| Steve in SD - 11/7/2023 08:20
We have CEC in the 18 to 20. Ground has from 2.5% to 3.5% OM. Our problem is the base saturation of Mag is high and makes for very tight soil. Deep tillage, disk ripping have helped with that problem as well as an aggressive lime program. Our pH was from 5.8 to 6.5 and now is from 65. to 7.0. The lime has decreased the MG base saturation helping our situation a bunch.
Years ago I had used turnips and radishes for the hard ground and the roots grew out of the ground and didn't phase the hard soils.
We've used soil pits and the earth worms in the 1 as much as 5 feet from the top and very few were found and what did exist couldn't possibly be alive if they are considered to be alive. They weren't going through that hard soil.
We have some farms that sound very similar to yours, and we were told (and I read) that applying lime would not lower the mg saturation, but that we have to apply gypsum. I have not been able to source any after 2 years of trying, but our coop has pel-gyp available. We tried some on our worst farm this year and the corn seemed to do better compared to some of our other farms, but we did not have a side by side comparison yet.
I will have to search again, but I believe Ward laboratories out of Nebraska is where I got the literature saying that ag-lime would not help with a mg problem.
Edited by Ks-notill 11/8/2023 22:09
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This is why tillage is necessary (here)
