I thought some of the members here might be interested to see what prime western Iowa farmland looks like. The farm is near Sioux City, IA and you can see the Missouri river from the hilltops. This represents about half of the samples taken from a 150 acre farm in western Iowa that is mixed hill and flats. It has been commercially farmed for at least 40 years. I don't know the fertilization history, but do know that anything added in the last 20 years was done without benefit of a soil test. The land has been used to grow Corn and Soybeans - usually in alternation.

Andy, Morph, I was hoping I could get some feedback on what to do with the soil...

Seriously, though, I am putting this up for the academic interest of members here - not to have it analyzed. The amendments are being managed by a professional agronomist and lime and sulfur went down just over a week ago. It is pretty cool, the samples were taken every 4 acres. The data is then analyzed and the applications are programmed into a GPS based tractor pulled spreader that automatically varies the product and application rate based on the program.

Anyways, here are the samples:



P1 = weak Bray P
P2 = strong Bray P
Bic = Bicarbonate P
The rest should be relatively self explanatory

My reaction? Typical industrial food-factory approach. Forty years of management and the pH still varies from 4.6 to 8.2??? No interest in real soil management (zero attention to micro's, etc). Bang it out, dump lime and sulfur, call everyone an expert and let the computer do the work. That's a wrap. I'd love to see a refractometer reading on the Brix that soil generates in the plants.

+1 Andy. pH, ion balances, and OM levels range from OK to lousy. It's possible that these measure different fields for different things (in which case a pH of 4.5 in a blueberry patch is actually correct).

But if the farm isn't extremely diverse, the management has actually been...well, terrible.

Warranted, we can and do balance our lawns much more finely than most farms balance fields. We can afford to do so on smaller plots of land, and as a hobby we're not looking to make a profit. Quite the opposite, we pour money for the optimal performance point without worrying about the cost (within whatever range we deem reasonable).

Still, a more appropriate balance wouldn't be that expensive and would hike yields far enough to make it worth the effort.

The soil report is from a neglected farm. I may not have been clear in my initial post, but there has been no soil testing or management of the land done. Most likely that is because the farm was not being farmed by the owner, and, in general, renters have no incentive to invest in the soil since they may not be renting the land next year. Add in the low profit margin on corn and a renter isn't going to invest in the long term.

I thought it interesting to see what a representative commercial corn/soybean field looks like in some of the best yielding land in the world. I too was surprised by the wide range of pH, but this covers ~150 Acres, includes at least 4 different soil sub-types and the terrain ranges from hills to flats. Add in the absence of soil management and the ranges aren't as surprising. I am not surprised by the relatively high CEC of the land (mostly silty loam with some silty clay loam) nor am I surprised by the low OM percentages (commercial farming).