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Old April 20, 2014   #12
drew51
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Sterling Heights, MI Zone 6a/5b
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I would add sulfur to lower the PH, pine bark fines, cottonseed meal, maybe even peat moss, if you can till it in before it blows away! You can buy elemental sulfur. No way are your blueberries going to live in the current conditions. I would suggest keeping them in pots, or building a raised bed. The sulfur on the report is as a nutrient for plants, you would be adding not as a nutrient, but as a way to lower the PH. It takes 6 months to work. Peat moss is even more acidic that pine bark. Pine bark tends to lose it's acidity with time. Peat will stay acidic until it breaks down. I would use both. Pine bark lasts a long time and will condition the soil well, peat will lower your PH right away and attract worms. Sulfur will eventually kick in, and as long as it is there keep PH lower. I would add more of all three plus cottonseed every year. Alfalfa as mentioned would certainly condition soil too, you might want to add dry molasses too to attract beneficial bacteria, and act as an organic fertilizer. Your total organic matter is not really very high, and is certainly the reason for the compaction.
For blueberries a 1-1-1 ratio is good 1 part pine bark fines, 1 part peat, 1 part perlite or a good acidic potting soil for azalea's or something like that is OK too, instead of perlite. I myself use this ratio for blueberries but use diatomaceous earth instead of perlite.
I have 7 blueberry plants. 3 are in raised beds (my soil has a ph of 6.5 which is still way too high, and not worth even trying to amend to lower), and 4 in pots.
This will be the third year for the in ground plants, still young, but will produce. The ones in pots are all new this year (I ran out of raised bed to put them in!).
The ideal PH for blueberries is about 4.8. 5.8 is one hundred times more basic, 6.8 is one hundred times more basic than 5.8. 7.7 is almost one hundred times more basic than 6.8. (The PH scale is logarithmic) Your blueberries will die in that soil.


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