soil 4 balanced?

Title: soil 4 balanced?

Mike, you do need to have your soils in good balance. But this balance is the
chemical,  physical and biological balance .It is not as simple as some
ideal soil test levels. The "ideal soil test levels" change with other
components of the soil  TEC. --  Org.Matter etc. The "ideal soil" also vary
according to crop. To list levels would be inaccurate for some soils and
accurate for others.
mark
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Hi Mike,
It is most important that nutrients be balanced within certain ranges.
A single "dream soil "  wont be ideal for every crop, tho !   But for
most garden uses, the following picture would be terrific.  The amount
of major cations is aloways reported in "% of CEC" because it is their
BALANCE and not their absolute amounts that is most important. I won't
list ppm for the major cations, because th]eir ranges would have to
overlap too much to account for the aceptable ideal range of CEC. One
rarely gets a soil tested for total N. Nitrate is a better indicator of
available N, and will vary  greatly depending on recent application of
organic matter and fertilizer.
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Mike ,

Thanks for your email message.  I was out of touch for a couple of days, so
I was not able to repond to your message right away.  The University of
Minnesota Extension Service does not believe in the "balanced" nutrients
approach to soil fertility.  There is not any evidence in Minnesota to
support the idea that nutrients must be in some type of balance or ratio to
each other to support optimum growth.  In general, the University Extension
Service helps the growers to maintain adequeate soil fertility that will
supply suffient nutrients to the plant for  optimum growth.  This is
sometime called the "suffiency" approach.  The soil test level at which a
crop does not seem to respond to added fertilizer varies with each crop.
To look at the soil test levels at which yield response to added fertilizer
is unlikely, go to the Extension Service web site at www.extension.umn.edu
Type "fertilizer recommendations" in the search engine and you will see
refences to publications that talk about fertilizer recommendations.  There
will be tables that show the fertilizer recommendations and the test level
at which yield response is unlikely for a particular nutrient and crop.
This would give you an idea of the soil test results that might comprize a
dream soil for a particular crop.

Your question is a good one.  Good luck in your studies and keep up the
good work.

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