Soil Sample Received and I have problems

I sent my soil sample to the Va Tech Soil Sample Lab and the results are in.....I just need help decoding the levels and how to correct some drastically high Calcium, Phophorus, Potassium. Here is my sample......My county extension agent is out of the office so I may not get a call for a few days and of course - I want to know now!

Clicking the report will enlarge but here are the numbers:
phophorus 335
potassium 404
Ca 6791
Mg 466

pH is 7.4

My garden produced terrible tasting tomatoes last year. I had 40 or so plants, various varieties from multiple garden shops. They were sour but did produce, many with bottom rot.

Green beans were a dissapointment in production as well.

Hope to get some problem solving from you wonderful gardeners!
Kathy

Shihtzumom,
Isn't the recommended corrective measure listed in # 225 at the bottom of your report?

If the sample you sent in was representive of your soil, and the analysis mostly correct, it looks like some minerals are in heavy supply.

I am left wondering what kind of soil you have and basically what amendments have been added. It looks like a lot of lime has been added? and fertilizer?

Kathy. The New River Valley is for the most part a limestone based soil. So your numbers are reasonable for the area. I spent 28 years just up river ( Radford) from you and had pretty good success. Still have some success here, but it took a year or so to adapt. Some vegetables excel under those conditions others need some help. The recommendations are usually in general very good. You will have to modify for specific plants. I had to add sulphur for some plants ( beans) but tomatoes, peppers and potatoes did well. In fact, watermelons were about the only vegetable that was never satisfactory. Got size and production, but hard tasteless hearts. never figured that one out. Brassicas did well after I learned how to deal with cabbage root maggots.

We purchased the lot about 4 years ago. The soil wasn't so great so we purchased 'river bottom' soil by the dump truck load. The garden was plowed & tilled. The next year I added horse manure from a friend's farm. That was the year that I had huge plants but few tomatoes. Last year and we plowed/tilled and not much amendments except 10-10-10 at planting for corn & beans. I think some lime was added but not much. No clay.

The 225 at the bottom of the page is recommendations for fertilizer but I want to know what high calcium, etc does to veggies and how to reverse or lower these high levels. I want to know what causes my tomatoes to be sour to everyone who ate them. They didn't can well either - just to sour and no amount of sugar would cure the taste.

You certainly don't want to add lime to a limestone soil. It is much easier to raise pH than to lower it. Sulfur works as a temporary fix but limestone is pervasive. As far as tomatoes, maybe you need to reconsider the varieties you are using. I grew Mortgage Lifters, Trip-L-Crop and the like for the most part. At that time I grew Hi-X for an early. Rutgers for canning. Hold off on nitrogen, You want strong vigorous plants but not lush ones. The other thing for tomatoes is full sun all day long. A shade grown tomato will not be sweet no matter what you do. Especially in that that climate, which is noted for cool nights and moderate daytime temps even in midsummer.

Farmer,
Thanks for your info. The garden gets all day sun, no shade at all. One guy I talked with at Va Tech didn't know lots about the garden issue but rather worked with the soil and suggested a form of sulfer.

I've grown tomatoes in this town (my home town), along with many friends/family and neighbors at a former house and never had this trouble with tomatoes. Even the previous year the tomatoes where few but good. I plant Big Boy, Better Boy, Roma, Rutgers, Yellow Boy, yellow pear, cherry tomatoes, supersonic, and a few others all in this last garden with the same results. Also purchased from various fruit stands, nurseries, etc.

This is so puzzling. (by the way Farmer, my hubby is a retired chief of police from Radford Univ). That's just 20 minutes away from us. How long you been gone from our area?
Kathy

Left in 92, when the Radford office of the Department of Education was closed. Used to be the state science supervisor for Southwest Virginia .

Well I hope someone can come up with answers to my sour tomatoes, high Ca, etc. The extension agent hasn't called yet but there were so many State cutbacks that few are left in the area.

Kathy

Seems to me that lowering your PH would a step in the right direction. 7.4 seems a little high. If you could get it in the 6-6.5 range it probably would be better for the vegetables. Blossom end rot on tomatoes is caused by an insufficient uptake of calcium. Since your Ca is high you sure don't need any!! I bet that if you were able to lower that PH the tomatoes would suck up more of that calcium and help to eliminate that problem (along with CONSISTENT watering).

Doug

IIRC, the recommended pH for watermelon runs 6.0 to 6.5. There may be one or more slight micronutrient deficiencies at pH above neutral.

Some of the soils in that area are actually derived from dolomite, which would also explain the high magnesium levels. Don't know why the other numbers are high, though, unless they are carryover from a previous crop.

-Rich

I agree limestone is pervasive, especially if the soil is derived from limestone! But the length of time sulfur is effective in the soil is based a lot on the particle size. Most gardeners are interested in a fast effect and use sulfur that is nearly colloidal, and that's gone pretty quickly. (A friend of mine works in Georgia Extension and he has used dilute sulfuric acid to lower the pH for blueberries! Not commercial practice AFAIK - it would absolutely eat most application equipment).

-Rich

Following up, a quick search failed to uncover anything specific on micronutrient deficiencies in watermelon or how they might affect the fruit. However, I noticed a LOT of references in which watermelon seeds were assumed to contain high levels of zinc; they are even recommended as supplements to people with suspected zinc deficiencies. Since zinc is one of those essential micronutrients whose availability is adversely affected by high pH, I am wondering if there might be a connection. Did you ever try supplementing zinc - like foliar application or chelates?

-Rich

Considering a PH of 7 is considered neutral Id say your PH is really good especially if you have limestone. My soil and thus well water has a much higher PH, and to the best of my knowlrdge it has never caused a problem. Do you have anything that was low?

From the University of Nebraska:

Soil pH
The pH of a soil is a measure of acidity or alkalinity. The numbers reported from a soil test generally range from 4.5 to 8.5. A pH of 7.0 is neutral. Those below 7.0 are acidic and those above 7.0 are alkaline. Figure 1 shows the best pH ranges for various vegetable crops. A pH of 6.5 is ideal for most vegetables. Below pH 5.5 or above 7.5, soil modification often is necessary. Soil pH directly influences the availability of many nutrients. Maintaining a proper pH is important to avoid nutrient deficiencies and toxicities in vegetables.

So the PH in their report is in the normal range?

It also says 6.5 is ideal for most vegetables. A far cry from 7.4

1lisac
Nothing on the report was low. All other readings are ok - you can click on my scanned report at the top post.

I have to find the reason for my sour tomatoes from last year. That is my biggest concern. The previous year they were fine but last year they were terrible - see one of my first posts.

Kathy

Our soil is also very high in calcium - it sure hasn't hurt our tomatoes. 'Fraid I hav no suggestions about the sourness. Some varieties are more tart than others.

I had grape tomatoes in waterless planters that I kept overwinter in 2010-2011, rolling them into one of the garage bays when an overnight freeze was predicted. The plants got enough sunlight to keep them growing and putting on fruit, but as soon as they were exposed to temps in the 50's the fruit became downright inedible - very sour and "off" tasting fruit from varieties that had been extremely sweet during warm weather. According to Alton Brown (of Food Network fame), once tomatoes have been exposed to temps around 50 or below, they will never ripen properly, even if the temp is raised afterwards. I can certainly vouch for that. In the spring, the same tomatoes started producing sweet fruit again, but not until the weather had been warm for a while - so that the tomato plants had had time to set new fruit that had never seen the cold.

-Rich

I describe the tomatoes as sour and thought about that last night - is that a correct description. Off tasting is accurate. But the same garden produced great tasting tomatoes the previous years. I would like to have the soil tested at another lab in hopes that we could get more detailed info - do you think that would help?

There is no way we would eat a tomato sandwich from any that we grew this past year. The salsa & stewed tomatoes I canned, even with garlic, spices, etc the salsa just isn't right. It's not sour like a lemon, no amount of sugar cured the taste even in salsa, so bitter may be a better term.

Thanks for all the input.

Private testing labs will give you a more thorough and detailed report although at a cost...

Doug

shitzumom, as I mentioned, our soil is alkaline, several soil tests varied from 7.6 to 7.8.

To help us manage soil moisture, we added quite a bit of organic matter to the garden, primarily horse manure and moldy horse hay (about the same thing I guess, biologically) and later tests showed the ph to be perfectly neutral. So that's one way to go.

That is how mine were affected by the cold temperatures during fruit formation. "Sour" was more of a subjective description than a description of acidity. They weren't sour like lemons or cider apples or unripe grapes are sour (citric, malic and tartaric acids are responsible for those). They were sour in a way that made them unpleasant to eat. Not just "not sweet" - they were very off-putting, with an aftertaste that stayed on the tongue.

It does seem there was something that affected the ripening process on yours similarly to how the cold affected mine. You didn't have any unusually-low overnight temperatures while the fruit was forming, did you? It may only take hours below the critical temperature (around 50ºF) to permanently affect the fruit.

Otherwise I'd look for something else in the environment. If they were grown in the same place in the same soil the previous year and turned out fine then, I think the soil testing / pH issue may be a red herring. There are for example plant diseases that can affect fruit ripening.

-Rich

Rich,
That is the exact description - as I first though "sour" was the correct descriptive I later realized it wasn't just the exact descriptive. An after taste, not just 'sweet' - would not make a sandwich from one - that's it. Not sour like lemons, etc. That's it.

Have you considered raised beds? I keep adding to my collection each year. I just buy a couple 2x12 boards from HD or Lowes and make my own. It sounds like you plant quite a few vegetables though so i don't know if raised beds are practical, but you can make them any shape and size you need or you could use stone or brick and make a nice looking garden.

The only reason I suggest this is because I have nasty soil at my house. We live on a five acre grapefruit orchard and our soil is really fine and sandy but mostly compacted and there are layers of clay too. My other fruits trees seem to love it, and the watermelons and cucumbers nearly took over our whole yard. But with those exceptions, any other veggies and flowers I plant it raised beds since I add lots of good potting soil.

Asian, your pH is probably way too high for most veggies to be happy. The pH of local soil runs 8.5-9.5 and even higher. Salt build-up has been a problem for lots of growers in the RGV this year also.
I picked some Black Krim tomatoes the other day that were absolutely the best tasting ever but getting them to that point has been a challenge this year.

Calalily,
maybe you could ship me a couple - I would love a good tomato sandwich!
Kathy

Your pH is that high?!? Yikes. It's 7-7.5 around my house here in Harlingen

Kathy, you will just have to come to Texas for a good tomato sandwich!
My soil in the garden is 6.5 to 7.5 with an average of 7.0 but only because I have been working with it for years. In the beginning it was 8.5. From speaking with other growers in our area 9-9.5 is not unusual. I'm really surprised your's is that low.

I had no idea the pH could be so high in South Texas. I'm not gonna lie, I feel better knowing mine is around 7 :) Maybe it's all the grapefruit falling over the years? I would complain about it being a 7 still because I have to grow my gardenias in pots or in heavily peated soil, but the beans, onions, cucumbers, and watermelons don't complain Haha.

Have you considered contacting a good local landscaping service Kathy? They may have some good tips or even offer their services. One of our local nurseries around here "Tree of Life" grows a lot of gardenias and they are some of the healthiest plants I have ever seen. They are potted of course, but obviously they know how to keep the pH down and the plants happy.

Calalily, So the RGV soils are highly alkailine? I assume that is because of low rainfall not washing away the salts.

I have read that oftentimes the irrigation water is alkailine too. I have also read that good under drainage is needed with irrigation so that the salts don't rise capillarily to the surface in dry times.

Indy, very low rainfall, I'm thinking average is 27 inches per year, but we were way below that last year. Salts build up causing sodic soil (high pH plus salty). We have really improved our soil, so our's doesn't test as high as another local farmer. Good drainage is needed to move the salts away from the root zone also.

Asian89, I kept a gardenia in the ground for several years. It did well until I let it get too dry. I saw one growing at a house in Bayview (area where I live) that had to be 8 ft tall and 10 ft wide. It was in full bloom and absolutely gorgeous! One could smell it from across the lawn. I love gardenias. I didn't know Tof L had them!