Consensus on the "Perfect Pumpkin Soil?"

Chris:

Let me bring you back to the soil. From what I have been reading here on the 
thread a CEC or 20 to 40% would be considered pretty good, with 40 being 
better than 20 but 20 being the low range of acceptable. You said that your 
CEC is around 40. Mine right now is 29.

As I understand it, the way to raise your CEC if it is low is either to add 
clay or humus via organic matter to your garden. A level of around 15% clay 
might be pretty good and a level of maybe 20% organic matter might not be far 
out of the ideal range. The CEC is a function of both and so some sort of 
balance is another thought. Since it would take a lot of clay added to the 
garden to bring the CEC up, would you agree that the best way to do so is 
with the additon of organic material, either cow, horse etc manure or good 
old compost or whatever? Also the organic material adds nutrients to the soil 
which the clay, of course, does not.

Now for the actual nutrients. You related that an agronomist said a balanced 
soil would be best. A saturation rate of 65 to 70% calcium, 10 to 15% 
magnesium and 2 to 5% potassium would be considered balanced. These numbers 
could be considered a recommendation for now at least.

The next consideration is how many ppm of Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium 
would be ideal This is one of the last parts of the problem of attaining "the 
perfect pumpkin soil" considering there is fair agreement that the pH of the 
soil should be 6.7 to 6.9. Anyway, this ppm discussion is what there is not a 
lot of data or agreement about. Brock was talking about this a little. What 
are your thoughts and those of others on this final point? The calcium level 
in your garden was over 6000ppm while it was closer to 2000ppm in Larry 
Checkon's part where he grew the ill-fated 1191.

If you or anyone in the group strongly agree or disagree with any of the 
above I would appreciate hearing about it as I consider you and some of the 
others here are much more knowing than I. What does Pumkinguy have to say? I 
think he once said that he was either growing in pure sand or pure organic 
matter.

Recall that I started this discussion by asking about the relationship of 
leaf color to nitrogen levels and so here I am trying to bring us to some 
sort of a conclusion as to what the heavy hitters and soil experts in the 
group think is right.

Marv in Altoona

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