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Soil Testing for Water Holding Capacity
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lawfarms
Posted 9/6/2013 22:29 (#3312741 - in reply to #3312606)
Subject: Isn't exactly testing but some charts to chew on



King City, Mo
What I did was lookup amount of rain for 1" per acre in gallons. Then did the math to do different rain amounts to help me understand how much water it really is.

I saw a you tube video of Jill clapperton where she was talking about soil organic matter and water holding captivity alot with other soil health and cover crop stuff for potatoes. (No I don't grow potatoes, but interested in what she was doing)

The looked up soil water holding capacity based on soil organic matter % and made a chart.

In an ideal world with 0% soil moisture and It rained 1.75" in a way all of it was absorbed my 3% soil held it...

Just something to chew on and help understand what's going on out in the field. Charts and grafts help me vrs just plain old text.

I saw on RFDTV where the guys from corn collage were driving in part of what looked like a plastic bucket and the. Pouring x amount of water in....good luck driving that bucket in the ground around here....

Edit to add:

The chart is not gospel, not a scientific study or anything...just to help me understand "hey where did all that rain water go that we got a month ago....lets start pulling from the reserve tank...what do you mean it's not there???"

So then I start the thought process how do I raise SOM?

Soil organic matter

Nutrient Supply. Upon decomposition, nutrients are released in a plant-available form. While maintaining current levels. Each percent of SOM in the top 6 inches (15.2 cm) of a medium textured soil (silt and loam soils with a bulk density of 1.2) releases about 10-20 pounds of nitrogen, 1 to 2 pounds of phosphorus, and 0.4 to 0.8 pounds of sulfur per acre per year.

SOM - soil organic matter

An acre of soil 6 inches (15.2 cm) deep weighs approximately 2,000,000 pounds, which means that 1 percent SOM weighs about 20,000 pounds per acre. Under average conditions it takes at least 10 pounds of organic material to decompose into 1 pound of organic matter, so it takes at least 200,000 pounds (100 tons) of organic material applied or returned to the soil to add 1 percent stable organic matter under favorable conditions.

http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/assessment/files/OM_guide.pdf

What!! 100t per acre for 1%!!!! The guys on stock talk only talk about 20-30t corn silage....

So its gonna be a slow process but cover crops, corn, wheat will all help. Not switching to plant corn but a wheat-cover-graze then beans then repeat on two fields where I can graze the cows.






Edited by lawfarms 9/6/2013 22:45




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