Lightweight Peat's Mucky Muck soil testing

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The more I dig into this soil testing stuff, my mental image of what must be happening behind the scenes at these commercial McSoil Labs gets clearer.



I also hear a mocking carnival-clown type circus polka music when I imagine these guys struggling to weigh my soil with the wrong spoon.

 

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Toss aside reason, logic, scientific methods, written standards, it's all about production and dollars$$$!!

 

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You could be the first kid on the block to pimp out your private soil lab with your own ICP.

$2000 obo

http://m.ebay.com/itm/391263435350?_mwBanner=1


My motto is if you don't know what you're doing, do it yourself!

 

[biggreg]

Back to differences between lightweight soils vs "standard" density mineral soils when it comes to the Mehlich 3 test:

The Mehlich 3 is reported in mass per mass units. Mg/kg

In mineral soils mass per mass parts per million ( mg/kg) = mass per volume parts per million ( mg/dm3)

In lightweight soils, mass per volume - ppm = mg/kg x kg/dm3 = mg/dm3

Or to say it another way, the amount per kilo times how many kilos per liter gives you your amount per liter.

This step isn't required in mineral soil that is assumed to be close to a kilo per liter in bulk density.

Seems growers here are ignoring bulk density of their lightweight soils. They assume the amount per kilo on their report is the amount per liter

How are all you bulk density ignore-ers figuring the mass of your amendments you plan to weigh into your mix?

If you assume your mix is 1g/cm3 or 1kilo/dm3, you are over applying.

If your lab under-weighs your sample with a scoop , your test will under report.

I've seen these two wrongs make a right on a re-test. The over/under work out and ratio targets can be hit with this illogical method


If you properly weigh in to the mass of the soil and the lab under reports by under -weighing, your next test will not move to your target. You will be under.

When you guys start getting proper 2g weigh in tests, you will realize that the way you've been amending will overshoot your targets.

When you start getting non-wrong-weight-scooped tests, you will have to use bulk density to re-amend.

 

[biggreg]

I'm wanting the lab to go with the Fed research soil survey standard of 2.5g per 25ml solution. More soil + more Mehlich sauce = more accuracy of results.

.7g was the weight of the "1g" scoop according to Spectrum. .7g to 10ml solution=cheepskate lab work

The particular soil that they scooped up in that 1 gram scoop is moderately dense for a mix. If I would have subbed perlite instead of sand, maybe that 1g sample would have been .5 or .4 g per 10ml sauce?

Cut corner lab work does not provide enough resolution.

We deserve research grade lab work! No research lab would ever use a McSoil scoop to weigh anything! Zero fertility research on peaty soils use these sloppy, wrongly calibrated methods employed by the commercial labs ripping all of us lightweight growers off!

 

[Avenger]

I like the pictures.

 

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All of our collective scooped soil tests

 

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Check with your lawyers guys.

These test are sold to us with the realistic implication that they will be performed to some sort of an industry standard. They currently are NOT being performed to ANY written standard.

Any and all tests you have paid for in which you did not know they were mis weighing your lightweight density organic or organic-mineral soil with a wrongly calibrated, standard mass measuring, mineral-soil only scoop, you are entitled to a re-test or a refund. The lab failed to perform the test by the book as should be reasonably expected. You did not get what you paid for.

If you pay for a test with the knowledge they will only scoop it, then you got what you paid for, a non standard experimental soil extraction that should not be called a Mehlich 3.

How many tests does your lab owe you?

 

[biggreg]

These so called labs will change soon. Pressure from us. Pressure from the NAPT. Our industry is in the open now and we don't have to just be thankful to be accommodated anymore. We demand to be served!

Time for labs to step up or decide to refuse our business. This current insanity will stop. The era of bastard soil tests will end.

 

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So is anyone utilizing soil tests on lightweight density soils ( less than 1g/cm3) for anything other than the base ratios?

Maybe you have ppm targets or upper and lower limits in mind?


Anyone using the ph buffer on their report for a lime requirement calc to reach a target ph?

Anyone trying to balance micros ppm limits?

Anyone trying to interpret these soil tests in a conventional manner?

If everyone is using "alternative" methods for soil test interpretation, is it really alternative?

 

[biggreg]

Here he is, Dr. Adolf Mehlich.

The use of his universal soil extraction designed to extract potentially plant available elements out of the fibric-peaty reclaimed blacklands to the sandy mineral soils of North Carolina has spread slowly since the 80's and is now a standard extract for many states with higher CEC acid soils.

So when your lab clown says this Mehlich 3 ain't designed for your peaty, lightweight, high CEC, mucky muck soil, tell him to go to North Carolina Department of Agriculture and ask someone who knows better. They have been running the Mehlich 3 since before it was published in '84 on fibric peat soils. Some of these Midwestern labs finally caught up in 2005 when they switched to the Mehlich 3.

 

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Here is an example, if you follow Clemson's advice on correcting a Copper deficient organic soil and you need 20 to 50 lbs per acre. That means 10 to 25 ppm mg/dm3

25ppm mg/kg could mean lots of diffrent pounds per acre. needs a bulk density to mean anything useful for finding target limits. Mg/kg is only good for relative ratios.

 

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How much calcium is in your 5 gallon bucket of lighter weight soil? Can you tell anyone with your misweighed report on milligrams per kilo, how many grams of Mehlich 3 extractable Calcium you have in your bucket? No you can't.

If it was a bucket of mineral soil you would be able to tell. Even with a scoop test. At 1g/cm3, the mg/kg and mg/dm3 are equal. You only need one number for mineral soil.

Takes 2 for the lightweight

 

[biggreg]

I know I'm a shit teacher and an in-articulate one at that but I will continue my filibuster of fibric peaty vs min soil info, questions, answers, rants and bitching until we all have some better choices than the Ronald Mc-screw-you, shit ass ignorant, pseudo-labs running bunk, non standard, junk piles of un scientific garbage as a pathetic excuse for a useless lab report and charging us big bucks for it.

I'm doing my best to explain this shit.

 

[biggreg]

I was actually in a verbal argument with the lab manager of what is now waypoint analytical formerly A&L, merged together i guess in a huge mega merger of crap. I argued with this woman that a scoop that always weighs 2 grams is impossible. She was adamant that anything that could fit in that tiny ass, rat terd sized scoop would weigh two grams! It's freaking magic, i guess?