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| Chad,
I have worked in southern Mn and Northern Ia and know exactly what you talking about. I would guess Ph's of 7.8+ in these areas to be the norm. I don't really know of any good way to make these areas as productive as the rest of the field. Some things that do seem to help is fertilizer grade Ammonium Sulfate in front of beans , about 100-200 lbs. seems to buffer the alkalinity some. In corn liqiud zinc in a band with 10-34-0 helped to. The free calcium carbonate in you soil is the real issue so anything you do is just to minimize its effects. Take a look at a fertility chart and see whats deficient at high ph's. Maybe try to folular feed some of the high use micros and see what you get. Deep tillage may help drainage but it does nothing to help the real problem. Lime leaches about a 1/4" a year so in about 50 years of good drainage you should be ok. Save your money on gypsum or any other miracle product and spend it on P2O5 which the high ph ties up. Good seed selection is probably the most important thing you can do. | |
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Fertilizerguy- pH levels?
