# brand new member here with first soil test results



## ragga (May 5, 2019)

Hello all! As the subject states, this is my first post - I would really appreciate any input!

I bought a house a couple years ago and it had one of the worst lawns in the neighborhood. Irrigation was the biggest problem in that it wasn't set up very well and they didn't seem to use it much. They had a lawn service so there weren't many weeds, but the heat stress let some nasty looking clumping grasses get a foothold.

So, last season I found some of the popular channels on you-tube and did a bit of renovation. I started with elephant doses of milo (maybe triple bag rate?). I spot sprayed round-up on most of the nasty stuff and then seeded the patches and did one app of 10-10-10 starter fert (at bag rate) everywhere.

The test above is from end of season last year. So far this year I am continuing with the milo (closer to .75-1.0 lb N/1000), and have added the N-Ext pack of RGS and Air-8. One round of both, at the heavy rate, so far. I'm really not sure how some of those micros are so high.. the only explanation i can think of is that the water here is very hard. I dunnno what all minerals are in hard water, but maybe that's it? The soil also seems pretty compacted to me. i have not done any mechanical aeration and so far I'm not seeing much impact from the Air-8. I plan to rent a machine this fall and maybe do some topdressing to level out bumpy spots. Hopefully the Air-8 amounts to something

My main questions are: Do I need to bring any of the high levels down? or just get the low ones up? Is the K from Air-8 enough to make a difference? Is there a product with Fe and Zn that would be perfect?

Turned out to be a longer post than I was planning - thanks for taking the time to read it! Any insights would be greatly appreciated


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## Drewmey (Oct 3, 2018)

I am a newbie at interpreting these but if nothing else this will serve as a bump for your thread 

What was the depth at which you took the sample? Are you confident that it is the same depth that the soil lab requested? I am very surprised that your Fe is so low given that you say you were doing triple bag rate Milo applications last year.

The first thing I always try to do before correcting any of my other results is get the pH right. If the pH isn't right, correcting the other issues is likely to be less effective. In this case you are probably fine/not super far off, so it is possible that you could get there very slowly by applying ammonium sulfate (also will bring up nitrogen) and Iron Sulfate (will bring up Iron). Those will be a slower pH fix than sulfur but since you are not far off...it's sort of a 3 birds with 2 stones kind of idea. If you overseed this fall, Peat Moss could be used instead of topsoil to also fix the pH.

I would not worry about the ones that are higher, just don't purposefully apply more of those. The high Boron could be from your water possibly. And there isn't much you can do about that.

Your P is fine right now, but if you continue applying just Milo (as a fertilizer), you will get to a point where that is in excess. I would not count on Air-8 supplying your K needs.

If it were me, I would apply 10-10-10 to get P and K up a little. Then I would apply ammonium sulfate to get more nitrogen (hopefully also lowering soil pH) because if you apply additional 10-10-10, your P and K might get too high before you get enough nitrogen. I would also apply Iron sulfate to up iron (and again hopefully slightly alter pH). You're only going to get the pH lower by .1-.2 with that approach


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## ragga (May 5, 2019)

Thanks for your response!

I feel pretty good about the depth of sample. The kit said the rooting dept of the plant is the target and I remember pulling bits of root out before submitting - it was maybe 2-3 inches deep?

I was surprised the N and Fe were so low, I got to the point I literally had the spreader set to max, lol.

Thanks for the tip on ammonium sulfate and Iron sulfate. I had heard ph of 6.5 is a good target and most ppl seem to use sulfur to lower it. My sulfur already seems pretty high though, so I wasn't sure about adding more - if it could get too high, or if adding more to already above target levels would be ineffective? Using peat moss is a great tip also!

Any thoughts on the Zn?


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## Drewmey (Oct 3, 2018)

I don't think those sulfers are the same thing. So you would be fine applying elemental Sulfur as well.

Read through this thread : https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=9106&p=150888&hilit=Sulfur+ph#p150888

I'd have to research the zinc. Outside my knowledge to be honest.


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## krusej23 (May 8, 2018)

You could put a 10-10-10 down to get your P and K up a little. You could also use some micros but otherwise you are looking good. If you want to start working on lowering the pH you can put elemental sulfur down and/or citric acid. Put the Elena sulfur down when it starts warming up. To test for compaction, just take a long screwdriver and try to push it into the ground. If you don't have a problem getting it all of the way in, you are fine. If you have issues, try watering a little more to make sure you are getting 1" of water down.


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