Ag Line: Test Your Soil Before Fertilizing!
By Wade Parker County Extension Coordinator

Many times as the weather warms up in the spring and everything begins to blossom, people start running to the store to buy fertilizer. While spring is the ideal time to apply fertilizer to lawns, applying phosphorous, potassium, or lime in the fall can be beneficial as well.

Let's think about it for a minute. If you soil test in the spring and the pH is low (under 6.0), then lime needs to be applied. Keep in mind that lime takes 4-6 months to activate in the soil. In other words, it takes that long to raise your pH to an acceptable level. Therefore, one easy soil sample in the fall will allow you to head this problem off.

The two main reasons to conduct a soil test are to find out if the soil needs lime added and to find the relative fertility status of the site, which determines how much fertilizer will need to be applied to raise it to a sufficient level.

The first step in soil testing your lawn, or garden, is to drop by the county Extension Office and get some soil bags. Once you gather a sample, return it to the Extension Office and we will ship it to the lab for analysis. For lawns and gardens, one basic test will take care of 99% of the situations encountered. The basic test determines the soil pH, lime requirement, phosphorous, and potassium. From the soil test, recommendations are made regarding the amount of lime to use and what grade fertilizer to use, i.e.10-10-10, 8-8-8, or 15- 0-15.

A soil test provides homeowners information essential for growing strong, healthy lawns and can help eliminate fertilizing mistakes and fertilizer waste!

Samples five and greater are $7/sample; if you have under five, they are $8.00/sample.

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