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Dawg
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Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Mar 17, 2019 5:27 pm
Location: South Mississippi zone 8b

Soil Help

I'm trying to grow organic and to truck farm. I'm in south Mississippi where we don't get much winter and we get tons of sun, hot humid and tons of rain.

My question is after getting my results from my soil sample I have good soil as my P & K along with most micronutrients are high to very high, pH is 6.6 and low in salts. The ONLY thing I'm low on is Nitrogen, they said I needed 80lbs of nitrogen per acre and I'm planning on doing 2 acres of crops so my question is what would be best to raise my N levels...

I'm planting alyce clover in a month or 2 after flipping the soil (it was a cow field thats now got grass, clover and weeds growing in it now). I'm planning on flipping the top 8" and then disking it and overseeding it with clover. My Idea is then to disk it under in the fall and growing a fall crop this year. And possibly adding some feather meal to get the N up.

I can get all the free chicken and horse manure I want (10 tons of either), but my thinking is that atm I don't need to do that as they also have allot of other nutrients in them and I'd be possibly causing problems by adding a few tons of manure to my soil at this time.

Am I correct in my thinking or should I use the manure? Should I use feather meal? Is there a cheaper option? (Alfalfa meal is about the same price per pound of N when I buy em in bulk.)

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prplchkj
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Joined: Sat Mar 23, 2019 7:03 pm
Location: Burbank, CA

I don't really know anything about actual farming (I tend to focus on containers) but, I have an orange tree that wasn't putting forth any buds. It's had a hard couple of years due to the drought. Anyway, I decided I to add some nutrients to the soil. I was going to add manure, but the research I found said that for gardening manure isn't the best. so I a bag of compost instead. I have no idea if that info applies to your situation...but I hope it's helpful.

imafan26
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Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

aNitrogen is a volatile element and very hard to get organically. Organic nitrogen is slow release which has its good and bad points. The nitrogen in organic fertilizer releases over a period from a few months to about 2 years. It is not always available when plants need it. You will need to supplement with fast sources of nitrogen especially when plants are young I don't know how practical that is to do on larger acreage. Choosing legumes and crops with lower nitrogen requirements may help until the field has matured.
When I get a soil test, it comes with recommendations for what to add. If I ask for organic recommendations, they will tell me that too. If you got a soil test, you usually have a contact number to ask questions about it.
https://www.grow-it-organically.com/org ... lizer.html



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