Culman SW, Brock C, Doohan D, Jackson-Smith D, Herms C, Chaganti VN, Kleinhenz M, Sprunger CD, Spargo J. Base cation saturation ratios vs. sufficiency level of nutrients: A false dichotomy in practice. Agronomy Journal. 2021; 113: 5623–5634. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.20787
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Good morning everybody. Welcome to rough grass epistemology. My name is Travis Shaddick's Welcome to the members only stream on Monday morning Hope you all are doing well. This show Explores the question. How do we know what we know about turf grass science? We've been going over soil samples and soil reports soil testing, so we're gonna continue to do that today and Then tomorrow we're gonna go over a video about how not to soil test and then on Thursday. We're gonna have a nice evening show at 9 p.m. Eastern time. The show tomorrow morning will be open to the public as well at 10 a.m. Good morning Charles and Andrew and turf nerd Brady. Welcome all We're gonna have a fun show. We have a really good article It's a little bit long but very easy to follow and it's gonna take me a little bit of time to get through it so I'm gonna go ahead and start it. The topic of this last few weeks and for the foreseeable future is going to be soil testing and understanding soil test reports and What we've been focusing on in the last couple episodes has been really one area of the soil test report And we're going to do that for a little bit longer so that we all fully understand Why you would not want to use it and why there's no evidence to support it. Good morning Chuck Okay, so without further ado, let me get started Okay, so here's a soil test report just so we all understand exactly what we're going to be talking about today We're all very familiar with these values and kind of what it looks like you may may not have seen this specific type of report but we have the phosphorus and nitrogen and organic matter and in various values and then the High medium low is the interpretation wouldn't put a whole lot of confidence in the high medium low interpretation The crop here is almonds. This is in California as we all know Well as many of us probably know is almonds are a huge crop in California So I don't know what the high medium low is for almonds very few people know what the high medium low is for turf to be frank Um, so I just wouldn't put a whole lot of confidence in these high medium low unless I knew exactly how they determined it But the value that for example here they have the weak braid phosphor 67 I can have some confidence in that confidence in that And i'm going to show you some evidence in the literature as in the upcoming months About why I would have confidence in that value for certain types of turf grass and the potassium And magnesium so you see these values the values are sound So I have a lot of confidence in that that that would be repeatable But just the interpretation of that value in other words Like we've talked about it before if you go to mcdonald's and order in number eight and you've never been to mcdonald's You have no idea what you're getting because you can't interpret what a number eight is And the same thing goes over here. What is a 67 very p phosphorus? You know, what is a 25 sodium bicarbonate phosphor? I mean, you know, if you don't know how to interpret it You have no idea what it means to you in any meaningful way And so we're going to go through a lot of that in the next several weeks and months about how to Help build your confidence in some of these values But one thing we're talking about today in the last couple of weeks is this section over here where it says percent base saturation computed This area as we as you if you've watched any of the episodes in the last couple of weeks is a fraud it's Delusional There's no evidence to support it. There's mountains of evidence to refute it And but it continues to perpetuate and infect our industry by fraudulent charlatans and People trying to sell you things that you don't need And so we want to but that's we want to explain why it is how do how do I know the epistemological perspective would be? Well, how do you know Travis? So that's what we're here for right determine. How do we know? How do we know that's fraudulent? How do we know what's wrong? How do we know what's false? And uh, so we're gonna go over that again today Okay, so that's it. This is what i'm talking about today this base saturation It's in percentages the values of the extractable values and pH or sound the interpretation We're gonna get into it depends on how it was interpreted, but the base saturation don't talk about today. Here's another report Much more numbers rather than graphs, but it's all valid in terms of, you know, it's the same thing It's just the values. It's not as pretty See it came from the same company. Hey, you know, yeah, it's the same company one. They show graphs one. They show Letters low l meaning low vl meaning very low I don't know if they have a crop on here or not if they this is just an example report regardless Uh, you can see it just presented in a different way. We have weak bray phosphorous. We have ulston for phosphorous potassium magnesium And I don't know if they I don't know if they show the extraction method for those don't know if it's may like three or Or some other method anyway These values are fine. The interpretation is you know questionable Um, but we're not going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about this over here So just to work clear bait percent base saturation is presented in a different format on this particular report And I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page is what we're going to be talking about today So they have potassium from this example is 1.5 And what that means for those who are new with 1.5 means is that pizet potassium Occupies 1.5 percent of the cation exchange sites in the soil the locations in the soil where cations can be retained Though those locations 1.5 percent of them are maintained or are occupied by potassium And then 20 is by magnesium in this case 26 is by calcium and 50 is by hydrogen So this is what these percentages mean They're meaningless scientifically speaking they're Dangerous and very expensive to follow Good morning randy Uh, so that's what we're talking about. Okay, so we have no illusions that's what we're going to be discussing today is that portion Of the soil test report. Okay All right, so the the article today is by a group of scientists from Ohio State University, Missouri And it looks like there's like one one from pin state that looks like The title is base cation saturation ratios Versus efficiency level of nutrients a false dichotomy in practice Now I I like this article a lot the way they word it the way they word the hypotheses and the way they conclude the the manner in which they Word the conclusions Based upon the hypotheses. I I like a lot. That's the way I write It doesn't seem to be that common in the literature to be frank because it's maybe just a little bit too uh I don't know too strict or too You know I don't know Specifically accurate in the way you word it but it's scientific writing, you know, I don't know why we all don't write this way Instead of saying we found this and that are we conclude this that it uh, they'll see you'll say, you know, we you know Reject the null hypothesis or we fail to reject or we accept the hypotheses or whatever And that's very rare to have no authors right that way But I I think it's more accurate. I think it's clear in the way that they write the introduction in the in the and they Clearly identify what hypothesis what their hypotheses are is also fairly rare in the literature, but um, I really appreciate the authors for doing that and I prefer that method So there's no ambiguity on exactly what you were measuring Anyway, that's the title. This was published in agronomy journal in Let's see 2021 yeah in may of 2021 So you can go read the I don't know if this is open access not but you can go read the abstract for free You can join the tri societies the agronomy crops or souls Societies and have access to this and many other articles like this This was there's a lot of authors maybe six or seven authors the main the first author is colman steve colman And he's at the ohio state university school of environmental natural resources Not sure who I'm not sure who was the senior author who kind of spearheaded this This paper. Maybe it was dr. Colman. Maybe it wasn't I don't know but I just really appreciate them taking the time to do this because it's a really good article Okay, let's get into an introduction base cation saturation ratio or soil balancing Is a soil management philosophy which strives to maintain targeted base cation saturation percentages in soil typically 60 to 75 calcium 10 to 20 magnesium 3 to 5 potassium and 15 percent of other cations those could be things like sodium or hydrogen I guess aluminum could be in there too The concepts of base cation saturation ratio emerged in the late 1800s But today are widely credited to William albrecht the soil scientists in the university of Missouri Now dr. Albrecht's papers And his conclusions are going to be discussed in great depth on thursday night. Okay great depth in fact Everything's already ready to go as soon as I close this this episode out. I'll open up the title and everything for the thursday night show and I hope you I hope you're able to attend Okay, albrecht was a highly regarded soil scientist throughout his career, which is true He served as the department chair in Missouri and the soil science society of america president Okay That doesn't happen overnight I think there's only been one or two turfgrass scientists who have been presidents of the Or president of one of the tri societies. I know for sure one. I think there was one Further back as well But it's not very common to be I mean, it's it's it's a highly prestigious position to hold as well as a department chair And he held both So it wasn't as if he was some hiding under a rock somewhere and in the world of soil sciences He was you know out there doing his thing He published a series of books called the all brick papers I highly incur after we've developed some critical thinking skills on this particular topic of base counts saturation. I highly encourage everybody to read those papers Those papers are fraught with misunderstandings Incorrect conclusions They're just there's non sequitors all over the place in all brick papers But those papers laid the foundation for the concept of base count saturation ratio Ideas around base count saturation ratio have been more recently advanced and popularized by a variety of key agricultural consultants And organizations most of whom are affiliated with acres now acres if those people who may not be familiar with acres They're an association who are extremely influential They hold a field day. I believe it's in south the coda that is enormous That really is should be the blueprint for any land grant universities field day. They have Kids events up there. They have All sorts of games. They have live bands Machines everywhere. It's a lot of time and effort or put is put in just to the field day because they generate so much revenue from it and it is just really It's really the Best example I can find or I've seen of mass indoctrination of the population Huge amounts of misinformation go out And the audience is just eat it up just eat it up And a lot of it is based upon the concept of balancing the soil Okay, so that's acres and what they're saying is is that the consult the base concentration continues to be popularized by the consultants and the acres organization and to be frank I mentioned this last time I'm not sure how they get these in these scientific papers because they really I mean they're being respectful. They're just saying what it is but It seems to me a little bit Um, I mean I don't want to say inappropriate but certainly questionable why you would call out a single organization And put it into a scientific literature. I mean they're they're building a case why they want to investigate this and they're showing the potential impact that it has on their stakeholders. I get that but I doubt I could get it in there if I was gonna say so-and-so company is saying this I would I get that in I don't think I'd pass reviewers if I did that But they they get this in they had it in another paper too These organizations devote much attention to managing soil calcium and magnesium levels Good morning elevate lawnscapes and transition just in some guy um and typically recommend applying high calcium or low magnesium lime And in gypsum to increase soil Calcium-based saturation levels and decrease magnesium levels to optimize the functioning of soils. This is This perpetuates the entire idea of balancing soils. This idea of high cow lime It's just lying calcium carbonate if it's not calcium carbonate and it has magnesium in it then it's dolomite I don't know why they they continue to say high cow lime got apply high cow lime. I've watched there was a video where a fraudulent Claim was made. Well, the pH is 8.1 But the magnesium's high so you got to apply lime. You got to apply calcium carbonate. Don't do that Okay, that's the most preposterous thing I've ever heard in my life You cannot lower pH by applying calcium carbonate when it's 8.1. It's ridiculous Okay, I don't know where these people come up with this, but here's an example in the scientific literature where they're saying this They're saying this is what they do To increase soil calcium-based saturation levels and decrease magnesium levels. So they're saying that because the magnesium is high That's resulting in this high pH and the only way to get it down Is to apply high cow lime even if the pH is already high Absolutely The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Good morning lush Okay, we continue the base cat on saturation ratio concept is widely practiced by farmers in the United States particularly in organic farming community Now we went over a paper about organic farming. We showed that there really was no value to it In a recent survey of all organic corn farmers in indiana, michigan, ohio in pennsylvania more than half Described using base cat on saturation approach. However, base kind of saturation concepts are not limited to organic farmers many commercial testing Laboratories report feature based saturation percentage report Oh, they report our feature based saturation percentages of calcium and these in potassium reports commonly contain Ray shows a calcium and these in saturation percentage. We just showed you two examples. I showed you two examples of that exactly What's going on with how they present it a number of labs provide some support and information around based kind of saturation for example Again, brook side. They're they really hammer brook side here. I don't know why they get the sin, but For example brook side consulting has more than 200 consultants most of whom describe or subscribe To the concept of base kind of saturation and work with more than 2.6 million hectares Of crops or turf around the world now. I mean, I like this paper. They're all this. It's a fantastic paper. I read. I don't know how many times I read this paper is great But I will criticize the how they get this in you can I mean how do they know most of the consultants of this brook side consulting Subscribe to this concept. How do they know there's if there's 200 consultants? How do they know 101 or more subscribe to this concept? I'm not saying they don't I'm just asking how do you know it? And then if you don't know for sure, how do you get it into a scientific paper? I don't understand that Anyway, scientific research of base kind of saturation ratio originated more than a century ago, but there have been minimum reports minimal reports in peer-reviewed literature a recent review of chagontin Coleman we went over this paper reported only 15 published peer-reviewed studies between 1930 and 2008 in the primary literature. I mean, I don't know I don't know where they got that from, but I have more than 15 just in my folder so I don't know maybe I mean whatever their literature review was maybe it was a limited, but there's many papers in German There's it probably 10 papers alone just in German But it's you know, it's fine. It just seems a little bit Suspect but whatever of these Of these of these 15 seven more field trials in eight were greenhouse pot studies and focus mainly on the measurements of crop yield Tissue nutrient concentrations in soil chemistry. There are also numerous other scientific reports conferences proceedings gray literature And bulletins of base kind of base concentration of this. What is gray literature just so everyone understands So we'll scientific reports are things that you might publish like through the university as a peer-reviewed publication But it's through the university like university abc extension publication that might be a scientific report Um or it might be a bulletin through the university I don't have a lot of confidence in those a lot. We have I've written many of those, but I'm not um Having written on whatever number is people can pull it up 10 or 15 of those. I'm not Confident in the numbers in many of those because I've gone through the peer-reviewed process in there and it's not particularly robust I I want my content heavily critiqued because I don't want to put on information that's not valid and through the university peer review process It's not particularly robust at all. And so I don't have a lot of confidence in those although It's better than, you know, youtube or marketing or something like that through a company So the university bulletins are okay, but not near as good as referee papers Conference proceedings. Those are things that I would give or a scientist would give at a at the ASA conferences or something like that where you would Publish the abstract and proceeding Uh, and then what is gray literature? So gray literature they they posted in says gray literature gray literature is a huge black box of information That should really never be used by scientists to validate any position And the reason for that is Okay. Well, first of all, what is it? It's it's literature that has been written or or data that has been collected from scientific Projects but was never published through the through a university Format or through a refereeed paper or through, you know, a journal It hasn't been published but it might have been a report that they filled out and sent to the funding agency or something along those lines And it was never published. That's gray literature. So why should it never be used in my in my view for to to establish university recommendations because I can just say anything I want. Oh, it was in the gray literature. Well, where is it on the gray literature? Well, I don't know I can't it's it's more than likely it's in the gray literature somewhere It can be gray literature from 40 50 years ago and the professor has already passed away And we can't even find that in any of the literature. It wasn't refereed. It wasn't a pure reviewed And no one can find it and you say well, we should have the the limit should be 30 parts per million and I go okay. Well, how do you know? Well, it's in the gray literature. Well, show it to me Because if you can't show it to me, then I can just say it's going to be 20 in the gray literature Where is it? Well, I don't know where it is. I don't have to show it to you because you didn't show it You know, show me your gray literature. So I'm not a fan of that Okay, it's it's it's not a valid way to base university recommendations on at all So but there's a lot of information the gray literature the gray literature is enormous Because only a small fraction of that actually turns into refereed papers Anyway review of this body of research is consistent with the published primary literature and failing to document positive plant responses With manipulating soil calcium magnesium ratios and experimental field trials And the same thing holds true in turf. We'll eventually get to turf grass calcium magnesium ratios We've we've tested that in turf grass systems and we also have not seen any benefit to adjusting those calcium magnesium ratios Scientists concluded from these studies that base kind of saturation is generally a misguided approach to soil management with no credible evidence to justify its use That's pretty clear Okay, and this kapetkin paper is the one i'm going to go over on thursday night Major soil textbooks devote little time to this concept and the scientific community has not given much credence To base kind of saturation as a method of managing soil fertility and it shouldn't we shouldn't do any we shouldn't give any credence the any Hocus pocus philosophy unless there's evidence to support it. It's that simple Instead land-grained university soil scientists and agronomists have widely adopted the concept of sufficiency level of a Available nutrients or slant where a nutrient availability is assessed individually based up on established critical levels The slant approach sometimes is con- sometimes in conjunction with complementary build up and maintain approach Which i'm not a fan of because it costs money. There's money to there's there's evidence to support not using build up and paint maintain Not that it wouldn't work. It's just that it would be more expensive than using the slant approach So those approaches in combination form the basis for all land-grained university fertilizer recommendations in the united states I don't know about all But all that I know of yes, that's correct. So if a fertilizer recommendation is made it's based upon uh A correlation that was made with a soil test extracting in the value and then a calibration To determine the amount of nutrient that needs to be applied to alleviate whatever Deficiency or to maximize whatever crop yield that's true While previous scientific research tends to frame base cotton saturation ratios as a competing universal theory to the predominant traditional slant approach this portray This portrayal paints a false dichotomy that does not reflect the lived complexities around the practice Recent work by brock jacks and smith coleman in 2021 and brock jacks and smith in kuma Rapan sorry 2021 based on interviewing based cotton saturation practitioners reported a disconnect Between the science and practice of base concentration. What they're saying is they went and asked a bunch of people Who use it and they said no, there's a there's a misunderstanding. There's a disconnect between what scientists are saying we're doing versus what we're actually doing With base kind of saturation several important themes emerge from this work including One most base kind of saturation practitioners in organic systems view base concentration not as a central tenet to soil management That is at odds with slant But as one of many practices to manage soil fertility and build soil health Okay, and two practitioners describe multifaceted benefits to base kind of saturation with particular emphasis on positive changes in physical structure We looked at that that's bogus And three base kind of saturation management approaches can vary by soil type as most practitioners recognize the limitations of base kind of saturation on sanders sold with low cec So basically what they're saying is is that Um, we don't just use straight base kind of saturation. We use it in conjunction with slant. Okay, there's a lot more to it than just following, you know 65 calcium saturation And we understand that on low cec soils. It doesn't work That's what the users are saying and is may and that may be that's probably true And but what is probably also true is that scientists might not recognize that that's how they're using it So they're made there's a disconnect there probably most practitioners Most practitioners do not view base kind of saturation ratio as the central and soul guiding principle for soil management But rather as one of a toolbox and a large toolbox to build soil health now. Let me explain the problem with this But basically what they're saying is we don't use it completely like that We just use it as a little bit here and there as a little tool The problem with that is is anytime you're using any management practice There should be a good reason or an evidence-based reason to include it In evidence-based reasons don't include. Oh, I just saw this Or I heard this at a conference Or it just makes sense Those it builds soil structure. Well, how do you know I can I would bet my house There's not a single farmer or turf manager in the world who has ever gone out and measured soil aggregation or soil structure I mean certainly not one that's published any information on it It's not common to do that. So how do you know they don't know? That's what I'm trying to say. So because you don't know you shouldn't be using that as a as a reason To include base kind of saturation or any practice in your management in your management program So because you've allowed one in you've allowed a little bit in That you didn't use any critical thinking skills to include That allows your thought process to continue down that path that was parent And allow other non-evidence based management practices and are very likely that could occur Okay That's the problem with oh, we don't really use it like that. We just use a little bit here and there you shouldn't be using it at all You shouldn't be using any management practice at all really there's no evidence for if you observed something you say, hey, I saw this Well, then let's go test it Okay, that's how science starts you observe something the apple fell from the tree and Isaac Newton goes Well, why did it fall from the tree and he goes tests it? Okay The Egyptians and the Chinese were applying Animal and human manure to their field crops and growing crops for years and years and years More they're growing more crops because of that rather than without using it. Well, how how do you know? Well, we saw it. Okay. Well, I agree You saw it. Let's go test it when we test it. They would determine their observation was correct But many many times we see observations and we test them and it's not correct So it's the same thing here. Don't allow these little Slips to slide in your management program The door cracks open just a little bit the bs door cracks open just a little bit and a little bs comes in The next thing you know the floodgates are open That's that's the problem with just allowing dad just a little bit That's the problem with that While the effectiveness of base kind of saturation has primarily been studied by soil fertility specialists Three impacts on yield and plant nutrition practitioners attest to a variety of other benefits from base kind of saturation particularly improvements in soil structure and like I just said I can count on two hands and two feet The number of scientists I know who have actually gone out and measured soil structure and turfgrass management Okay, well, obviously agronomy is a little bit different Very few people who actually go out and measure soil structure and turf management So don't don't try to convince me that oh well, they you know base kind of saturation does help soil structure. How do you know? That's it. I mean you I got there's almost no way That you would know that unless you went out and measured it And then I'm telling you this doesn't happen. It's not that frequent Practitioners often agree that the central goal of base kind of saturation is to improve soil structure Which in turn increases the crops ability to acquire nutrients improving soil structure in in the case where you already have batch structure If you improve soil structure, I'm sure it would Question is how do you know this is going to improve soil structure? These are just a little whistle words That kind of get everybody's attention. Oh, that sounds. Yeah, I want to improve my soil structure Yeah, I know if you have if you've plowed your fields and if you've airfied and Verticut and deep sliced all your all your turf then you're you're destroying your soil structure And increasing your soil structure may actually be a benefit to you it could So it sounds Logical how I want to increase my soil structure. Okay. Great. But how do you know this is going to do it? Manipulation of base kind of saturation ratio to improve soil structure is particularly focused on reducing magnesium levels sometimes more so than increasing calcium levels In other words calcium replaces magnesium on the exchange site through mass flow after application of high calcium amendments This can be problematic on low cec soils as reductions in exchange when magnesium can cause magnesium deficiencies So what they're saying there is you could actually go out and try to do this apply calcium to lower the magnesium But on low cec soils you're probably going to end up on a magnesium deficiency or you could The base kind of saturation fraudsters would say Well, you just does the reason it doesn't work on low cec soil. So if that's the case by the way, if that's the case If we're going to universally agree both scientists and bcs are magicians in in charlatans If we're going to all universally agree that base kind of saturation will not work on cecs less than seven or eight In fact, I think that's in here. I want to get to it. I'll stop If we're going to all universally agree to that then can we then actively go out And encourage everybody with cec soils of eight or lower to stop using it And only subscribe to this land method approach I don't see that happening Because if you did happen they'd be losing money Believe me base cast saturation is still being used on soils with less than less than seven or eight cec universally practitioners we interview describe soils with high magnesium levels as tight and that achieve and And that achieving an ideal calcium aniseum ratio has a central role in loosening soils to floculate to a Floculated state. I get this all the time. Um, the high magnesium is tight soil sticks to your boots Absurd you walk through any muddy field and the mud's going to stick to your boot. It's the dumbest thing I've heard in my life If the mud sticks to your boot, it's because of magnesium in the soil Show me one muddy field on the planet that you walk through with boots on where the mud doesn't stick to your boot It's absurd I mean that's crazy The length of time to see detectable impacts is an important consideration here as changes to soil chemistry can occur within a year Whereas changes to soil physical properties can take years to decades. That's true Soil scientists have often criticized base concentration as not appropriate for sandy soils But in our experience there is widespread acknowledgement by base concentration practitioners are the limitations of applying this framework on low cec soils Taking into account local soil characteristics and farm management history So they're saying that the practitioners do recognize low cec soils are not of no use On bcsr practitioners often state that soils with low cec may not be good candidates for base concentration approach So the practitioners state this okay, what i'm saying is The companies in the the consultants promoting it If you're going to say that then let's draw the line and let everybody below eight off Tell them to stop using it I want to hear a base kind of saturation fraudster stand up and say if you're eight or below stop using my method Stop using the base kind of saturation. I haven't heard that once Opinions vary among practitioners, but low cec soils not suitable for base kind of saturation have been defined by some as Less than or equal to eight cec And this book is a is a wonderful book of miss on this book by McKibben The art of balancing soils is a wonderful book. I encourage everybody to read it after you've even developed some critical thinking skills because it's just you can just Mark, I mean the book my book is just marked I'm just all the way through basically a fallacy after fallacy after presupposition after presupposition of a misunderstanding Misinterpretation all through that book It's fantastic In this paper our main goal is to present a framework around bcsr That is more reflective of how it is conceived and practiced on working farms The key premise is that land-grant university soil and scientists and agronomists too often conceptualized base kind of saturation as both dichotomous and mutually exclusive soil management philosophy relative to slant We believe this is a generally misguided conceptualization and that virtually all practitioner base kind of saturation ratio actually use a hybrid of slant in bcsr Okay We will examine and test the following hypotheses. Now. This is what I was saying when in the introduction. I like the way they word this It's very clear what they're going to test Hypothesis they have five hypotheses one is publication bias is a significant driver of the lack of published base kind of saturation studies That's an interesting hypothesis, but for those of you might not know publication bias is What occurs whenever I let's say I submit a paper to be published I'll write it up and I'll submit it what happens as it goes to the editor and the editor sends it out or technical editor And they send they send it out to reviewers requests reviews And then those reviewers come back and then the editor or technical editor has to decide Well, you know, did they accept it or reject it and then do I accept it or reject it and so forth? That's how it works And what happens a lot of times Well, I shouldn't say a lot of times, but what has happened is that uh papers that have No No response in the treatments Sometimes get rejected So for example, let's say I put out let's use something that's not over associated bcsr Let's say I use nitrogen. I'm saying I'm doing no nitrogen and nitrogen or something And the report they study finds that nothing happened But the application of nitrogen this will probably never happen Let's say that application nitrogen didn't result in turf grass growth or in greening like that Well, oftentimes the reviewers will say and then the editor will say well this this Nothing occurred. You didn't find there were no results And It doesn't meet the the standards of this journal So even though the results are scientifically valid It was designed and conducted in a valid way and the results were whatever they were It'll get rejected because they didn't find anything. That's a publication biased those Data those papers that don't show a response Need to be included in the scientific literature as long as they're conducted properly and meet the you know Robust nature of whatever journal you're submitting it to But it shouldn't be rejected just because the results were whatever the results were as long as the results were valid And that's publication bias. So I would I was interested when I saw this because like that's interesting because that happens More frequently than it should papers that are valid and good papers get rejected just because the results weren't Positive they were negative Hypothesis number two there is a widespread agreement among soil fertility scientists at land and great universities that base Concentration is not a legitimate practice of soil management. Well, you can count me in that box Despite the relatively few publications of base concentration There is a larger or large body of work Reporting the effects of lime and gypsum applications on soils that can land the inside and the efficacy of base Concentration so instead of what they're saying is there's not a lot of literature on base concentration I don't know where they get that there's quite a bit but they're saying to lime and gypsum There's a lot and we can use that to sort of infer what would happen from base concentration Which obviously there's more publications on the lime and gypsum. That's true than there ever will be in base concentration But there's a so a lot of information on base concentration or literature Anyway hypothesis number four soil test values will differ between soils that are managed with base concentration And those that are not managed with base concentration great hypotheses Very clean and clear hypotheses. I love that I don't know. I was interested to see how they were going to do it and they do it a very interesting way And then last hypotheses is base concentration guidelines often produce recommendations similar to those of land-grained universities Based upon a slant framework In many soils managing soil acidity will also balance soils in base concentration ideal satter saturation percentages So those are the five hypotheses that they're going to be testing I really encourage more people to write like that It might not be like super easy to read from the you know from just like a layman's perspective But this is not a layman's journal. This is a scientific journal. So I I like that. That's the way I write Materials and methods the survey of soil fertility specialists, okay So this is how they determine the soil fertility specialists Whether or not there's an agreement on that it's base CSR is BS We constructed a lot targeted survey of state soil fertility scientists at land-grained universities with the following goals To ask about their perceptions and attitudes towards base count on saturation Identify how many state fertility specialists have conducted research on base count on saturation ratio And the document evidence of publication bias with base concentration research lack of publishing due to no observed significant effect. That is the definition they use of The publication bias the lack of publishing due to no observed significant effects We identified a total of 105 soil fertility scientists from land-grained universities websites across the United States In the spring of 2017 these specialists were emailed and invited to complete a Qualtrics survey With an email reminder one week later 51 people responded to the survey out of the 105 45.5 percent response and 32 provided additional written responses. So they they're going to measure that hypothesis or test it through a survey Organic corn farmer soil test data in the spring of 2018 These authors created a created and mailed a survey to 1,662 certified organic corn farmers listed in the USDA certified organic integrity database in indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania The survey can detain diverse questions about farm operations, crop yields and economics and overall philosophical approaches to organic soil management including the use of base count saturation and soil balancing practices Survey respondents were able to opt in for a free soil health test One way to kind of get people to cooperate a little bit better is to give them some sort of incentive You know give them five bucks or give them donuts or something or get them to come in and fill it out In this case they gave them a free of soil health test A total of 455 farmers indicated they were interested and were mailed a package that included soil sampling instructions materials prepaid return postages We received 195 soil samples So from the 1,662 they got 195 soil samples from them from 73 different counties Michigan, indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania These soil samples had a routine soil analysis conducted following the procedures outlined and recommended by langer at universities in the north central region And they explain exactly how they did all this i'm not going to go all that but here's all the Methodology that they'd use to test it they measured Exchange exchange capacity and you know all the nutrients they measured active organic matter mineralizable carbon and All this other stuff so you can read through that if you want to Ohio state-wide soil test data in the spring of 2016 we approached a major commercial soil test laboratory in Ohio, which was spectromental medical And requested anonymous soil test data from Ohio for the past four years 2012 through 15 On the same routine soil nutrient analysis described above Identifying information was removed in the soil test data reflected 2,840 samples were shared since we were only interested in mineral soils they filtered out everything above 30 cec So what they're saying is they try to remove the organic soils organic soils tend to have much higher cec than mineral soils and so they selectively Cut it off at 30 Cinemals of charge of cec Which is probably valid This provided data from 335,647 soil samples over four years statewide soil test data were classified into three pH ranges low was considered below six optimum was between six and six point eight and high was above six point eight they just picked those those soil pH ranges And descriptions were visualized with the geodensity function in gg plot packaging or you're going to see a bunch of r plots And they use that particular Code geom geom density in gg plots to develop those plots. You'll see them in a minute Okay results in discussion publication bias High hypothesis one publication bias is a significant driver of the lack of published based concentration studies in the primary literature That's hypothesis one Number two was there is a widespread agreement among soil fertility scientists and lingering universities that bcsr is not a legitimate practice So that's those are two hypothesis and they're going to go over we surveyed lingering university soil scientists to better understand the attitudes based on saturation They're coming to the evidence. Okay Out of the 51 total respondents 45.5 percent of Response rate only six scientists reported having ever conducted bcsr research and only two of the six had published their work in peer-reviewed journals When asked for names of colleagues who have conducted based concentration research the majority of respondents 32 out of 51 could not or did not list any names Those respondents who provided specific names of colleagues mostly listed a merit as professors or deceased scientist These responses suggest that a vast majority of active soil fertility and chemical chemistry professors across the United States have not conducted any research on base Concentration and that publication bias has played a limited role in the recent past but may have played a larger role Several decades ago and base concentration was a more active area of research now Basically what they're saying is is that they they surveyed a bunch of specialists in New England universities and hardly anybody's done any research on it They said they mentioned years ago. Some people did some research on it But none today and that's that's I don't know what else to do other than that seems like a good thing It's been tested. Why are we going to spend tax payers dollars? Continuing to answer try to answer the same question we've been answering since the 1940s Or before really in Germany 1920 1930 It's already been answered then it's always the same answer So I don't this doesn't surprise me at all that hardly anybody's done in the bcsr research in the last 10 20 years It's like Let's do some research on Yuri Geller to see how he mentally bent that spoon. No, we know he faked it We know it's nonsense It's proven. Why are we going to continue to go over it? Why are we going to continue to waste my time and money? Answer in the same question That's been proven to be a fraud It's just so I don't blame him and I don't it's not I'm not surprised by these results. I should say When asked about their attitudes toward base concentration the majority of respondents 78 percent agreed That there is no scientific merit to this approach and this has been shown repeatedly Not a single respondent of all the Langer University specialists disagreed with that statement not one And this is what they're talking about this figure right here where it says there is no scientific merit to this approach Not a sink that you have agree neutral or disagree not one disagreed on this bar up here not one Okay, that's what they're talking about but However agreement with the statement I have not seen enough evidence to either endorse or discredit this approach Generated less consistent results as only half of the respondents disagree with this statement 36 agree This these results again likely reflect the length of time that has passed since any significant research has been conducted on base concentration in the lack of institutionally prime memory of sign institutional Memory of specific studies. No, that's true. There's not been a lot of work done recently and there shouldn't be a whole lot of work done recently, but I'm doing it There's another study that's being done right now on turf grass on base kind of saturation And I'm doing it. Okay. No one's paying for it Except for maybe the members of the channel some of the revenue from this youtube channel is helping pay for it my wife's paying for it Okay, she's helping fund it But I'm doing it doing it legitimately and I'm gonna see what happens everything's randomized out there I don't even know what plot is plot I laid them all out, but now I have no clue what plot is what plot none I'm taking all the ratings taking all the harvests applying all the treatments. I don't have a clue What's what and I'm going to see what happens after so many years but the point is You kind of got to at some point because there's just so many people You know continuing to promote this fraudulent method this grift And it's just we see so many stakeholders continue to get taken advantage of over and over and over And it's just I mean how much evidence do you need To realize that base kind of saturation is a huge waste of resources and money It's it's nuts Less than a quarter of the respondents agreed with this statement is possible that farmers do see benefits from this approach. I would have said definitely Is it possible that farmers do see benefits this approach is right here. Is it possible? They say yes, it is possible. I agree completely I mean this this one. This is unfortunate. So many people said 21 said it it is not possible or they Oh, only 21 said it's possible that farmers See a response. No, it's definitely possible to see a response The Olson 82 paper showed that No, I'm not disagreeing with that at all What I'm saying is the same response is going to come from slant is going to cost you less money. That's it You're going to see the same response. It's going to cost you a lot less money using slant But you will see a response from applying this base kind of saturation fraudulent method. It's just going to cost you a fortune When provided the opportunity to give open-ended comments 32 respondents provided feedback on the diversity of topics 25 of the comments suggested that the private sector was influencing farmers to waste money on unnecessary amendments And 25 of the comments related to the fact that there was no idea calcium magnesium ratio for plants While 19 noted the attention or that attention to this ratio only matters when extreme soil cation imbalances or unusual soil types exist They just said right there the land-grained universe 32 saying they're just promoting this Basically to fleece the farmers and turf managers out of money. They're they're trying to sell them product that they don't need That's fleecing That's that's just what it is when you have a soil test report come out. It's may like three and it shows Don't you have enough your potassium's whatever 80 parts per million may like three you probably don't need to apply any potassium for a long time your phosphorus is You know 100 parts million phosphorus may three you probably don't have to apply phosphorus for a decade When you have that stuff or magnesium when you have all those things saying you already have enough The base kind of saturation fraud fraudsters don't have any means to to convince you to buy their product They need something else so they look into saturated paste extract They look into base kind of saturation ratios as a means to convince you because the numbers that are showing up from the lingering university Are showing you don't need to apply anything. You don't need to buy their product That's what it comes down to and it's right here in the paper says right here wasted money on unnecessary amendments Together these comments demonstrate a largely consistent view that base kind of saturation is an unjustified and unproven practice Some survey respondents lamented how the lack of demonstrated efficacy of base kind of saturation has not deterred it from Being practiced as one respondent noted you cannot refute religion with science And another referenced base kind of saturation has popular modern soil alchemy Whoever these two guys are whoever responded that way Please call me. I'll give I'll give you a big hug Thank you I completely agree It's pseudoscience and salesmanship But you're not going to convince people using Logic to change their mind on a on a belief that they didn't use logic to be convinced it was true You're not going to reason your way out of something you didn't reason your way into It's not easy very difficult Okay, so throwing all this data in their face and all this research on face you might get some people in the middle You might there may be one or two people that are kind of on the fence that it might help sway And that's kind of why this channel exists There may be some people that are like, I'm not really sure and then something like this comes along or showing evidence that might help some people But people who are convinced That you got convinced through indoctrination and poor logic lack of critical thinking And it's it's not going to be changed by just throwing a bunch of data at it Because if you're going to throw a bunch of data at it That's what could have been used to begin with they didn't they weren't interested in that all these It's not like this stuff just showed up yesterday. It's been around for decades They weren't going and using critical thinking skills or going and looking it up to find the evidence to begin with So they're not going to look at it now or very likely if they're if they're that convinced Hypothesis three Despite the relatively few publications on base-con saturation There is a large body of work reporting effects of lime and gypsum applications on soils that can lend insight in the efficacy of base-con saturation The lack of reported research manipulating calcium magnesium ratios does not equate to a total lack of knowledge on the subject For example, there's a large body of literature reporting on the effects of lime and gypsum on soil crop and environmental properties is true High cow lime And gypsum are the two primary amendments that base-con saturation practitioners use to manipulate calcium and magnesium ratios High cow lime is applied to fields with low soil pH And gypsum when soil pH is optimum, but calcium magnesium are not and I highlighted this because there's a video That says, oh, well the high cow lime should be applied even when the pH is high And even on this document it shows that even the base saturation base kind of saturation Practitioners wouldn't do that They're not going to apply high cow lime when the pH is high I mean they're they may be in doctor neighbor. They're not dumb My god. Well, I mean not making this up. I'll show the video. Maybe tomorrow Apply high cow lime even when the pH is high and right here. It's showing high cow lime is applied to fields when the pH is low Gypsum is applied when the pH is high Or optimal, but the calcium magnesium ratios are not that's the it's nonsense But that's what that's what they're that's what they're That's what it should be done if you're going to follow the the misinformation by from base-con saturation At least follow it. I mean it's crazy Applying agricultural lime to adjust pH results in two outcomes reducing neutralize Reducing neutralizable acidity and raising soil pH increasing calcium saturation percentages bigger too Bigger too and then this you can look at this figure you can pause it if you want for those watching And it has the sort of the breakdown between how base-con saturation And practices use based on soil pH as a soil pH acidic. Yes, then you apply high-cal line Is it basic or if it's not acidic then you use gypsum and you kind of have shows the dichotomous sort of breakout of those management practices We question whether scientists and base-con saturation practitioners may at times attribute the positive effects of lining soils to different phenomenon That is if scientists attribute positive effects of lime solely to increase in pH and base-con saturation practitioners attributed to increases in calcium saturation percentages The benefits of lime on crops are well established and not disputed among scientists However, the benefits of gypsum have been less consistent and more side-specific gypsum benefits have been recently reviewed With studies reporting the effects of gypsum application on crop yields and tissue concentrations Soil hydrology and nutrient loss and soil aggregation and soil physical structure There are a number of mechanistic effects that gypsum can have on soil both indirect and direct due to calcium and sulfur figure 2 It is widely acknowledged that gypsum is an effective tool for remediating Sodic soils And for improving soil conditions on acidic weathered soils with high levels of soluble aluminum So those are the two situations. I haven't ever mentioned the weathered soils of high soluble aluminum because they're more like an oxisols There's not a whole lot of those in the United States but Places like very very highly weathered soils like in say parts large parts parts of brazil That are by the way very fertile very productive soils There there can be a value to applying gypsum in those cases. The one thing they don't mention in here That benefit of gypsum is also the benefit of applying sulfate and sulfate deficient soils Which is becoming more common nowadays. So there is been there are benefits to applying gypsum For example recent work from has been demonstrated more consistent positive effects of gypsum applications in acidic weathered soils in brazil and peregway Soil carbon storage has been shown to be positively affected by higher base saturation and calcium availability and tropical and weathered soils And they kind of go through a cup. I'm not going to go through this, but they kind of go through a various Examples in sight of literature of when there can be a benefit for example feedio in 2017 under high calcium saturations achieved either through lime or gypsum applications or a combination of both Increased they they measured increases in soluble organic carbon Bonini perez also reported improved microbial biomass activity under high calcium saturation conditions along with crop diversification and some so Under very specific conditions. There can be a measured benefit But it might not necessarily be because you're balancing things is because you're applying a calcium source or a sulfur source Okay gypsum is applied to soil to achieve numerous outcomes in site specific factors often dictate the efficacy of the application Of particular importance to base concentration practitioners is the impact of using calcium does to displace magnesium From exchange sites to improve soil aggregation and soil physical structure. So that is the big hook if we can somehow Um, well the people who are indoctrinated in selling this stuff. You're not going to probably get to them But the people in the middle if we can somehow explain to them in a way that is you know in a compelling That this pocus pocus idea Is not that Useful in practice in real settings. It's just not okay You're not going to somehow Cure all your problems because you're magnesium is high and you applied calcium and it and it changed the balance of calcium magnesium This has been shown over and over and over in most settings In the vast majority well over 95 percent of the setting that's never going to happen Probably 99 percent or greater is never going to happen Using calcium to replace magnesium on exchange sites is a fundamental tenant of base concentration practitioners And has scientific merit, but it has not been robustly demonstrated in empirical field experiments to date In other words, we yes, we've shown this in the lab Yes, we've shown this in some greenhouse plots But only in most bizarre settings where the magnesium is greater than 75 percent base kind of uh of the cec It's just strange things that almost never occur in nature Okay Hypothesis four soil test values will differ between soil managed by farmers with base concentration those that do not We analyze 195 samples from certified organic farmers Okay, they go through the reintroduction again. I don't know why they do that Uh and then okay of the 195 soil samples received and analyzed 58 percent of these farms said they subscribed to the base kind of saturation We examined differences in key soil parameters that should be most influenced by base kind of saturation management namely soil pH base kind of saturation percentages and soil calcium magnesium ratios analysis of variance indicated no Significant differences in any of these measured properties between those who did or did not subscribe The base kind saturation some words they measured it all and there was no difference. Okay distribution of these soils Soil properties by group reveal no discernible trends. I'm gonna show this in a minute Suggesting that base kind of saturation management by organic farmers is not readily detected in soil test results alone We therefore reject our hypothesis. That's that subscription to base kind of saturation drives differences in soil test values So for these organic farmers that followed it versus those that did not there weren't any differences In the soil test values These results highlight the complexity and variability encountered across these organic farms If reflect the fact that soils are highly buffered and suggest that extractible calcium magnesium test values are difficult to change Even when farmers intend to modify these levels now you're gonna find many other papers that do Attempt to change calcium magnesium levels and they do in fact show that in fact the paper on thursday night showed that So this particular paper organic farms. They did not find that Okay, so this is what i'm going to show here on the on the graphs for those watching is The we're looking at six panels on graphs and it's the distribution of soil properties from organic farms based on farmer subscription to base kind of saturation or not And if they follow base kind of saturation you see this the orange line here and if they did not it's the blue dotted line And what this is I believe this is going to be like Density or I'm not sure it says density on the y-axis. I think this is probability density It could just be the density of the population. I'm not just a hundred percent sure, but And then it has soil pH cation exchange capacity calcium magnesium ratios potassium magnesium and calcium saturation percentages And you'll see that for soil pH the distribution was basically the exact same Between whether you follow base concentration or you didn't the soil pH distribution and the soil pH was the same Basically the same thing for the kind of change capacity didn't really change much For the calcium magnesium ratio, the population density was basically the same as the population density that you if you follow base concentration Or you didn't in other words, you don't see that many differences at all none really The population when you followed it versus you didn't with calcium magnesium and potassium saturation was essentially the same Didn't change Okay Now imagine the other papers you would see this different you these would pull out a little bit further, but in this particular one they did not Base kind of saturation guidelines often produce recommendation. This is hypothesis five similar to those of land grant universities. So now we're going to look at the recommendations Okay A key consideration for the comparing base kind of saturation and slant is the management of soil acidity We examined four years of a high soil test data results from a major commercial soil testing lab They repeat this I don't know how they got this through. Okay, the distribution of these data Suggest that soils with low pH have much lower calcium saturation percentages relative to soils with optimum pH figure four That's this figure right to the right of me Interestingly soils classified as either optimal or high pH have a larger percentage of observed observations above 5 calcium saturation the all break upper limit. So what they're saying is is that whenever the pH was optimal, which was You're looking at the red dotted line is low pH the green is optimal and then blue is high They're showing that this a very large percentage of the population was greater Than the upper limit for base kind of saturation Okay Same thing with magnesium saturation. There's a large percentage that's greater Than the upper limit for base kind of saturation When you when the pH was neutral or optimal, sorry or high So it's only when the pH was Well, the pH was acidic on the calcium there was it was below the optimum level for Base kind of saturation But when it was acidic the magnesium saturation the population was greatest right in between the base kind of saturation limits That's when when it was slightly acidic and whether it was acidic optimal or basic The potassium saturation didn't change and if you remember from a slide presentation I gave a few weeks ago where I I graphed out a million soil samples on pH magnesium levels potassium levels and calcium levels at various pH's You you should remember that the influence of pH on potassium was negligible between four and about eight But it changed magnesium and calcium tended to go up Extreme male three exchangeable calcium magnesium went up But for potassium it was basically the same exact whether it was four or whether it was eight the extractable potassium was the same And the same thing basically they show here. I would use that as an explanation as to why we see what we see here where It didn't matter whether it was a high optimal or low pH The population density of the potassium saturation was never changed. It's always the same Okay Okay So the let me see if I can get through here Oh the Okay, these results indicate that when soil Are managed to an optimal pH range for field crop production They often fall within the base concept of range and ranges for calcium and potassium But not for magnesium and that's what they're saying here majority of the magnesium population was outside the greatest limit of 20 percent While we use strict criteria here Nearly all base concentration practitioners we interviewed do not adhere to the rigid saturation ranges and make adjustments depending on site specific factors So what they're saying is they have ranges 10 to 20 percent so forth, but practitioners they add 22 percent 25 percent have big deal It's probably fine Regardless our hypothesis that soils with optimal soil pH Would have cut on saturations mostly aligned with base concentration ideal ranges is plausible for calcium and potassium But is rejected when considering magnesium Okay And then they say here the majority of limes sold in ohio is dolomitic Likely resulting in the increased magnesium saturation with the optimal pH soils And why base cast that cut on saturation practitioners routinely recommend high cal lime over dolomitic line I think what they're saying is because the majority of lime Comes from magnesium and calcium carbonate that might explain why the magnesium up here was so far above like this limit So if otherwise if the lime in these locations wasn't dolomite if it was just calcidic lime then this this magnesium wouldn't be The population wouldn't be over this limit here They're saying because the majority comes from dolomite That's probably explains why but I went and tried to look up this this ohio department of agriculture 2020 citation where I guess they pulled the majority of lime is dolomitic And I can't find that's not anywhere in the paper. It's not in the citations the references of this paper So what i'm what i'm saying that is in a scientific paper. You can't just say the majority is this you have to provide some evidence some data to support that assertion and they have a citation but I can't find the citation So i'm inclined to be quite skeptical about that assertion when they say the majority is from dolomite So that's probably explains it majority maybe from dolomite and that very well may explain it But until I see some numbers I don't have any reason to believe even in a scientific scientific publication some believe just an assertion Give me something to base it on And I can't I mean you can go down here and look ohio department of agriculture is nowhere in this site and down here in the in the citations it goes from it goes from nunaz to oleary and ulsen there is no ohio department of agriculture and sometimes it'll be like listed like OHDA or something and there is no OHDA anywhere on here. So i'm maybe missing it i'm not gonna I definitely could be overseeing over not not seeing it it's possible But I don't see anywhere in here from the ohio department of agriculture any any where I can close Click on and go look at the numbers to confirm that indeed the majority of line is Or I didn't have that on is from you can see down here. There is no Ohio department of agriculture So maybe I'm missing it. So if I'm missing it some will point it out and I'll I'll mention it in the comments Finally, we wanted to examine the relationship between langer university fertilizer recommendations based on slant and based on base based kind of saturation Uh, when considering only recommended slant levels and base kind of saturation ideal ranges There appears to be substantial difference between these two approaches. I'll you bet there are Okay, damn right there are The big difference between recommendations of fertilizer between slant and base kind of saturation For example at higher CC values It is conceivable that following base kind of saturation would require application of more product than is necessary to meet critical requirements by slant That is not even conceivable That is what is going on That is definitely what's going on in my opinion This could result in over applications of calcium magnesium and or potassium amendments to increase exchange book had on levels and substantially reduced farmer profitability And return on investment and main criticism presented by others in the past and I'm presenting it now It's a criticism McLean 83 and Olson and 82 What what they're saying is based on these graphs this solid line here Is as you'll see here soil test recommendations for calcium magnesium and potassium horizontal black lines Okay, so the amount of nutrient that we would recommend we apply to the crop Or to the turf is X it's the same. Otherwise, it doesn't change with it because the cec changes It's not going to change the amount we need to apply The amount we need to apply is based upon a properly conducted calibration study And we need to apply 60 pounds of sulfate sulfur per acre And I'm pretty confident that's true because I've done the calibration on it It doesn't it isn't going to change because the cec goes up Okay, but if you're subscribed to base kind of saturation when the cec goes up from zero to 10 to 10 to 20 to 30 You have to apply more and more and more Looking at three panels here and see the kind of exchange capacities on the x axis and extractable cations are on the y axis calcium magnesium and potassium And because the cec is going up the capacity to to Hold cations is also going up by definition And therefore if you have a deficiency if they're or a perceived deficiency if they convince you you have a deficiency You have to apply more to satisfy those sites on the exchange site So the base kind of saturation ideal ranges are the gray ribbons. So in other words You're going to have to apply many many many fold more If you subscribe to base kind of saturation and if you would it just just sufficiency Okay That's that's the the take home message. You're going to apply more if you follow that method and the in the 80s There's the 82s Olson paper documents that very clearly Okay Conversely base kind of saturation practitioners could argue the critical levels based on slant approach could greatly underestimate required levels of optimal soil management So you're you're right. It could We don't want to float near the cliff as I was mentioned many many times, but the risk following slant is that you're too close to the cliff And you may under apply the nutrients into some point during the crop or during the turfgrass growth throughout the year you may encounter a deficiency because you're Not over applying it. That's the argument. Can you imagine having an argument? You should apply copious amounts of potassium following based conservation So you're never ever deficient Okay, what limit well, we're gonna base it on cec. Okay. Well, so what what so you're gonna apply You're going to intentionally apply over apply potassium calcium magnesium so that you're never deficient Can you imagine the amount of wasted money you would have to throw out and revenue you'd have to lose Just because of that argument meanwhile the sufficiency level if you end up Recognizing there's a deficiency. Let's say whatever say 40 personally Potassium and you say I don't want to be at 40 and my turf looks poor. I'm gonna apply more potassium apply more potassium And you find out a way second. It's a little bit low. You just go apply more than X application I mean, you know, even in sod production. They're still applying saw. They're still playing new And depends on where you're located But in florida you're still applying nutrients about every 30 to 60 days one way or the other And if you find out that you're a little bit low just to add some more to the next application Rather than applying copious amounts of potassium all the time That's a that's a good way to lose profit. That's a really good way to lose profit So Next paragraph we're coming to the end here um I'm gonna go down here to the last part despite the above noted similarities between base kind of saturation and slan They've mentioned let me read this I guess When one considers the Ohio state soil test data within the optimum pH Average soil test values fall within the ideal base concentration ranges for calcium and potassium and are on the upper limit for magnesium While these best fit regression lines represent only the average soil test values and not the full distribution around these lines These data suggests that in many instances a soil that has been managed For optimum pH may fall within an ideal base concentration range These data also justify the preference of high cal line over dilaminic lime or base kind of saturation practitioners as soils with optimum pH levels Have higher magnesium saturation percentages on average than those soils with less than 6.0 pH Since the majority of lime sold and applied in Ohio is dilaminic managing soils to increase calcium saturation and lower magnesium saturation Logically necessitates high cal line. So what the same is this idea of I got apply high cal line It may be valid, but it's not for the reasons you think it's valid Okay, you're just playing high cal line because you don't need all that magnesium anyway You're wasting money on magnesium. In fact, I had a console with a soft producer this week And he was applying dolomite and he needed to apply some more lime. The pH was less than five and the turf was poor And I told him you can continue to apply dolomite if you want to but I would look to see which is least expensive dolomite or calcium carbon regular lime because your magnesium levels are well above any known limit so pick whichever one's least expensive per acre dolomite or lime calcium carbonate and go with that one because any magnesium you apply is going to be wasted, but if dolomite happen to have a source of dolomite that happens to be less expensive for the same neutralizing equivalency for of lime then go with dolomite So that happens Despite the above-noted similarities between base concentration and slant We should make be we should be clear that base concentration and slant are in fact very different conceptual approaches to soil management Our intention here is not to suggest otherwise, but rather provide evidence that There can be considerable overlap in soil test level outcomes If the soil is managed for optimal pH regardless if a practitioner is following base concentration or slant Recognition of this phenomenon may help explain the persistence of base kind of saturation practice without laying grant university endorsement for more than 40 years so in other words He's kind of they're kind of poking the point the finger at lingering university saying hey You gotta kind of got to recognize how this thing is used and kind of got to recognize how There can be overlap in other words. What the base kind of saturation? fraudsters are selling actually does probably result in a very similar outcome to The slant method in terms of crop production or turfgrass performance. It just costs a lot of money so Don't go in there and say you're wrong Even though on this channel, I might say that more than once as a thing just as you know entertainment maybe But you're not going to point the finger and going in there and raising cane isn't going to change anybody's opinion You're just going to set everybody off Recognize they probably are seeing what they're seeing. Let's look at it in dollars and cents Farmers will recognize that at least my grandpa did You start talking you know apples and cedar apple rust and all these other things. Oh, uh jb here's uh Here's how you can make another five grand this year. Oh, what what? So then that gets their attention Okay, so money profit. Maybe we start going down that road show them that and that's what the wholesome paper does And then conclusions our work suggests that publication bias has played a limited role in the past several decades as few soil fertility specialists have engaged in base concentration research Okay, so the h the hypothesis one was rejected meaning There is a limited role in publication bias There is however consensus among soil fertility scientists at land great universities and that base kinds iteration is not legitimate That's a hypothesis too, which was accepted Even though published research on base kind of saturation is scant There is a research a rich body of literature on lime and gypsum that can land insight in the efficacy of base kind of saturation And when any positive effects may or may not be observed. That's hypothesis number three. That was accepted So you see what i'm saying how they This is the questions we're asking and at the end they go one by one and acknowledge whether or not they accepted or rejected I wish they would have said just a point of Detail that no one cares about but me. I wish they would have said that no hypothesis Was rejected or we failed to reject the null hypothesis that'd be a little bit more my style, but whatever I our findings suggest that differences in farmer subscription to base concentration ratio were not detectable in soil test data from their fields So that hypothesis number four was rejected Because so there were no differences in the nutrition nutrient soil nutrients between these two Methodologies it was the same so it was rejected But that management soil but that managing soil acidity will also balance soils And base concentration ideal saturation percentages so accepted so they found that just adjusting the pH Would move it into the base concentration Ranges that people are trying to shoot for just managing the pH would do that You don't and then you're gonna find on thursday night that a huge problem exists with the orbit papers is his um Idea and i'm gonna i'm gonna start thursday night show off with with a with a You know thought experiment It would blow you away. I mean what he thought was soil pH. No soil scientists today would probably even get a job It's so well-refuted what he believed on soil pH. He believed this on soil pH It's so Refuted at this point. I don't know how you'd even get employed If you said the things that he said back then today if you said it today, i'm gonna go over on thursday night Okay But moving the soil pH up into that I know up into these ranges would probably balance the soil automatically Recent work by our team has noted that the disconnect between science and the practice of base concentration With scientists generally generally conceptualizing base concentration practices as dichotomous to slant In practice base concentration practitioners consider and use slant along with broad array Of soil health building management practices describing multiple Benefits from this approach particularly improve minisole physical structure and like i've mentioned in the beginning You will use this just a little bit here and there that is A little crack of the door opens up and the flood of bs comes in because if you didn't use critical thinking skills to open that crack on the door It's going to be difficult to close it The practice of base concentration is just one example where the approaches of scientists and farmers diverge And these gaps have isolated land-grant university scientists and extension educators from the farming communities. They intend to serve that's sad And that's an example of the magnitude of the effect That the charlatans and grifters and frosters and base concentration the magnitude of their effect is enormous These aren't little guys sitting in their You know back room chit-chatting on cb radio or something in the 1970s. These are highly motivated well-funded Companies whose A large portion of their job is to misinform the public That you have to misinform the public in order to convince them to use base kind of saturation Because if you showed them the evidence you showed them the data No reasonable person would use it particularly when you include the money Okay Our research on base kind of saturation ratio raises many important questions about how farmers learn Where they turn for information and how they validate truths Although outside the scope of this journal these are critical questions that extension professionals and scientists should contemplate in the name of more effective applied economic outreach More true and compelling interesting statement I have yet to read in the scientific journal regarding extension How do they get this information? How do they become convinced that it's true? Because we're losing the battle If you think about it land-grained institutions and universities and scientists are dealing with students dealing with committees dealing with all sorts of you know faculty sin, it's all sorts of stuff that there are energies and our directions are pulled who knows how many different ways All the people do in terms of when they're selling base considerations They're all their focuses is going out and selling Product based upon a flawed concept. That's all they do for a living You can't possibly keep up There has to be some other way to communicate to the stakeholders in a more And a magnitude quality and a quantity and a qualitative way To benefit our stakeholders because they're being dragged down the rabbit hole of misinformation And because they've done it once and they go, well, how'd a good crop that year? Oh my fairway looked good that year when I followed that or whatever When they do that then that that little hook turns into a major grasp a trap and now they're hooked into it And they just keep throwing out gypsum constantly throwing out calcium buying all this stuff And there's very little evidence to indicate that they would ever need to and nowadays Unfortunately, we're throwing out gypsum. They seem even more of a response So now they're even more Convinced meanwhile it was probably from the sulfate if they were deficient in sulfate than it was from any balancing of the soiled calcium Meanwhile base concentration ratio practitioners dismiss much of the scientific research on base concentration as being outdated And based on mixed characterizations of their approaches or practices This impasse will continue for decades to come if efforts are not made to better engage scientists with base cat on saturation practitioners That that's true We're not going to get anywhere without any sort of civil discourse If you have an opinion if you have a position on something speak it And then when you're done speak it some more And I know a lot of professors. I'll just speak for myself when I'm in when I was in the university system I didn't have time to sit here and do this stuff sit here and talk to youtube like I do that. I have so much other stuff to do It's it's too much time. I don't have I don't have enough time to do it And the risk what am I what am I gaining from it as a professor? What are they going to gain from sitting here doing this stuff? Okay But this is how a lot of people are getting their information Through venues like this whether it's tick tock or youtube or facebook or these You know huge event with family and music and games and all this stuff get everybody in there get them fully indoctrinated Sell them a bunch of stuff. They don't need so we have enough profit to do it again next year That's what's going on Okay, so what's going on this this study by the way was uh supported by the united states department of agriculture and nifa Agriculture research and extension initiative and have this has the number here. So this was a federally funded project all based upon the reality that our farmers in our farming community are wasting money On using a methodology that has been shown over and over and over To be effective, but cost a lot more money. That's basically what it comes down to Okay Effective yes expensive. Yes, you can do the exact same thing for a lot less money following a slant method or a slant Philosophy of uh nutrient management or soil management. Okay guys and girls I'll be back tomorrow. The video for tomorrow has already been posted. I've already got four likes on it So I haven't even shown it yet. So I don't know what that's about but I do appreciate people liking the video before it's even been shown Um, of course, it'll be live be loud tomorrow at 10 a.m It'll probably be a fairly short video or short short show tomorrow It's just one video and I think it's on like 10 or 15 minutes long And maybe I'll throw in another one if I have enough time, but be here tomorrow for the public show at 10 a.m and they get on thursday night for the the You know, it was dr. Albrecht To understand how dr. Albrecht became confused and um, and we'll go down that road on thursday night All right guys, gals. Thanks all the members for showing up today. I really appreciate it. Have a go and see you tomorrow. Bye Your summer is getting a major upgrade. 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