# jdc_lawnguy Soil Test Results



## jdc_lawnguy (Oct 30, 2018)

I recently got my soil tests back from UMass. I did 3 separate tests since the last owners barely mowed the lawn and the side yard is new.

Plan of attack
•	2019 Goals
o	Raise PH

Split Applications of Lime

50 lb/M spring

50 lb/M fall

Given the amount of Lime being recommended I do not plan to directly address the Calcium deficiency at this time. I plan to use dolomitic lime
o	Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) Deficiencies

Open to suggestions regarding products

Since 2 out of the three areas need Phosphorous, my thought is to use a balanced product to get the numbers moving

My plan is to use the same products in all three areas since the Phosphorus levels are not near the top of the range.

Is there anything wrong with this approach?

o	Any thoughts on the really high Iron level on the side yard? I had about 100 yards of loam brought into this area last year and had it completely regraded following the removal of some trees. My guess is I should probably lay off the iron in this area.
o	I bought a Lesco Spreader and Sprayermate, so open to ideas on if I should be custom blending 
o	I do plan on using RGS and Humic12 
o	I am only planning on nitrogen (N) in spring if the grass looks like it needs it
o	I will be doing the nitrogen blitz in the fall

Open to any and feedback


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## Ridgerunner (May 16, 2017)

Have you had a chance to skim through my Soil Testing thread? A link is included in the Popular Soil Fertility and Soil Testing Threads, the first topic in this sub-forum. UMass gives the Optimal traget ranges for each nutrient on their report. Using the formulas in my thread, can can calculate how much of an amendment you need to apply to raise your current nutrient levels so they will fall into the suggested Optimal ranges. For instance, 1#/M of P2O5 will theoretically add 9 ppm to the soil and 1#/M of K2O will theoretically add 18 ppm. In addition, to account for what the turf plant will remove from the soil, you should add an additional 0.2#/M of P2O5 and [email protected]/M of K2O for every pound of N/M you feed the lawn. How much lime did UMass recommend? Guessing 100-120#/M?


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## jdc_lawnguy (Oct 30, 2018)

@Ridgerunner I read the thread a while back and went looking for that info recently. It was very helpful, thanks for all the info you put out there. Their recommendation was 100#/M. The recommendation was 100# for front and side and 125#/M for back.

Thanks for the shirt cut in the math above.

As I mentioned in my other thread, I am going to split the lime and go with dole it if first.


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## jdc_lawnguy (Oct 30, 2018)

One last question. I bought a spreadermate so can go liquid or granular. Any suggestions on products. I should be looking at?

My initial thought is to try and go granular and supplement with liquid as needed. Any other suggestions.


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## Ridgerunner (May 16, 2017)

OK. Keep in mind that if the 50 lb bag of dolomitic lime contains, say, 12% Mg that's 6 lbs per thousand or about 260 lbs per acre. That could theoretically raise your Mg levels by 130 ppm.
Sorry, I know absolutely nothing about foliar application of fertilizer or products. Others including @Greendoc would be your best resource for that information.


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## Suburban Jungle Life (Mar 1, 2018)

For most soils and situations, granular should be just fine. I would consider a liquid fert/micros/macros program in these situations: Super steep hill and it rains a lot, pure sand soil so everything leaches out and you wish to keep it sand i.e. little to no OM, ph really low or too high and nutrients aren't plant available and you wish to keep it that way i.e. you use the local pond to water and the ph is really low and you are on sand with low OM. I'm sure there are other situations which would benefit from a liquid program. Some products only come in a liquid so being able to spray liquid can be useful and some products are much cheaper to spray compared to a granular version, i.e. prodiamine or pgr. Not sure you can even get granular pgr.


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## jdc_lawnguy (Oct 30, 2018)

Thanks All


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## jdc_lawnguy (Oct 30, 2018)

@Ridgerunner 
First off, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for your Soil Fertility Thread! I honestly have spent the last week or so reading, and rereading it along with the info you provided above. I apologize if this a little long in the tooth, but I tried to write it in a concise way that hopefully others can use. Assuming I am on the right track.

As a guy who has worked in Financial Services for over 15 years, it has been a while since I have taken a science class. It took me a bit to find a way to relate to the info. In hindsight, it was probably more the lack of peace and quiet in the house while I was trying to consume it than anything. But, I finally got around to building out a spreadsheet to do the math, and it instantly clicked.

What I take from your post and the comments above are the following, and I was hoping you or one of the other folks who generously donate their time and knowledge to the forum can keep me straight.

The first step in understanding how to correct your deficiencies is to understand what is needed to correct them in a controlled state. The second step is to determine what is needed to support ongoing consumption. Third step would be to add them together to determine total annual needs.

*Addressing Phosphorus deficiencies*
Using my side yard as an example, I chose a target P of 11 ppm of P2O5 (to keep the math easy). 
*1) Correct Deficiencies*

My current P level is 2 ppm Target 11 - Current 2 = 9 ppm as desired increase Based off your short cut above 1#/M of P P2O5 will give me an increase of 9 ppm

*2) Support Consumption *

The next step is to account for the P (P2O5) needed to support plant consumption as a function of nitrogen. Under the assumption, the plan will consume 0.2# P2O5 per 1#/N applied. To keep the math easy I assume I will use 5#N per year. which means I need to apply 1#/M P2O5 to support my N (5. x 0.2 = 1#).

*3) Total Annual Need*
1#/M P2O5 (Correction) + 1#/M P2O5 Support = 2#/M P2O5 annual need​
If we to put down 2 application of 5 - 10 - 10 with a target of targeting .5#/M each would deliver 1#/M P2O5 for a total of 2#P2O5 for the year. I make this assumption as I will likely apply 46-0-0 for remaining N.

*Addressing Potassium deficiencies*
When it comes to K we use the same approach with a few tweaks. 

1#/M of K2O will add 18 ppm

1#N will consume 0.75#/M

*1) Correct Deficiencies*

Current K = 81 ppm

Target K = 117 (to keep math easy)

Target - Current = 117 - 81 = 36

36/18 ppm/#K20 = 2#M

*2) Support Consumption *
Under the assumption I will put down 5#/N/M I will need (5 x 0.75= 3.75) 3.75 #/M K20 to offset N consumption. This means I need a total of (2 + 3.75= 5.75) 5.75 #/M K20

*3) Total Annual Need*
Under the assumption I added 2#/M K20 via 2 application of 5-10-10 above, I would look to add the remaining 3.75#/M K20 over the course of the rest of the season either during nitrogen application or indirectly via solo application of a material such 0-0-60.

Also, i reabsorbed your comments on calcitic vs dolomite during the lime application and will be using calcitic to avoid issues with adding that mch Magnesium to the soil.

Thanks again, and please let me know if I have gone astray


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

The approach sounds good. I did not check the math, just the approach.

A few comments: 
- consumption depends if you bag (take the nutrients away from the soil) or you mulch mow. Account for it in your analysis. 
- SOP (0-0-50) is better for the soil than MOP (0-0-60). Try to find a source for it to use in your K.


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## jdc_lawnguy (Oct 30, 2018)

@g-man thanks.

I have seen both MOP and SOP, but SOP seemed to be a little harder to find in MA, but I was thinking about getting it online, so will lean towards that. Thanks again


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## Ridgerunner (May 16, 2017)

Yes, very, very close. The values are approximations. The "deficiency" amount is an arbitrary number you have selected to target within the "sufficiency range". A value within the sufficiency range is expected (based on studies) to be "sufficient" to supply the turf with the nutrients needed for at least one growing season of healthy growth. For our purposes it is a "bank" or insurance policy.
The "consumption" amount is an approximation of how much nutrient a turf grass will use for every pound of N applied. Ideally, in a perfect world, if you applied the amount of nutrients that the turf used, you wouldn't need to be concerned with the "bank" amount. In the real word, there are a lot of variables (turf type, climate, soil texture, soil parent material, the weather) that make determining the exact amount needed to be applied for adequate consumption availability a educated guessing game. Over time, through observation, we can calculate the quantities needed more narrowly.
Rather than "total annual need", the more accurate label would be "initial adjustment plus annual consumption need."
Hmmm, I'm not sure that's very understandable, allow me to try a tortured analogy: 
Your place of employment is exactly 10 miles drive from your home. You purchase a car that purports to get exactly 100 miles to the gallon. Unfortunately, the car does not have a gas gauge. You have to use a stick that you place in the tank to measure how "full" the tank is. The stick has a mark on it and you are told that the average person finds that if the gas level comes up to that mark, they have enough gas to drive for a month. 
They deliver the car to your home with an empty gas tank. You have three choices:
1. You could put one gallon of gas in the tank and drive to and from work for a week. On the fifth day while driving home, you run out of gas. You aren't getting the millage as advertised. So over the next couple of weeks you keep adding a little more gas until you can get back home each Friday without running out of gas. You've determined it takes 1.1 gallons to travel the 100 weekly miles without running out of gas. Perfection! Unfortunately every couple of months there is an accident on your route and you either need to sit in traffic for hours or take a long detour and you end up running out of gas on those occasions.
2. You decide to just keep the tank filled. Every couple of weeks you fill the tank to the top. Everything is fine for months, you never have run out of gas, but you begin to notice that the car isn't running quite as well and eventually it stops running. The repair shop tells you that by filling the tank to the top, gas has been pulled into the evaporation system and ruined the charcoal filler, then the excess gas has been sent to the engine, fouling the plugs and valves. Total repair is $$$.
3. You decide that you don't want to take the chance of running out of gas or overfilling the tank so, you decide to fill the tank up to the mark on the stick to ensure that you have some gas in reserve or "banked." Then you add another gallon of gas to get to and from work for a week. After a month of traveling to and from work, you use the stick to see what the gas level is. It's bellow the mark. You aren't getting the millage as advertised. You add enough gas to bring the level up to the mark and then add a little more than a gallon every week to account for weekly consumption. (If you found instead that the gas level had risen, you would have added a little less than the ful gallon of gas for weekly consumption). After a month you use the stick to check the level and keep adjusting the extra gas you need every week until when you do your monthly check, the level of gas left in the tank consistently hits near the mark on the stick. You find the weekly amount of gas needed to hold the tank level at the mark at the end of every month is 1.1 gal. Perfection! and more importantly, you never ran out of gas sitting in traffic or taking a detour. 
Does that make any sense or just a bunch more of incoherent B.S.?


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## Ridgerunner (May 16, 2017)

BTW


> As a guy who has worked in Financial Services for over 15 years, it has been a while since I have taken a science class. It took me a bit to find a way to relate to the info. In hindsight, it was probably more the lack of peace and quiet in the house while I was trying to consume it than anything. But, I finally got around to building out a spreadsheet to do the math, and it instantly clicked.


It's not you. That's on me. As you can see, I have issues trying to explain things clearly. let alone, concisely.


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## jdc_lawnguy (Oct 30, 2018)

I fully get the approximation reference. I actually built a spreadsheet that models the long form, the short form, and then provides min, max, and the average of the needed nutrients. I get this will put me in the ballpark. My view is I hit somewhere in that range, test again and dial it in. Well as close to dialing it is as one can understanding we are not dealing with static situations.

I work in a complex environment. I deal with everyone from actuaries who need "precision" to CFO's who want ballpark concepts and everyone in between. Having a bank of analogies make things easier. In college, I drove boats. The gas gauges never worked, and boats ran 18 hours a day. We used sticks with marks to tell us if we had enough diesel in the AM or if we had to cross the harbor to fuel. You could not have picked a more relatable analogy if you tried.

To be honest, I don't think it is you. Your material is logical, concise and well structured. Everyone learns differently. I am one of those who absorbs about 70% by reading, and about 100% if I do it once. I just needed to take an hour and structure the information you provided and apply it to my situation. Up to that point, I was ballparking numbers in my head but I wasn't "seeing" it. The information is there, and once I got into applying it I could easily backtrack to the reference point and prove or disapprove a working assumption. Once I started to apply it, by putting it in on paper, or excel in this case I was easily able to see it.

I actually have a friend who is into his lawn but hasn't dabbled here yet but has read along on some threads. I pointed him to your thread Thursday. When it clicked for me, I hit him on instant message at work. He is waiting for test results and I said to him:

- Think of deficiencies like paying the application fee to apply for a mortgage, or annual fee credit card, or the initiation fee at a golf course. Paying those give you access to those items, and correcting deficiencies helps your soil perform or theoretically puts you in good standing. They give you the ability to close the loan, have the card, and play the course. In the case of the credit card fee you have to pay it every year, in the case of the course fee, you may not pay it every year, but from time to time they are going to come looking for an annual assessment. In this case, we are paying a fee of 1#/P2O5 for 9 ppm of P and 1#K2O for 18 ppm of K. You have to pay it to be in good standing before you theoretically can apply N.

- Maintenance (.2P/1#N and .75K/#N), those are monthly interest on your home loan, the interest rates on your credit card balance, and the monthly dues at the golf course. In other words, those are the cost of doing business. In our case adding Nitrogen is doing business. Adding N is like carrying a balance. Once you do it you have to pay up with P and K. 

It instantly hit home for him, and hopefully one of those analogies will hit home for someone else.

Thanks again for the time you spent sharing, and the education you have given to others.


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## Ridgerunner (May 16, 2017)

The whole thing really is much simpler than it sounds. I've had people tell me after it "clicks" that it's "stupid simple."  
I like your analogy. :thumbup:


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