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Re: [compost_tea] Soil Sampling
Sampling -
Do testing on the tea to make sure you have the organisms in the tea - total and active bacteria, total and active fungi.
pH - SFI can do this if you want.
OM - has to go to a soils lab for this. SFI is thinking about a color-based test. The darker the color, relative to the parent material, the more HUMUS. That's probably the more useful test.
Root- depth - visual thing. Use a ruler to measure depth to bottom of root zone. Take pictures to document root thickness, color
Soil structure - sieve through increasingly small size sieves. Or drop a 6 inch square of the soil from waist height, and look at the size of the chunks. More structure, the fewer "clods", the better the 1 to 2 cm aggregates. Again, pictures.
Also take a metal rod, and push into the soil, record the depths where it gets harder to push the rod into the soil. You can put a pressure gauge on the top of the rod, and a couple handles on the pressure gauge. That way, you can record the pressure needed to push the rod into the soil. As you improve soil structre, and decrease compaction, less pressure is needed to push the rod into the soil, the fewer compacted zones you will hit.
Hope this helps!
Elaine
My thoughts are :
*Total Bacteria and Fungi (I think Active will change over the coarse of a season and I would like numbers that reflect consistent progress, thats my thoughts on not testing for Active ?)
*pH (does SFI test pH ?)(should I do this myself somehow)
*OM (does SFI report OM % ?)
*Root Mass, Depth (SFI ?)(or is this just a visual thang)
*Soil Structure (How is this qualified ?) Porosity?
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com
SFI Oregon, USA
SFI Australia
SFI New York
SFI Europe
SFI New Zealand
"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well, but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense, no matter how things turn out." -- Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic
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