Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - Bad soil test results, need some help with amendments

TheUrbanFarmer · March 8, 2016

Blood meal, neem meal, alfalfa meal, feather meal, fish meal, Chilean nitrate - could all provide nitrogen.

Kelp meal, sulfate of potash, sul-po-mg or hardwood ash could easily take care of your potassium needs.

The real question though and the part of the equation you are missing with such tests, are things like CEC and % of organic matter. Knowing these are key in trying to assess how much nutrient retention ability your soil has.

I'd be curious how much calcium and magnesium was in your soil as well. It is also fair to assume that with that much phosphorous in the soil you are tying up your iron and zinc which have a direct impact on flower formation, consistent fruiting, chlorophyll production, utilization of nitrates, and photosynthesis.

Rather than trying to apply these items periodically throughout the season, I'd be more focused on getting everything in the soil a couple weeks prior to planting. Generally speaking you want 60% of total nitrogen in ground and the remaining applied about 2 weeks after the first fruits begin to form.

March 8, 2016	#4
TheUrbanFarmer Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Zone 8a Posts: 64	Blood meal, neem meal, alfalfa meal, feather meal, fish meal, Chilean nitrate - could all provide nitrogen. Kelp meal, sulfate of potash, sul-po-mg or hardwood ash could easily take care of your potassium needs. The real question though and the part of the equation you are missing with such tests, are things like CEC and % of organic matter. Knowing these are key in trying to assess how much nutrient retention ability your soil has. I'd be curious how much calcium and magnesium was in your soil as well. It is also fair to assume that with that much phosphorous in the soil you are tying up your iron and zinc which have a direct impact on flower formation, consistent fruiting, chlorophyll production, utilization of nitrates, and photosynthesis. Rather than trying to apply these items periodically throughout the season, I'd be more focused on getting everything in the soil a couple weeks prior to planting. Generally speaking you want 60% of total nitrogen in ground and the remaining applied about 2 weeks after the first fruits begin to form. Last edited by TheUrbanFarmer; March 8, 2016 at 05:42 PM.