Fixing pH Problems

Far be it from me to tell farmers how to do their job. Our philosophy here at the Ag Information Network of the West is to provide information from others and attempt to package it in a way that is useful to you guys out there on your farms. For example we've done a lot of drone stories and the net net on drones is they can fly over your crops and reveal spots that are stressed. One reason for a stressed crop is has to do with the pH of your soil. Given that that is the case, Darren and Brian Hefty, agronomists with a television show called Ag PhD have some thoughts. “If you have higher pHs, in more cases than not, you are looking at a drainage issue on your farm. There is something going on. In low pH ground, there are a number of causes, you have some compaction issues. You have all your roots in a very small percentage of your soil so they may be getting six or 8 inches deep and that is it. In other words you have tremendous root growth in six or 8 inches where those roots are taking out organic acids into the soil and you are also applying tons of nitrogen fertilizer and it is all staying in that top 6 inches. You are going to end up with some lower pH issues in those situations. So you can fix that by liming and also try to correct the root cause of the entire problem. In the drainage issue, in the high pH, you want to add tile. You want to do zone building, you may need to do some ditching, whatever you can do to improve drainage. In the low pH, correct your compaction issue, maybe apply the right amounts of nutrients in the right places in the field so you don’t lowering your pH over time.