[Terrapreta] interesting situation

[Philip Small]

More on William Albrecht from http://www.vabf.org/vbf200.php

Another soil scientist, Firman Bear, developed a similar guideline for New
> Jersey soils.
>
>         Many farm consultants and private soil testing labs, including
> some that are oriented toward organic and sustainable farming, apply this
> formula with minor variations.  Several, notably Amigo Cantisano of
> California, Neal Kinsey of Missouri, and Carl Luebben of Virginia, have
> extended Albrecht's original findings to suggest that the balance among K,
> Ca and Mg can affect soil tilth and soil microbial health.  Calcium ions
> on the CEC promote aggregation of clay particles (which gives the desired
> "crumb structure" in a good topsoil), whereas high levels of Na, K or Mg
> tend to reduce clay aggregation.  Too much Mg or K relative to Ca is
> thought to make many soils become crusty, sticky, compacted, and poorly
> aerated, and to suppress beneficial, humus-forming soil organisms.  Thus
> consultants who employ this concept often recommend high-calcium lime or
> gypsum to increase exchangeable soil Ca toward 70%, and reduce Mg to 10-12%.
> Sandy soils, which can benefit from a little "stickiness," are adjusted
> toward 60% Ca and 20% Mg.
>
>         Many cropland soils in Virginia, including some organic vegetable
> farms, have only 55 to 65% Ca, with Mg or K well above the suggested ranges.
> Could this be limiting marketable vegetable yields?
>
And I suspect a correction is needed.  It seems more likely to me that his
ratios were developed based on data from WWI recruits (not WWII, as I
believe I have misstated) .


On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 8:24 AM, Philip Small <psmall2008 at landprofile.com>
wrote:

> Hello Jim:
>
> One can quantify the imbalance by taking tthe shortfall on a % of CEC
> basis, convert the amount from meq/100gms to ppm to lbs/acre furrow slice (6
> -7 inches, or about 2 million pounds, handy when going form ppm to pounds
> per acre).  It can calculate to a far higher need for calcium than common
> sense would dictate. Better used for setting a heading than a destination.
>
> For background see
> http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010143albpap/pH.balanced%20nutrition/pH.bal.nut.htm
> "As a working code, we have suggested and used the following percentages
> saturation to represent balanced plant nutrition: hydrogen l0% calcium
> 60-75%; magnesium 10-20, (7-15)%; potassium 2-5%; sodium 0.5-5.0%; and other
> cations 5%"
>
> Google on William Albrecht for more information.
>
> WA came to prominence when he discerned a high correlation between health
> differences in WWII soldiers with the soil calcium status in their locale of
> origin. His ratios are specific to that correlation. As you may be aware
> soil calcium levels generally increase as one travels west between the
> Appalachians and the Rockies.  At the time he tied observed health effects
> to animal product calcium levels as tied to forage calcium levels.
> Application of Albrecht's ratios in agricultural prescriptions is far more
> common in the Appalachian-to-Rockies ag areas than in my area, the Pacific
> West of the US. -phil
>
> On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 7:20 AM, Jim Joyner <jimstoy at dtccom.net> wrote:
>
>>  Thanks max.
>>
>> That statement doesn't appear on A&L's analysis so I've never seen it. I
>> guess what I don't understand is, how do you figure the amount of calcium or
>> magnesium you need in the soil from a ratio?
>>
>


-- 
Philip Small, RPSS
Land Profile, Inc. * PO Box 2175 * Spokane, WA 99210
509-844-2944 cell * 509-838-4996 fax * 509-838-9860 office
Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/philipsmall
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