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

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...

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

Growing Pecan Trees in Western Alkaline Soil

It's common to see nutrient and water inhibition compromise the production of pecans in the arid western states, particularly where the soils are high pH, which can tie up nutrients such as zinc, iron, phosphorus and more. Keeping soils moist is also a problem because the regions were we grow pecan are not wet bottomland soils where pecan is native, but are high and dry desert soils where irrigation is essential. If the irrigation water is high in dissolved solids, the problem is made worse. There are many good things Soil Secrets can offer pecan growers that can overcome these obstacles, by improving the moisture management of the soil, improving nutrient solutioning and availability of both the native minerals as well as the purchased minerals, and improving the porosity of the soil so that water and oxygen can penetrate meters deep without the need to subsoil with machinery. How's this done? By using the power of Nature's own bio-chemical called the Carbon Matrix. Starti...

Soil Secrets

Search This Blog