Acid Soil
A good soil test is the surest way to determine the pH of your soil. A simple test for pH you can do yourself is with blue litmus paper, available from drug stores. Blue litmus turns pink when brought into contact with an acid (even a weak acid like vinegar) and turns back to blue if dipped in lime water.
Get three or four samples of your garden’s soil, trying to collect samples from several different spots and from different depths. Mix up all the soil you’ve collected in a clean bucket, then pour clean rainwater over it. Place several pieces of litmus paper into the mud you’ve made in the bucket, being careful that your hands are clean of any acid substance before you handle the paper. Wait ten seconds and withdraw one piece of the paper. Rinse it off with clean water. If pinkness shows immediately, the soil is quite acid. The intensity of the pink is a further indication of degree of acidity.
A few plants, like blueberries, flourish in fairly acid soil, but most garden crops, lawn grasses, trees, and shrubs prefer soils that are just slightly acid (pH 6.5 to 6.0).
Moreover, microorganisms and chemical elements in the soil work more vigorously to make nutrients available to plants when the soil is nearly neutral rather than too acid or alkaline. Excessive acidity in the soil may cause calcium, phosphorus and magnesium to be changed into forms that plants cannot use, causing them to suffer a deficiency of these elements.
Alkaline soils are most characteristic of salt marshes, the alkali deserts of the West, and some limestone areas. In humid regions soil under cultivation tends to become increasingly acid. This is because soil water dissolves the more alkaline substances like calcium, sodium, magnesium, and potassium faster than acidic materials like carbon. Thus the alkali leach out sooner than the acids.
It isn’t completely understood why plants won’t tolerate highly acid conditions. Slowdown of beneficial bacterial action is part of the reason; increased toxicity from certain trace elements like aluminum is another.
The actinomycetes do not fix nitrogen from the air, but instead liberate ammonia from complex proteins and reduce nitrates to nitrites. They steal very little nitrogen from soil reserves, needing only one part of nitrogen for every fifty parts of cellulose they break down. And the humid material they produce, being very fine, has the ability to absorb nitrogenous materials and chemical compounds, residues of soil fertility which plants can then draw upon from the humus as needed.
The more fertile the soil, the higher its organic matter content and the more actinomycetes it will contain. One species of actinomycetes causes potato scab, and other species produce antibiotics which are valuable as sources of medicines.
Tags: family, garden, gardening, home, soils
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