Soil testing

[annammcconnel]

Hey all -

I'm wondering about soil testing today. How many of you send in soil samples in the fall or allow your fertilizer dealer to test for you?

If you test your soil, have you found anything of note in your results?

If not, why is this not a part of your routine? 

Interested to hear your thoughts, 

Anna

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

I soil sample every 3-4 years or if there is a major event that it supports.

I'm looking for P&K levels and pH.  Once in a while I'll take test a portion of the samples for boron, zinc, manganese and so forth.

I want to see good organic matter results.

My fertilzier plan is based on soil samling and desired yield, so I refer to samples regulararly.

Over time, I imagine I should incorporate this info as a layer in my precision farming data.

[buckfarmer]

A friend who worked for a couple co-ops helped me last year. He was throwing away the top couple inches of every sample. He said he was trained to do this so the sample wouldn't show a "false positive". So I'll be doing all my own sampling from now on.