Skip to main content

crop yield report has come in, reflecting improved soil health on California Pistachio field

Good News on another success story that just came in today.  If you remember our blog story from last January 2015, Don DeBoer had performed some soil compaction testing with his penetrometer on Pistachio orchard land owned by Charlie Gragnani.    http://www.soilsecretsblog.com/2015/01/soil-health-and-changing-soil-compaction.html
The results of the testing discovered that the soil compaction had dropped a bunch, from an average of 300 psi coming down to an average of 75 psi.  This is significant because there's a direct cause and effect where water and oxygen can now penetrate the soil when its psi has been reduced.  The reason,  the drop in psi is demonstrating an increase in soil porosity, which also causes an increase in air space in the soil.  This is the single most important thing that can happen to the soil as its health improves!

So what's the good news?  The crop has been harvested and evaluated and the grower was able to collect an average of 600 more pounds of nuts per acre above and beyond the control fields.  At a price of $4 per pound that means the grower made an additional $2400 net profit per acre caused by our TerraPro product improving the soil porosity.  In addition the % of blanks was under 5%, compared to 20% being normal in California this season.

Michael Martin Melendrez
Managing Member - Soil Secrets LLC







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Soil Health: Level 2 - Description of Terms (Carbon Compounds)

The  Labile Carbon  is also known as the 'Rapid Cycling Carbon' and its composed of all the Soil Organic Matter that is dead and actively decomposing.  It's benefit to the soil is that it provides a source for minerals that are being recycled as potential plant nutrients, so in a sense it's Nature's fertilizer.  Active Carbon   also known as Reactive Carbon is more complex than the Labile Carbon in that its composed of all the dead and actively decomposing organic matter plus all the living soil microbial community that will eventually die and begin decomposing.   For example, the hyphae of mycorrhizae only live about 5 to 7 days before they die and start to decompose, while the fungus organism itself may live far longer.  Recalcitrant Carbons   are the Humic substances made up of complex organic chemistry, some of which is inert and some of which is very reactive and are powerful biologics, such as the Humic Acids.  Recalcitran...
9 comments
Read more

Fertilizers formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest

Recently I was in an Albuquerque retail nursery where a fertilizer was being sold that stated it was formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest.  It contained high levels of iron and sulfur, plus the N, P and K major nutrients.  Do any of the readers care to comment on this type of product?    Pros, Cons, etc.  I have my take on it, but I'll entertain what you want to say about it.  Michael Martin Meléndrez
9 comments
Read more

The World Has a Problem: The Cascading Failure of Soil!

In Response to: Fruits and Veggies are Not as Vitamin-Rich as in the Past, Says New Data    Larger Fruits and Vegetables Mean More Plentiful but Less Potent Bounty March 1, 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures Story by Megan Carpenter Staff of Soil Secrets Responds to this story:   The population of the earth is growing by approximated 86 million people per year, according to a recent National Geographic Special Issue; this is a net gain after accounting for population mortality.   This means that on average 235,000 babies are born each day, which is 235,000 new mouths to feed every day.   The USDA and food protection studies performed by Sandia National Laboratories have determined that according to our Ecological Footprint - 6 acres of land is required per person for annual food production, based on the standards of the United States.  If the goal is to modernize the developing world to the same standard of living as the developed world, then the same ...
5 comments
Read more