To Allan Glen Tony and others
Thanks for the invitation to continue this
Soil science -- No I am not a soil scientist - I have staggered part way
through my University degree in Agricultural science - completing Agronomy
subjects at High distinction level and my soil science and chemistry as
credits - not bad for a 50 + farmer but the further into this course
(conventional Ag Science) I got the more disenchanted I became. You see
these people are not allowed to think about the possible benefits of
microbes ( unless of course they can be categorised, genetically altered and
patented for resale) nor are they allowed to consider the possibility that
base exchange soil balancing might just work.
Books -- I will also put in a plug for Acres USA and suggest that Phil
Wheelers Non Toxic Farming handbook is the best place to start for many
people. Arden Andersens Science in Agriculture takes it further and will
satisfy the more technically minded.
Labs - differences -- I think that the statement that there is only one lab
thats satisfactory is a bit hard to justify. If a lab is doing honest work
(not biased towards selling fertiliser) and getting consistent results then
it is a matter of interpretation from there on in? We use the US Perry lab.
I have been told that this lab is the only one that has not changed its
system of extraction over the years , if so thats a plus to me because we
need to be able to compare results as the work progresses and if the lab
changes their system then all old results are rendered null and void.
Originally Albrecht used the Brookside lab.Our split test results here would
tend to indicate there is a reasonable difference in the calcium reading
obtained from a perry and brookside test ( Brookside over ten % points
higher on the Base saturation percentage) There is a similar difference
between our Australian fertiliser company labs the Victorian Pivot lab
giving noticeably higher calcium readings than Incitec in Queensland/NSW
K I S S -- I cant help thinking that this whole subject has been made to
seem more complicated than it needs to be. We tend to get hung up on
numbers. Most farmers with a soil imbalance problem are going to be miles
away from the ideal numbers and the major concern is to try to start the
basics going in the right direction. Always remembering that our soil - BD
or not - is a living, breathing, digestive organism and if we dump large
quantities of manure , lime, rock dust, or whatever on it we are going to
choke our microbes and slow the whole system down - indigestion - The
maximum amount of lime per year is one tenth of the TEC number in tons per
hectare - so TEC on soil test is 15 then maximum lime application for that
year is 1.5 ton per hectare regardles of the technical total lime
requirement which might be as high as 3.5 ton for that soil. Littler bits
work better.
BALANCE was what Albrecht was on about and its important !!
Its late - lets have some comment from others and keep this going awhile
Cheers all
Lloyd charles
