By Tom Dayton
Summit County Farm Bureau and I presented a healthy soil seminar at the end of March, attended by 20, where I discussed the chemical, biological and structural aspects of the soil. Making soil more like a living organism than an inanimate object.
Soils high in organic matter retain much more water, as well as the CEC or CAT ION exchange capacity which is the measure of the soil to hold nutrients from the attraction of these negatively charged nutrients.
The lime test index is the measure of the soils ability to resist change and requires a University soil test much like the one Dayton Nursery sells from Penn State University for fifteen dollars.
Existing soils in Ohio vary greatly in pH, hard clay or sand or rich loam, as Ohio was covered by glaciers about ten thousand years ago that also carved out the great lakes.
Furthermore, we talked about the importance of calcium in the soil since it is the primary way plants build cell walls.
A condition of end blossom rot on tomatoes is when the area is sunken in and brown due to the lack of calcium. If a pH change is not chemical, the remedy is calcium sulfate or gypsum that can help or cure the condition.
Gypsum also helps lawns recover from salt spray, particularly the direct hit of salt on a lawn. For evergreen shrubs only a burlap screen will work.
Ericaceous (acid loving) plants such as rhododendron, azaleas, mountain laurel, enkianthus and pieris all require a pH of about 4.5 to 6 in order to be healthy with an uptake of iron that is unlocked by the pH. Unlike a farm or garden pH, which should be 6.2 to 6.8.
In a garden or farm, soil samples should be collected from ten different areas to a depth of six inches by taking a slice of the soil called a soil profile. In a lawn, the depth is only about three inches.
In fact, in a teaspoon of soil there are more organisms than people on earth, just reinforcing the fact that soil is a living organism.
There you have it, the run down on healthy soil and soil testing.