The Lime Light

Just a few days ago, I received the results of a soil test I had sent in for a client. I was curious as to what the pH and Ca (calcium) levels would be. What sparked my curiosity was that the previous land owner had limed without a soil test and had done it well over 2000 pounds per acre. My experience from precious reading and research proves you can put too much lime down and once you’ve done that it can be very caustic to your dirt and to your wallet.

Picture a soil particle as a paper plate at a family picnic. Now at any good grilling you’d want to see your plate 60-70% cov-ered with steak. The rest of the area covered with veggies and some desert. Soil is much the same. A well balanced soil particle would have about 68% calcium, 12% magnesium and the rest in NPK and micronutri-ents. Soil has a mainly negative charge. The nutrients, calcium, mag-nesium and so on, needed to bal-ance, have mainly a positive charge. So, if you have too much of a single nutrient, you can very easily take up more room than needed and push out the others.

There is much talk amongst food plot-ters about pH, but not much talk about calcium. So what happens, more than often, is someone will get a soil test back that states 5000 pounds per acre needed to raise the pH. What is often left out, is that this is the amount of lime needed to raise the pH, but, not all at once. In that case, I recommend spoon feeding lime into the soil 1000-2000 pounds per acre for a few years until you see the results you are after. Applying any more can harm your soil. To reverse calcium excess you’ll have to access sulfur acids. Which could take a number of years. We need to look at the soil and the numbers given by our soil tests. If you bring all the nutrients into balance I can promise your pH will fol-low. Calcium is very important. Not enough, means there won’t be the right amount of air and water, and there won’t be the efficiency needed to get the other nutrients into the plant. Calcium in its proper amounts means, less nitrogen to do the same job, and less phosphorous and potassium. Better microbial activity, starch in the leaves and activated enzyme systems are more results for looking at calcium rather than concentrating on the pH. Every other nutrient has to piggy back calcium to make it into the plant.

So next time your faced with a low pH, don’t lick your thumb, hold it in the air and guess. Test the soil at a good lab and look at the nutrient numbers. Apply accordingly and you won’t be caught in the Lime Light. That’s the dirt on food plots.