant would use, but hopefully the soil holds a little.) In a soil as nutrient poor as BuckHunter's (no offence BH), a person couldn't hope to grow a big pumpkin without boosting N (and P and K) to give a plant a fighting chance at getting the nutrients it would need.

Any more than 35 lbs / 1000 sq ft would be risky because of salt stress etc. (Even 35 lbs is a bit risky, but that's why I suggested the compost addition and doing it now, well before the plant goes in, to help alleviate that potential stress.) However, there's some certainty that having inadequate nutrients will end in weak plant and a small pumpkin.

4/3/2010 1:18:02 AM

Jasper, Indiana

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes, this is my first year for the patch. It is 1,575 Sq Ft.
I added 35lbs of bonemeal,40lbs of potash,6lbs of super phosphate, and 20 lbs of fertilizer.

How many pounds of compost should I add for 1,575 sq ft?

4/4/2010 11:54:25 AM

Rudolph

Your OM is sitting pretty good the way it is now,
if you would like to add some it wont hurt it, but dont over do it. my recommendation would be one-two inches over the whole patch.

4/4/2010 12:29:57 PM

Jasper, Indiana

Today I applied 2 pickup truck loads of aged horse manure and 80 lbs of pellatized lime.

Tomorrow I am appling 1 or 2 loads of compost.

Where can I get pellatized humic acid?

4/4/2010 9:04:28 PM

Willamette Valley, Oregon

Looks like you're on track to get two inches of organic matter. (This is good one for the google.com search box converter: 8 cubic yard / 1575 square feet in inches )

You may have overdone the potassium at 40 lbs, but pumpkins do use a lot of K so I wouldn't worry too much.

If your manure or compost look really wood-chippy I might add 2-5 lbs of urea on top of the organic matter right before the next rain storm depending on just how much wood chips you see. Otherwise I'd be pretty happy with where you are now.

Till that all in when the soil dries out a bit.

Keep us posted.

4/5/2010 1:46:09 AM