Skip to main content

Soil testing at the new property - part 1

After we found out that the new property was ours, the first job was to organise some soil samples.  As the property has about 60 acres that has been cleared and contoured for cultivation we want to have a go at planting some crops to make hay.  There is one area of about 30 acres at the top of the ridge and another separate area of about 30 acres lower down, so we call them the upper and lower cultivation areas (boring I know, we’ll come up with something better eventually!).  The rest of the property will be used to fatten steers, and extra hay can get them fat even faster, so we think its worth a try.  We were able to buy some secondhand ploughing implements from the property vendors, and we have just purchased a tractor (post about that coming), so that will get us started and we can decide from there if its really worth the work.


We don’t want to use conventional farming methods at all, especially as we can see the negative effects on the land in the cultivation area which has been farmed conventionally for the past 10-15 years.  Currently only one small section has a planted crop of forage sorghum and the rest is covered in every weed imaginable.  Even though we have had plenty of rain, the weeds aren’t exactly thriving, they are just a low ground cover, with some saplings coming through, so we assume that these areas haven’t been ploughed for at least a year.

If we were going to be living on the property full time, we would arrange to have lots of chickens up there in tractors, with mesh electric fencing to keep out predators, and leave them to scratch up all the weeds and add some much needed fertility to the soil.  We have seen amazing improvements at “eight acres” where the chicken tractors have been, so we are hoping to eventually apply the same methods at the big property.  The aim is to let nature/animals do the work!  Unfortunately it will be a few years until we can build a house there, so we need to come up with another solution in the meantime.  Our best option is some form of organic fertiliser to both increase the organic matter in the soil and add minerals. 

The first step is soil testing of the area.  We need to know which minerals are deficient so that we can begin to correct this, otherwise our crops will be weak, suffer from diseases and not provide complete nutrition for our animals.  The other day we went out to the property with a couple of buckets, ziplock bags and high-tech soil sampler (length of pipe and a mallet) that I described in a previous post.  We took samples from several locations within the cultivation areas. 

Last time we sent the samples for “eight acres” away to APAL for a full analysis and report, and I was very happy with the results.  At that time we really wanted to know which minerals were missing from our pasture to make sure that the cattle were getting everything they needed.  We found out that the soil was deficient in calcium and copper, so we started to feed those minerals to the cattle.  This time, because we are planning to plant crops, we decided to do a few of our own tests to learn more about our new soil and  to help us decide which samples to send away.  As we had two large areas, that are split up into 3 contours each, we wanted to see if there was a significant difference between the contours, and whether we should send a sample from each contour, or if one sample could represent the entire cultivation area.

Anyone who went to university with me will remember how much I hated soil science!  I think we only studied it for a few weeks, but I complained bitterly that it was totally pointless and unnecessary for my Chemical Engineering degree (same can be said for food microbiology, and these are the two subjects that I now use most for farming!).  The three things that I learnt during that time are:
  • Soil structure – whether the soil forms aggregates or dust
  • Soil texture – soil consists of sand, silt, clay and organic matter
  • Farming required added chemicals – we used the pH to calculate how much chemical to add per acre
I don’t think we discussed soil minerals or microbiology at all, but I may have been asleep during those lectures.  I have since learnt that while nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK) are important to plant growth (and therefore the main components of fertiliser) all minerals are needed to some extent for healthy plant growth (just like healthy human growth!), and soil microbes (and other soil life such as earthworms) are needed to help to convert organic matter into nutrients that can be used by plants.  When agricultural chemicals, such as fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides are used on crops and pasture, they kill the microbes, so the soil is effectively dead and just a medium for fertiliser to be transmitted to the plants.  As we dug the samples, we noticed that there were no earth worms in any of the sample holes, so we are pretty sure that there isn’t much life in this soil.  For comparison, when I dig in my garden, I usually find 2-3 worms per trowel.  It is ridiculous that we disrupt a natural system that works, resulting in plants that depend on us for expensive inputs, when the original system worked for free!  

After reading a fair bit on this subject, but not being an expert at all, as far as I know, the important aspects of soil from a cultivation point of view are:
  • soil texture
  • soil minerals
  • soil microbiology
We can test the structure ourselves, so these are the tests we did at home to start to understand our soil.  We then sent some samples to be tested for mineral content.  The microbiology is quite obvious from observing visible life in the soil, the colour of the soil and what's growing above the soil.  In this case it is clearly lacking.

There is lots of information on the net about these tests, a good example is here.

bags of soil for home testing
Soil texture
We used two tests for soil texture.  The first is the “manipulative test”.  The more clay in the soil, the easier it is to roll a small amount between both hands to form a sausage (this is quite fun).  We found that the upper cultivation area soil would not roll into a stable sausage, whereas the lower cultivation soil did.  Note that even if you add more water to the upper cultivation soil, you just smear more on your hands and do not form a sausage.  This indicates higher clay content in the lower cultivation area, so it will probably be more difficult to plough (being heavier) and hold water for longer compared to the upper cultivation area.

comparing structure, composition and pH across samples

The next test was for soil composition.  We placed soil in a glass jar, about half way filling the jar with soil and then topping up near to the top of the glass with rain water.  We shook the jar and then allowed the soil/water mixture to settle.  The sand settles to the bottom and the silt forms a layer on top of the sand.  The clay is suspended in the water, with the organic matter floating on top.  We can use this to compare the actual ratios of sand/silt/clay in each sample to determine the soil type.  Again, there was more sand and silt in the upper cultivation area.

soil composition

Soil pH
We bought a pH test ages ago for the garden soil.  Its pretty rough, as it depends on interpretation of a colour chart, but was clear that all our samples had a pH between 5.5 and 6.  This is low, and we can decide how to correct this when we see the mineral analysis, although Peter Andrews reckons that this will correct itself as the fertility improves and the plants begin to "unlock" the minerals in the soil, so we may not do anything at first, just be aware that some plants wont do well at low pH.  Joel Salatin has a theory about decay of organic matter producing carbonic acid, which dissolves the minerals in the sand/rocks in the soil to make them available to plants, I don't know if this is true, but it does sound sensible.

The pH test

In the next part, I'll write about testing for Dispersion and Slaking and Permeability, then I'll discuss the results of our mineral testing in the final part.

Comments

  1. Fascinating! I'm so lazy. Why haven't I done this in our bottom paddock?! After reading your post, I'm inspired to run down and take a sample. Still life gets in the way sometimes. Yesterday all day at school to interview aides, today all day at the Children's checking hearing, so tomorrow...... Housework and baking. We run out of food quickly if I'm not home to prepare it. Bet my bottom dollar you'll end up with names like top paddock and bottom paddock. Watching your testing with great interest.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really good post Liz - the part that most caught my eye was your method of testing the soil for mineral deficiencies and then making up for them in your cattle feed. It's a simple idea but so clever!

    We have acidic clay soil both at the house and the allotment but I've begun to make it more manageable by piling on organic material such as manure and seaweed. It's doing well now but we still don't have any earthworms.

    We were wondering about it for some time then last year we had the government confirm for us that an invasive species called the New Zealand Flatworm is present at the allotment - and I've found that it's also here at the house a few weeks ago. Have you heard of this pest before? It obviously comes from New Zealand (not far from you!) and is a nasty little brown slug-wormy thing that eats our native earthworms almost to extinction.

    Your property is probably in too warm of a climate for them but if no earthworms make an appearance after you put some work into the soil I'd suggest you have a look around for these pests yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Liz I really loved this post. You put so much time into giving us all the great info and the steps you took, so thanks. I feel really excited for you both having this big new project to work on and look forward to. No doubt it will be a lot of work but very rewarding too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Linda, you sounds very busy! All these soil tests would be fun to do with your kids though, lots of playing in the mud :)

    Tanya, I don't think we have those worms in Australia, I googled it to find out more, I can't believe an NZ animal is a pest, it is ironic because there are so many introduced animals in NZ causing havoc and then this little worm is over in Europe doing the same! And they are really quite beautiful in a weird slug kind of way, so its a shame they eat earthworms!

    Thanks Fiona! We are looking forward to it too :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is such a great idea. I feel like taking a sample of my gardens now. I'll wait for your next posts about this first.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about chicken tractor

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may  have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive!  Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap.  And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps.  I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation  and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment.  One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap.   As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances).   When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather.  I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap.  It also contributes a tan or brown colour to