Soil test Confusion
- To: "'Pumpkins'" <pumpkins@mallorn.com>
- Subject: Soil test Confusion
- From: "* C* <c*@chmc.org>
- Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 09:11:54 -0700
Well I finally have the soil test results from the county for my
planting site and I don't know what to make of them. It seems the lab
printed out the relative levels and optimum ranges that have been
established for tree fruits. Maybe because the lab is in Wenatchee
because noone is growing fruit trees in these gardens. Anyway I was
hoping someone would know the optimum ranges for pumpkins so I can try
to make some sense of these numbers. Here are some numbers I have in
ppm Potassium 495, Calcium 1840, Magnesium 368, Sodium 39.0, Phos Bray
101, Boron 0.22, Sulfate 3.0, Nitrate 2.2
Zinc 2.7 pH 6.5, Organic Matter 4.3% Estimated Nitrogen release 130
lb. I plan on getting some lime onto the patch this week. From the
report I have the Potassium is in excess as is the organic matter, but
this is for fruit trees. Boron is below optimum, Sulfate and Nitrate
are both deficient. Everything else is supposedly in the optimum range
but again that is for tree fruit. If I had known that the test would be
set up like this I would have had one done myself so that I could get it
done for pumpkins. I'll take this to the local horticultural supplier
Thursday but I was hoping for some input from the group. You all have
more experience with this than they do and I don't want to be sold
something I don't need. There's not a lot of time left, I plan to start
my seeds later this week to transplant no later than the end of the
month. I will make my amendments and till this weekend then get some
black plastic down to start warming this cool Northwest soil. Oh, one
other thing on the test, there is a "Sum of Exchangeable Bases 13.6"
would this me similar to a Cation exchange ratio? Thanks in advance.
Chris Michalec
Covington, WA
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