Agricultural News
The In's and Out's Of Soil Testing
Wed, 19 Jan 2022 09:09:52 CST
Soil tests provide a scientific basis for evaluating available plant nutrients in cropland, pastures, lawns, and gardens. Analyses of soil samples can help farmers and homeowners fine-tune nutrient applications from fertilizers, biosolids, and animal manure. Properly managing the amount of nutrients added to the soil can save money and protect the environment.
Soil nutrients vary by location, slope, soil depth, soil texture, organic matter content, and past management practices, so getting a good soil sample stands out as a major factor affecting the accuracy and usefulness of soil testing. This fact sheet outlines some specific considerations which should be taken into account to get the greatest benefit from soil testing
Sample Soil at the Right Time
Fields used for production of cultivated crops may be sampled any time after harvest or before planting. Generally, two weeks should be allowed for mailing, analysis, and reporting of results. Additional time may need to be allotted for ordering and application of fertilizers, manure, or lime materials. Noncultivated fields should be sampled during the dormant season. In either case, do not sample immediately after lime, fertilizer, or manure applications because those samples do not represent the true soil fertility.
Fields should be tested annually to measure the available nitrogen pool or as frequently as necessary to gain an understanding of how soil properties may be changing in relation to cultural practices and crop production.
Collect a Representative Sample
Getting a representative sample is simple, but not easy. Research at OSU and other universities has clearly shown that a minimum of 20 cores or small samples taken randomly from the field or area of interest are necessary to obtain a sample which will represent an average of the soil in the field .These cores should be collected in a clean plastic bucket (to avoid metal contamination) and mixed thoroughly by hand. The sample bag should be filled from the mixture. A one pint (OSU soil sample bag full) sample is usually adequate for all tests which might be required. If the sample is too wet to mix, it should be spread out to dry some and then mixed, or sampling should be delayed until the field is drier.
It is important to remember that the sample obtained by the above procedure will be an average of the area sampled. If the area sampled is extremely variable in the soil properties which are going to be tested, then it may be better to separate the field into smaller areas, and get a representative (20 cores) sample from each of these areas in order to determine how variable the field is In this way, it may be possible to treat some areas of the field differently from others and remove variability so that the field can be sampled and treated as a unit in the future. Variability in a field can often be noted by differences in surface soil color and crop growth or yield.
Using only one sample for a large variable field can be very costly. Since the sample represents an average of the soil in that field, recommendations based on the soil test will likely cause the field to be overfertilized on some parts and underfertilized on other parts. Failure to obtain uniform response to treatments based on a soil test is frequently a result of one sample being used to represent a large variable field.
An example of field variability is shown in Table 1. The range of test values was obtained by testing 40 individual cores taken at random from an "apparently uniform " 80-acre field. The variation is great enough so that for some analyses the average is not a good representation of the field. Areas of the field with the lowest pH, phosphorus, and potassium values will not receive adequate lime or fertilizer if recommendations are based on the average test values.
A single core sample, or spadeful, is extremely risky because it may test anywhere in the range shown for each of the analyses. For example, deficiencies for wheat could range from zero to 37 pounds of P2O5 and zero to 34 pounds of K2O. For alfalfa, which has much greater nutrient requirements, deficiencies could range from zero to 94 pounds of P2O5 and zero to 120 pounds of K2O. This would also affect the amount of nitrogen and lime required. Obviously, unless the 80 acres is divided into less variable units for testing, some areas of the field will receive either too much or too little fertilizer and lime.
In deciding how large an area can be represented by one composite sample (20 cores), the determining factor is not the number of acres involved, but rather, the variability of the area. Some large, uniform fields can be represented well by a single 20-core sample, while some highly variable fields need to be split into two or more smaller areas for testing. Regardless of the field size or main area being sampled, unusual spots in the field (salty or wet spots) should be avoided during the initial random sampling. When unusual spots make up a significant area, they should be sampled separately.
To learn more about getting a good soil sampling, click here.
To learn more about soil test interpretations, click here.
For an index of the soil testing lab publications, click here.
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