St. John, R.A., Christians, N.E. and Taber, H.G. (2003), Supplemental Calcium Applications to Creeping Bentgrass Established on Calcareous Sand. Crop Sci., 43: 967-972. https://doi.org/10.2135/cropsci2003.9670
Join Turfgrass Epistemology to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-UZnHkJhAmARDZ4YoHnc_A/join
Voicemail:
859-444-4234
Apple Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/turfgrass-epistemology/id1717271379
Spotify Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/1cTpdrChToeEFAOX9wkXFI
iHeart Radio Podcast
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1323-turfgrass-epistemology-129043524/
Podbean
https://turfgrassepistemology.podbean.com/
Online consulting
Calendly.com/TravisShaddox
Twitter
Twitter.com/TravisShaddox
Email
TravisShaddox@gmail.com
Turfgrass Programs and Extension Service Information:
https://www.usna.usda.gov/assets/images/as_pdf_image/LandGrantColleges.pdf
Good morning, everybody welcome to turfgrass epistemology. My name is Travis Shaddix Turfgrass epistemology is the study of turfgrass knowledge. How do we know what we know about turfgrass science? That's what we're here to you know explore Not sure if we ever find it, but we certainly try to look for it it's Monday morning July 29th real quick the The members only, callonly link if you're if you're a pro member you get a callonly consultation in one each year for free And I put it in the community tab of the YouTube channel But it kind of moves down as I put more stuff in there And so I reposted it at the top because it kind of gets lost I had a couple people email me and want me to I Want to know what the link was and if you're a regular member you get one that you get one for free I mean, I'm sorry you get one for half the price and that link is in the community tab as well So use that if you want to we're coming up on 15,000 podcast downloads on the podcast forums platforms so this YouTube channel is It's this is not a place to come and watch a 15 minute how to apply Lime channel That's not what we do here this if those little 15 minute videos can be useful But a lot of it is just nonsense and misinformation this channel is more long-form hang out and listen while you're working Podcast forum and we happen to have you know, the V. This is the video form if you're watching on YouTube so That's what to look forward to if you have never joined you haven't ever listened before this is you know Usually about an hour long hang out and listen while you're driving or listen while you're on your golf cart going from a fair way to a fair way or driving from one One house to the next or whatever the case is that's kind of what Format is on this channel So that's what to look forward to I broadcast on Monday mornings to the members only at 10 a.m. Eastern every Monday morning and then on Thursday evenings at 9 p.m. Is open to the public I may end up having to adjust the chat on the on the Thursday evenings to just members only because we have a couple of people that subscribers that Are just this come in there and cause problems and so I have to change the chat to members only so that may be a members only Art as well if I don't I'm the only person on the channel. I don't have a moderator. So if I can't find a way to Limit the Chat nonsense, and I'll just change the members only on Thursday night as well Speaking of the Thursday night show August will be the last month for the Thursday night show I'm gonna probably move that to Tuesday night because Thursday night football starts on September September Fifth So, I mean I like turfgrass science, but I'm gonna watch Thursday night football instead of talk turfgrass So I'll very likely do a Monday morning show for the members only and then a Tuesday evening show probably is what I'm gonna end up having to do And we'll see how that goes for the NFL season and then I'll you know if I'll maybe I'll stay on Tuesday nights Or maybe I'll move it back to Thursday nights or whatever so I'll still do the show. I'm just gonna have to move it And then what I've been doing the last couple of weeks is a Tuesday morning show as well. That is just video related It seems like people Watch that more than the other videos. So I just showed turfgrass video and just comment on it as I watch it That's all I do tomorrow morning. So that'll be open to the public tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Okay. Okay, that's it Let's get started Good morning Charles and Randy and Gray and Connecticut and Chuck and Rich and Rob and all you guys. Thanks for showing up this morning I've been going over base counts actuation and soil testing and there's been a lot of agricultural literature that I've been going over and I was gonna continue that this week But I thought maybe I'd just use this week to come back to turfgrass in the world of base counts actuation Let's talk about a couple papers that I've looked into it in turfgrass this week as well as a video that talks about it tomorrow and Then next week. I'll probably go back into some of the hardcore soil base counts actuation Which is really more to do with row crops and that's where the bulk of the research has been conducted and soybeans and alfalfa and things like that so This week is all turf base counts actuation and today we're gonna go over a I think a really good article by Rodney St. John and the Christians and I don't know the last author Tabor But the title of this article is the supplemental calcium applications to creeping bentgrass established on Calcarius sand By St. John's Christians in Tabor and this was published in our top-tier journal crop science and 2003 okay So for those of you just real quick who might be joining us for the first time base counts actuation is the fraudulent philosophy and the Just inaccurate philosophy and Delusional philosophy of how to interpret soil test numbers and what it does is basically looks at the cation exchange capacity of the soil Which is the capacity of the soil to retain cation such as positively charged ions such as calcium magnesium potassium so on and the philosophy is says that you should have a certain amount of the Look the capacity of the soil to hold those you should have a certain percentages percentage occupied by calcium and a different percentage occupied by magnesium and so forth and if you don't then you won't Maximize yield or turf grass quality. That's the idea and on soil test reports. You'll see values Some so much potassium so much calcium so much whatever phosphorus and then over usually in another section. You'll see basic saturation percentages That base saturation percentage on soil test is what we're what we're talking about based cation saturation That's to be ignored That's unless you're a salesman or a fraudster trying to convince your customer to Buy unnecessary nutrients and waste them by applying it to turf grass if you're that in that category then you'd want to use that But if you're a consumer and you want to follow the evidence and be efficient with your nutrient usage Then you want to ignore that and you potentially want to ignore anything that the salesman says to you about buying nutrients based on that The only caveat to that which I haven't gone into yet would be some situations with sodium So so the sort the exchangeable sodium percentage There is a little bit in the literature for that and this sodium absorption ratios and there's some Some things to do with soda soils that can be help that that can help diagnose a soda soil But with the exception of sodium, which is fairly rare occurrence sodium or soda soils We want to ignore that all that stuff And hopefully ignore the salesman and maybe find a new salesman New company, okay, so this that's the company. That's the name of the type of the the article supplemental calcium application So this is going to be conducted in Iowa. This is the Iowa state team and this was 20 years ago and they did this work and I'm going to read most of this introduction because Oftentimes I'll just kind of hit on the introduction because it I just want to hit on it and get to the meat of the study but this introduction is quite good and I'm just going to use it to further emphasize the the way in which base kind of saturation is crowbarred into our industry and the manner in which Oftentimes salesmen will use it to convince you that you need to buy their product or whatever They kind of do a good job of explaining it in this introduction So crop science supplemental calcium applications are creeping big grass establish on Calcari sand tint to increase drainage and decrease problems with Compaction most golf greens and athletic fields are constructed with sandy root zone mix mixes recommended by the United States golf Association. That is almost entirely the only reason why USGA spec green is designed the way it is is to resist compaction There's a lot of traffic on golf greens a lot of foot traffic And it's very difficult to grow very low cut turf grass Unconditions where the soil is compacted due to physical traffic on top of it. So the USGA years ago Put out did a lot of research trying to figure out what sort of root zone could be used to minimize compaction maintain the aeration in the soil such that these low cut turf grasses that are under a lot of stress Can be you know maintained? To acceptable levels and that's basically the only reason they're created that way same thing with sand cap fair football fields We have to allow drainage We have to be able to withstand a lot of traffic and damage to the turf grass and sometimes those fields are cut at half an inch or lower depending on you know the type of turf grass and the level of Athletic level whether it's high school football or college or whatever in a film So there's a lot of traffic and the root zones are designed to help the turf grass grow through that Because of the inherent properties of sand these root zone mixes have low cation exchange capacities or the ability to with to hold Nutrients these are ranging from one to six in a moles per kilogram. So one to six is quite low You know these the soils in kentucky if you average all the soils from the soil test lab in kentucky is around 15 or 16 Those are more fertile soils around the 15 range To as high as maybe mid 20s once you get up above 25 30 you're dealing with organic soils Generally not all the time, but generally So these one to sixes is fairly low and that by the way that goes for essentially the entire state of florida I mean most there are some sands in the northern area of florida that have some coatings on them natural organic coatings That can move the cec up into the 1112 ranges on those sands in florida But the majority of say you know i4 corridor south is very very low cecs in the single digits and can be challenging to maintain some nutrients At a sufficient level when you have cec that low With so few cation exchange sites available applying the correct amount of fertilizer to provide adequate nutrition without causing over for over saturation Of the exchange sites and nutrient leaching is difficult To further complicate the problem sands used for greens and athletic field constructions in many areas of the United States is often calcareous And then they do a good job describing what that is Calcareous sands are defined as having any amount of free carbonates Usually as combinations of calcium carbonate And or magnesium carbonate Okay The free carbonates in these sands will often range from 1 to 40 by weight The carbonates will buffer the pH at 8.2 But standard pH meters may measure it at a range from 7.3 to 8.5 So what they're saying is is that calcareous sands are buffered at 8.3 Why is this because calcium carbonate precipitates out of solution at about 8.3 And after 8.3 or let's say at 8.3 There's going to be some Just for lack of a better term granular calcium carbonate or carbonate materials There and so as the pH Let's say you applied something that you would want the pH to be lowered like ammonium sulfate or sulfur It's going to attempt to lower that but there's a residual amount of Carbonate in the soil that's going to have to be worked through before the pH will actually lower in other words You have still have calcium carbonate in the bank So it's being buffered at 8.2 Okay, so when you're at 8.2 8.3 I don't know how much calcium carbonate or magnesium carbonate that you might have in Reserve I don't know you'd have to do you can do a test for that But you can't just tell what you can tell from the buffer pH, but you can't just tell from the regular pH, okay It's going to be difficult. So you might be applying acidic materials Thinking you're going to lower the pH when it's at 8 when it's at 7 7 and a half It can kind of be predictable, but when it's at 8.2 8.3 I don't know the level of buffering capacity you have in the soil unless you have a buffer pH conducted as well And all it is is it just was it's it's resisting the pH change because it has so much left in reserve To continue to dissolve into solution of the of the carbonate material I don't know that may be too much information for people, but that's how it works This very high pH can limit the availability of many nutrients such as iron manganese and boron I mean technically that's true, but there's no real iron available on that any real pH above Say four and a half or five. Anyway, I kind of I kind of wish they didn't put that in there Manganese can be more available at those pH's at say five. It's five and a half for sure Um, but iron is almost all iron is going to be taken up through exit. It's in the From the roots. Okay, so High pH will adjust the solubility of some elements That's for sure, but it's sort of irrelevant because iron is not going to be available Even at lower pH's until you get way way way down low Okay, so it is what it is whatever Okay, you're up here. Thanks for showing up rob transitions on guy turf nerd long care. Good morning guys In recent years more and more turf managers have been applying supplemental calcium applications to turf areas established on sand This was in 2003 Usually these applications are made with granular gypsum or calcium carbonate or liquid sprays of calcium chelate One of the main reasons generally cited for applying supplemental calcium to grass Established on calcare sand is the belief that calcium carbonate does release calcium quickly enough To be readily available for plant uptake There is a lack of data supporting this idea and further work is needed to determine the availability of calcium Of the calcium in calcium carbon to plants. That's like a scientifically sound way of saying there's no evidence support this crazy idea but We should probably do some work on it just to make sure Now I will say in 2006 or seven something around that time I was working with a golf course in north florida and we were he was having challenges. There were some issues there And we were working on the greens and he had issues with aerifying He had limitations based upon play and all these other things that we were making progress And then I came in one day And he was spreading gypsum all over his greens and I had talked to him specifically about this not applying gypsum unless you have a sulfate deficiency on putting greens And he was applying and he didn't have a sulfate deficiency and he was applying gypsum everywhere. I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, well, I'm applying calcium sulfate gypsum on my putting greens I was like, why you as well the consultant forced us to do it I'm like, how does he force you to do it? Well, the consultant this was at university of florida the consultant Was buddy buddy with the people above the superintendent? That's how he got his tickets to the football games And he had convinced the people above the superintendent that you have to apply gypsum to putting greens And so the superintendent had no choice He had he had to do whatever this consultant said because otherwise there would be all sorts of hell raised And cause friction or things like, you know what? I'm just gonna put it out. It's not gonna hurt anything Well, we find out in today's paper that indeed Application of gypsum in some situations or calcium soluble calcium sources In some situations can be detrimental to things like magnesium It can be we can reduce the availability or the solubility of magnesium and other ions in the soil So that's again another reason you just don't want to do things Unless you have a good reason you have it you have the reason may eventually be determined to be inaccurate But when you made the decision, did you have a good agronomic reason? And just because the consultant said you had to do it is not a good agronomic reason But in his case, he was like, I just want to keep the piece and do it. Okay. Well, whatever But agronomically, there's no there was no need to do that. And he wasted a lot of money doing it There's an example of what that's that's a real life example of why this paragraph that they said in recent years People have been playing calcium to putting greens And even with uncalcary sands And that's it. I know that's a real life experience that I also encountered more than deed. That is true A second reason for applying calcium to turf grasses and sometimes based on the base Cata and saturation ratio theory of soil testing According to the original theory by baron tothin 48 optimum plant growth is achieved by calcium and magnesium and potassium and hydrogen occupying the exchange complex with the following ideal ratio of 65 Calcium 10 magnesium 5 potassium and 20 hydrogen On the basis of these saturation percentages one can develop the quote unquote ideal cation about aqua ideal cation equivalent ratios Of calcium and these m6.5 to 1 calcium potassium 13 to 1 calcium hydrogen 3.25 to 1 and magnesium potassium 2.2 to 1 these are all just You know Pie in the sky goofy saturation percentages That people will use to you know again convince you that whatever they're saying is true and in fact The evidence provides nothing in support of it This theory was later expanded so that the basic cations exists within the percentage saturation ranges of 65 to 85 calcium 6 to 12 percent magnesium 2 to 5 potassium and then with hydrogen ions occupying the remaining sites That was by Eckerd and 87 The alternative philosophy of soil testing interpretation is called the sufficiency level. This is called slant The slant theory States that there are minimum levels of nutrients in the soil below which the crop will respond favorably to fertilizer application The slant philosophy is based on much research with varying soil and crop types Which has led to the development of soil test interpretation guidelines for specific crops grown in specific geographic regions And that that's what we want to follow is the slant method in other words You either have enough or you do not have enough in the soil And what how do we know that because we've gone out and done correlations and calibrations with a specific methodology And a specific element in a specific soil and we've determined that At this level, it's unlikely that you would see any benefit to applying say phosphorus for example That's the slant method When you're below the level you probably would see a response to applying phosphorus when you're above the level you probably won't And that's for the most part the way in which Pretty much every evidence-based soil test lab will interpret their soil test numbers Okay Research demonstrating turfgrass response to calcium and the interaction of calcium with calcaresan systems is limited Calcium deficiencies in mary and kentucky bluegrass and creeping bentgrass and red fescue grown on acid washed quartz sand Have been described as starting with a reddish brown discoloration along the margin of the leaf blade that moves inward to the mid vein As the leaf ages now if you want to know what a calcium deficiency looks like You will probably never see one in real life in a natural setting you will almost Only in the most bizarre unusual cases will you ever see a calcium deficiency in turf grasses Because there's already so much calcium out there applying more isn't going to help but if you happen to see the margins of the leaf Uh, changing from green to reddish bronzes color and continuing to turn red from the outside of the leaf inward That can be a sign of calcium deficiency. However, there are clear genetic differences between turf grasses particularly in some baya grasses and even some ornamental grasses Where you see the grass is naturally a reddish leaf There's an ornamental grass in my backyard right now that is the leaf blades are naturally a reddish color Doesn't mean it's calcium deficient. It means that's the genetic predisposition to color in the leaf with that plant so be careful When you try to go out and say I have a calcium deficiency it is It is it's a non zero probability, but it's very close to zero that you'd ever see a calcium deficiency Now having said all that I deal with thousands of people in this channel. Okay thousands of people watching this channel There's going to be one or two that have a calcium deficiency I can point out to one or almost for sure right now in north florida Where his calcium levels are around 100 parts per million. May like three You have a very good probability of seeing a calcium deficiency when you're at that low of a level But his condition is extremely rare He had a pine forest that the land had been grown as a pine forest for on like two three decades It had been harvested. He bought the land. He's converting it into a sod farm Well, that's a very unusual situation That that land had not been fertilized and had been grown as a pine forest for decades And now you're growing grass on it It's a different nutritional need and there's the soil is not going to be as mature in terms of you know Nutrient, you know quantities and organic material buildup and all these things as it would be if they'd been turf for 20 years So in that situation, it's possible, but i'm just saying it's extremely rare and I wouldn't That's the last thing I would think of a nutrient deficiency is calcium, but it it can't happen. It's just extremely rare Kentucky bluegrass creeping bent grass and creeping red fescue became deficient in calcium And the least cal leaf calcium concentration in which 500 2700 in 1900 parts from mine respectively. This is by love in 1963 now. This is when next to the he acid washed quartz sand In other words He did everything physically possible to remove every nutrient except hydrogen, I guess because he acid washed it But remove everything out of the soil just stripped everything out of the soil and then he intentionally went back and applied Certain nutrients and eliminated other nutrients to see what would show up in terms of deficiency symptoms And that's when he found in these grasses Was that the deficiency showed up at those concentrations St. John in 2001 concluded that Kentucky bluegrass and creeping bent grass establish on calcareous sand and the greenhouse are capable of obtaining their calcium Requirements from calcareous sands and no additional calcium is needed Okay, that was from the same study. I think I this is from the same author st. John in 2001. I want to say that paper also looked at silicon based sands I don't remember Somewhere in there they have calcareous sands and silicon based sands and they looked at the differences between these as well And that was in the greenhouse and they saw that and then calcareous sands that you couldn't you plow calcium you wanted to it made no difference Research conducted by Jerry sartane found that maintaining a precise calcium and these in ratio for Bermuda grass and rye grass was not important Rather it was more important to maintain a minimum critical level and That I think is the paper we're going to go over on Thursday night Tif green vermina grass has been shown to tolerate soil extractable calc magnesium ratios ranging from 13 Calcium to one magnesium to as high as 120 calcium to one magnesium without a reduction in growth So on vermina grass and rye grass There's been a lot of work done And they've never seen any benefit to trying to adjust these ratios of calcium magnesium or adjusting the base cat saturation ratio Accurate nate seven stated that he did not know of any study that has shown that an exact ideal ratio exists However, he goes on to state that the theory appears to be reasonable in light of basic cation exchange phenomenon And the effects that the degree of saturation of one cation may have on the availability of itself and other cations The ratio of basic cations is only important when one cation becomes so excessive that it limits the availability of others That's mcclean from 77 and we'll go over that mcclean paper and the eckerd 87 paper So what what they're saying is is that What they're saying is is that the the eckerd 87 paper said that we don't have any state that's ever shown. There's an ideal soil none but You know theoretically the idea is possible by applying one element and saturating you might you know limit the others and so forth but They said we run out of where have any state of this ever shown that and i'm going to go and over review papers and none of them have ever shown that Excessive calcium fertilization could potentially shift the cation equilibrium And remove the other cations such as magnesium or potassium from exchange sites causing plant deficiencies of these elements So we're going to go over a few they're going to go over a few studies that show exactly that we're Oh, i'm apply gypsum can't you know, satisfy the the consultant, you know, keep everybody happy It's not going to cause any problems. Well here. We're going to show that it actually can cause some problems Saint john 2001 found that during one year of a two-year greenhouse study creeping bankgrass established on calcareous sand fertilized with calcium nitrate reduced leaf magnesium concentrations by 15 percent Fertilization with either potassium or magnesium has been shown to reduce the tissue calcium concentration of tall fescue Application of either potassium or magnesium to bromunigrass and perennial ryegrass reduced the levels of extractable soil calcium Dr. Miller in 1999, which i've already gone over this paper once before i may go over it again in this in the light of this topic Dr. Miller also found that increasing the amount of potassium applied to bromunigrass Establish on both a sandy peat and a loamy sand Decrease the soil extractable amount in the tissue concentration of calcium and magnesium Excess calcium fertilization may also hinder the ability of the plant to absorb phosphorus since excess calcium in the presence of calcium carbonate Will precipitate with phosphorus and formin soluble calcium phosphates Westerman found that increasing lime concentrations reduce phosphorus uptake on Sudan grass and potato So what they're saying is that the application many people have found that the application of one cation can reduce the soil Concentrations of others and reduce the plant tissue concentrations of other elements So if you apply a lot of potassium, it may reduce the calcium and vice versa. Okay, not always, but sometimes we find that okay Moreover, I want to point out this this sentence is that a lot of people think that you can apply Calcium is going to throw off all the phosphorus that is true, but only when it's in the presence of calcium carbonate Excess calcium in the presence of calcium carbonate will precipitate with phosphorus Okay It's not so simple as oh you got phosphorus and your phosphorus is x don't apply any calcium because it's going to bind it up Well, that's not necessarily the case It may happen But if it's in the presence of calcium carbonate you can bet your bottom dollar is probably going to reduce the extractable phosphorus in the soil Okay There's a lot going on with soil chemistry The objective of this study Objectives were to determine if additional calcium fertilization increases the amount of calcium absorbed by creeping bentgrass Increases the clipping yield and or quality of creeping bentgrass or and or affects the availability of other nutrients to the plant Okay So I like to their introduction he did a pretty good job. The authors did a pretty good job of going through the literature Describing what the problem is people are playing calcium tuck calcareous putting greens This is the level of indoctrination that can occur. You're not following the evidence You're listening to less than honorable salesman who don't know their, you know Ups from their downs. It's supposed to say something else um Follow the evidence some salesman are right on it. No problem. They're they know what they're doing um Others don't how do you know? How do you know what to follow? That's what this channel is about well a lot of it's in the literature If you don't want to follow the literature don't want to listen to literature then listen to this channel Just hang out and listen to the channel and go over a lot of this stuff You don't want to do that call your land-grant university Ask the local specialists about these issues if they don't know There's other ones that do know You know there were out here people are out here who can help answer those questions They don't have a vested interest in the outcome. They're just here to help They're already paid by your tax dollars to help you You know, that's what land-grant universities are there to do materials and methods A two-year field study was conducted on creeping bentgrass at the Iowa State University Turfgrass Center treatments included a control Calcium sulfate calcium carbonate calcium nitrate And a neutricow liquid calcium chelate now This is I'm going to read this materials and method not a whole lot of it But I'm going to read a few things in detail as an example to show why I don't recommend doing your own research Don't it's it's important. You have to know exactly what you're doing in order to have any confidence in the results because if you don't properly balance everything out you may be unknowingly You know attributing an effect Where it from one element when indeed it might have came from another element you need to know exactly what you're doing They were applied to crit cringe all creeping bentgrass a sand based green constructed without any organic or inorganic soil amendments So I'm assuming that means like a california style green. I was assume that's what that is Or it's just saying at the time this research began. Okay, the green was built and seeded in 1996 Okay, calcium was applied at a rate of of I'm going to 23 so that'd be uh five pounds of calcium For a thousand per year. I think someone can do the math on that real quick and correct me where I'm wrong I want to say 23 grams per meter squared is five pounds. That's an odd number for me I don't have that memorized That quantity was split into five equal monthly applications in june july august september in october Since calcium nitrate and can now listen up this again. This is explains exactly why don't do your own research Since calcium nitrate and calcium chelate both contain nitrogen 15.5 and six percent respectively urea was added to balance the level of applied in across all the treatments to the rate of I'm going to say It's 18 grams per meter squared. So I'm going to say Four pounds a year three pounds a year. I can't do that math my head urea was added a rate of This will be 10 pounds per year to the control gypsum and the calcium carbonate treatments urea was added at a rate of less a little less than one pound To the calcium chelate treatment to balance the in at the toe at a total of one pound or i'm sorry 10 pounds per year I completely butchered that whole thing out But the point is they're applying different rates of nitrogen to different plots in specific forms So that all the nitrogen applied to all the plots it equals 10 pounds per year on a putting green Because some of the treatments had nitrogen in them some of them did not Okay, so yeah, they had to be very careful about how they went about Applying elements such as nitrogen that is known to have a very profound effect on turquoise growth and they did that Okay Clippings were taking immediately before the fourth and fifth treatments each year So they did clippings and they dried them and they did total nitrogen and all the stuff So they took clippings each year immediately before the october treatment application root and soil samples were taken 12 soil cores one inch in diameter or a little less than one inch in diameter by Six inches in length were taken from each plot That the thatch layer was removed and discarded so the thatch layer is being removed in the soil sample now here This a lot I should remove all the tissue. I shouldn't remove all the tissue Well, the researchers here removed the thatch but you don't have to the soil lab is going to do it anyway But that's what they did now. I'm going to read this again specifically this orange part here because the soil analysis was conducted in two different extractants and as a result of these two different extractants being used the base kind of saturation change and the sea because the cec change according to the method in which they Measured it and that's critical when it comes to um Being able to have confidence. Well, you should just ignore base base kind of saturation completely But when you're when a when a someone comes in and tries to convince you that your base kind is very low Well, how do you know because you might not be using the right extractant and here's an example of this The private a private soil testing laboratory analyze our soil samples using the standard procedure the exchangeable cations were determined using ammonium acetate pH 7 Very common. The cec was estimated by summation of cations very common in a set of basic cation saturation percentages and cation ratios Regenerated from these data. Okay, that's very common. The soil samples from both years were analyzed using these procedures further analysis of the soil samples from the second year Was performed at the plant nutritional lab at the Iowa State University the exchangeable base cations were determined using a 0.5 molar ammonium chloride pH 7 A second cec determination was performed by sodium saturation with with the soil 60 ethanol solution of 0.4 molar sodium acetate Sodium chloride and displace the sodium with 0.25 molar magnesium nitrate Now what they're saying is is that there are two different ways in which they measured cec One is by summation and cations and the other is by flooding the soil with one Solution such that all the cation exchange capacity Sites are occupied by one element being being ammonium or sodium And then they knock it off with the other element and then they measure what was knocked off So there's two different ways to measure it how much calcium magnesium potassium hydrogen everything was on the site Versus knocking all that stuff off with one element Then coming back and knocking all that element off with another extract and then just measuring that one element There's two different ways to do it Okay, it's gonna be a come importance the reason i'm showing that Okay, the results So just real quick. So we're in Iowa. We're on a we're on a calcareous bentgrass putting green We're applying different amounts of calcium or i'm sorry different sources of calcium To bentgrass and they're going to be measuring Root mass clipping mass the measuring the nutrients and the tissue and the nutrients in the soil We're going to see what happens when it comes to You know the effect or lack of effect of applying calcium from these various sources Okay results from the 1999 field study When we're looking at root mass clipping mass and the creeping bent or the nutritional concentration in the bentgrass And you'll notice here on the screen Root mass there was no difference in root mass. So all that calcium had no influence on root mass Clipping mass none of that all that calcium had no effect on clipping mass. Okay Calcium the tissue none when i remember there's a control in here where they're not applying any calcium Okay, this is like calcareous sand green. They're not applying any calcium to the control No effect on calcium in the tissue. No effect on nitrogen in the tissue when you apply all this calcium No effect on phosphorus in the tissue. No effect on potassium tissue, but look what happens with magnesium in the tissue Magnee the only thing that did happen in 99 was a reduction of magnesium From the control compared to when gypsum was applied gypsum resulted in a reduction of magnesium in the tissue Okay, they applied remember they applied gypsum. They applied lime. They applied calcium nitrate and a calcium chelate And gypsum resulted in less magnesium in bentgrass tissue than not applying gypsum Okay Throughout both years of the study there were no differences in bentgrass color quality Density or uniformity among any of the treatments There were no differences in root dry mass or dry clipping mass during either year I don't think they showed it says table one and table two but table Yeah, they didn't show here this shit I guess they just didn't include it because there was no differences. It says color quality density and uniformity This is table one. They didn't include the data. They probably just left it out because there was no differences None so you applied all that gypsum and all the calcium carbonate and all the calcium nitrate and all the calcium chelate to this putting green and Zippo in terms of beneficial response the only thing that did happen was a reduction of magnesium concentration Which is not a big deal But if you're right at the critical limit of magnesium the tissue then that could have resulted in a problem It didn't but it could have Addition of calcium deplots of the bentgrass green did not increase the concentration of calcium found in the leaf tissue However, in the first year the addition of gypsum reduced leaf magnesium concentration by 11 percent So not only is that statistical that's also I would argue biological A reduction in 10 percent is certainly a biological concern um You know it didn't result in a any visual reduction Probably because even with that reduction there was still enough magnesium in the tissue Concentration of extractable calcium in the soil did not increase in the plots where extra calcium was applied now Well, how is it that you can apply all this calcium? Calcium sulfate calcium carbonate calcium nitrate all this calcium to a putting green A calcareous putting green and not have any change in calcium the The answer is one there's already so much calcium in the putting green because it's a calcareous sand There's already so much in there you don't need to apply anymore and two there's only so much capacity for the soil to retain it You're talking one to six in this case, which is very low So you can put on all the calcium you want You can only hold so much You can put on all the potassium you want it can only hold so much the only thing that you're going to likely do at least in the case of calcium is Possibly result in a reduction of one of the other cations And this in the tissue, which is what happened with magnesium you're pushing all that stuff through the soil But you're not going to hold a whole lot more when you have such a low CEC Applications of calcium carbonate and calcium nitrate reduce the ammonium acid extractable soil potassium levels by 19 This is in table three. So it reduced potassium in the soil Gypsum calcium nitrate and calcium chelate applied to the green reduced ammonium acidate extractable soil magnesium concentrations by 16 17 and 15 percent So here we go down here Whoops, that's in table Three table three here we go down here and we see That the under the ammonium acetate extracted method the no calcium had 42 parts per million And we see a reduction Right here using the calcium carbonate and the calcium nitrate So where there was a reduction in potassium when the when these two calcium nitrate and calcium carbonate were applied under the ammonium acid extraction method And there was a reduction in magnesium Whenever gypsum looks like and yeah and calcium nitrate and calcium chelate so again magnesium concentrations were being reduced So in other words, you're not gaining anything. You're only losing or increasing the risk I should say of other cations becoming deficient by applying calcium to a calcareous putting green not gaining anything It's just absolute madness. Well, how people can be convinced by these Charlatans and fraudsters and quacks to go out and apply a bunch of gypsum and calcium products to calcareous putting greens or calcareous sands You can doesn't have to be a putting green like said half the state of florida is essentially a putting green At least south florida and they're going out and applying all this calcium It's probably not going to benefit you at all It's very likely going to result in reduction in these other cations now whether or not that results in a reduction in some visual effect You know, it's probably case by case But it's certainly going to increase the risk of seeing And nutrient deficiency of potassium or magnesium when you're applying calcium when you don't need to That's kind of the take-home message a lot of his all of this work here Okay, the discussion since there were no increases in clipping yield color quality or calcium content in the creeping bentgrass adding calcium To creeping bentgrass established on calcareous sand was not beneficial in this study Recent research on Kentucky bluegrass and creeping bentgrass established on calcareous sand has also demonstrated that calcareous sand Used in those experiments provided the necessary calcium required by both grasses and that extra calcium wasn't needed Further research on vegetable crops grown in quartz sand culture was shown that calcium fertilization can increase leaf calcium concentrations without improving Plant health growth or color. Now. This was on quartz sand. This is like how care stands. So in those cases calcium can be lower And adding calcium may be beneficial didn't increase the health of the plant but increased calcium in the leaf tissue With the exception of gypsum in 99 The addition of calcium to the green did affect the bentgrass leaf nutrient concentrations Sand has a very small cec limiting the number of cations it can hold in any one time Therefore the percentage of each ion on the exchange complex can easily change Adding an excess of any cation to a sand based system may cause a shift in the concentration of the other cations This competition for exchange sites may have caused the reduction in leaf Magnetism concentration of the bentgrass that received gypsum during that year. That's kind of what I said Okay, now we're looking at the calcium saturation percentages The the ammonium acetate method is not suitable for calcareous sands because it dissolves calcium carbonate and overestimates the exchangeable calcium content Okay, so what I'm going to talk about here is this table here We're looking at ammonium acetate method versus the ammonium chloride ammonium acetate sodium chloride extraction method. So there's two different methods And on this method you'll notice the count on the ammonium acetate extraction method You'll notice that the calcium percentages are very very high 88 89 90 Compared to the ammonium chloride method you're looking at say high 70s So you're talking about a 10 shift on the from the saturation percentages simply by using one extraction method versus the other Okay, look at the as the effect of cation exchange capacity is eight under the ammonium acetate method versus three or four under the ammonium chloride method Okay, and you'll see the cation ratios change a lot here too So when some Quack comes into your office and tries to sell you a bunch of this stuff I dot they even know what the extraction method was was it they used but if they use the ammonium act if if I was a You know a dubious salesman trying to sell a bunch of calcium I'd go in here with ammonium acetate on a calcareous sand because it these this is the location where or this is extracted That results in the most unbalanced quote unquote unbalanced soil because the calcium is greater than 65 70 percent up in than almost to 90 right so I can alter even though it's the exact same soil I can alter what's presented to the customer simply by Selectively choosing which which extraction method I use and it's highly unlikely that most customers are going to realize that ammonium acetate is not appropriate To be used on a calcareous sand So they're gonna go. Oh my gosh my calcium is way too high. I gotta apply magnesium. I gotta apply more potassium to lower my calcium down It's just it happens all the time. I'm telling you happens all the time It's just the extraction method alone is what's altering the numbers. It's the same exact soil So this ammonium acetate extraction method is just not not to be used For this for measuring calcium in a calcareous sand base sand base root zone Like I said it it overestimates the exchangeable calcium because it dissolves calcium carbonate ammonium acetate While reductions in leaf magnesium concentration occurred only once in the study with time the reduced saturation percentages and soil exchangeable concentrations of magnesium potassium could eventually cause plant deficiencies This reduction of ket one cation by another cation has been noted by other researchers And he kind of goes into that many studies have concluded that maintaining a minimum critical level of calcium magnesium Is more important than trying to target certain calcium to magnesium ratios. That's by rossian 88 sartana 85 sartana 93 st John in 2001. There's many other ones outside of turf grass As long as calcium is the dominant cation the exact balance of cations is not important. It's a quote by equid mcclean in 81 Although it has been shown that excess calcium in the presence of calcium carbonate or precipitate with phosphorus There were no apparent calcium phosphorus interactions in the study So forget the calcium magnesium ratios potassium magnesium ratios and magnesium calcium ratios and all these other things it's useless in terms of economic value ignore it And move on to another company or something because if that company stuck on that they're not going to change anytime soon You may very well need to apply lime you may very well need to apply potassium magnesium But it should be based upon whether or not you have enough or you don't have enough not based upon the balance or the ratio of one element to the other in the soil The nutrient concentration is found in creeping bent grass leaves were low when compared to sufficiency level ranges by mills and jones Now i'm mentioning this because this is kind of high level stuff i'm going to go over here in a minute, but I'm just going to say it here because I got this is I got time so i'm going to go over But okay so by listed by mills and jones okay the nutrient concentrations found in creeping in grass were low According to mills and jones 96 but most of the nutrient concentrations fell within the survey ranges for creeping bent grass greens mills and jones and 96 stated that the sufficiency ranges are derived from published deficiency and toxicity levels whereas the survey ranges Were more closely matched what more closely matched what the authors feel as actual sufficiency levels So why did I highlight that and why do I think it's important mills and jones which is right here hang on So mills and jones Have Well one book it's called the plant analysis handbag two which is here Okay, this is the mills and jones book that they're talking about if I can get it in focus They have an updated version of this that has more people than mills and jones it's brice and mills something jones and bark or called plant analysis handbag three okay There are 40 something turf grasses in this book and it gives you nutrient concentrations and tissue of all these turf grasses Okay, I thought I my microphone out I thought I had it listed here, but I don't Anyway, you can go through here and you can see the the tables and it has it's very very professional looking It has tables and it has ranges and nitrogen phosphorus and all sorts of stuff. Oh, here's turf grass right here I got to it and it has Text turf tin Bermuda grass and tiff or tiff dwarf and tiff green and it has all the ranges in here, okay But in here you'll say data type survey range survey range survey range the most important information in this book Is at the very beginning of the book the preface to the book, okay? And I haven't read this in a long time Page well, it's not even a page yet because it's not even in it's the before page one And it says in here describes what survey values are Nutrient element concentrations that have not been clearly identified as being either at deficient or toxic levels covering a broad range of growing conditions And it just says however in the author's opinion They're approximate critical values. That's a survey value now What that basically means is it's a big fat guess so what they're saying in the in the article here is that Meals and Jones these values were lower than the mills and Jones values okay It says We're low and they said most of them fell within I wouldn't go by mills and Jones Okay I wouldn't be using tissue nutrient concentrations that are basically just a guess kind of like it's probably in this neighborhood probably somewhere Okay, there are valid ways of measuring to turn across tissue nutrient concentrations but just sort of like Getting a survey range and just we don't he says specifically Not the there's no evidence saying this is deficient or toxic We're just guessing and kind of in our opinion is probably this so I wouldn't be going by that I'm just saying that's probably higher level stuff than people care to know about on this channel, but um I wouldn't be going by that You got to go buy something I guess and that's what they did and they said well It's probably within these ranges quoted by these authors, but I would say how do you know the authors didn't know they even say in there It's just a guess we don't know Anyway The basic kind of saturation ratios are based on total ce of the soil and the concentration of exchange basic cations Which causes two problems when relating it to turf grass growing on sand base root zones first High sand root zones have a limited ce which increases the chances for errors when calculating cation percentages of such small ce And the base cation wizards and um fraudsters and quacks Well tell you Oh anything less than seven or eight is not good and then the very book that a lot of people use which again is right here hang on I wasn't going to show this but this book Which is the the bible of a lot of goofballs The art of balancing soils in the first page or two. I don't know if I have it highlighted Yeah right here. It's in this is in the preface as well This was written by bill mc uh, yeah bill mcibbon And in the preface of this book, it'll say without any evidence. Okay, they're not going to show you any evidence Okay But they're just going to make wall wall that uh assertions And it says using the standard soil tests malic or ammonium acetate Balance can be achieved nicely by using base cation saturations on soils with total exchange capacities greater than 10 it's right here All you got to do is read the book Okay greater than 10 So they can't even get their own whoops, hold on They can't even get their own bs straight and that's the that's the that's the easy pickings whenever someone's completely beat full of bs They can't stay consistent Their bs and their lies don't ever line up. They're eventually you'll catch them No, it's anything less than seven rates. No good and then in the book it says anything less than 10 is no good. So which one is it? Okay, they can't even keep their own nonsense straight And they say right here the first problem with base concentration is that seat the seat on low cec soils There's a lot of chances for error on calculating the soil right here Okay There's a lot of errors when you get down to low with low ces the quantity of nutrients may not be sufficient even though quote unquote the balance was correct Second many private soil testing facilities use the ammonium acetate method for determining exchangeable cations in the summation of the basic cations method to estimate cec These then that's true A many many soil less testing labs use ammonium acetate by summation of cations to determine cec and they just showed two different methods one is the ammonium acetate which dissolves calcium carbonyl on calcareous putting greens is going to dissolve some calcium from the calcium carbonate and well overestimate The cec and and greatly move these quote unquote, you know the the balance out Giving the quacks ammunition to go in and convince you to buy these products in this case potassium probably to lower calcium If the calcium is too high Okay, so they use that to determine cec these results are then combined to produce A set of saturation percentages and cation ratios The ammonium acetate pH method should not be used on calcareous soils because it will dissolve some calcium carbonate thus overestimating the actual amount of exchangeable calcium in the soil When the exchangeable base cations are summed to get together to estimate a cec value the cec Will be greatly overestimated in this in this particular city was overestimated by two x It was around three or four. The right way is around four using a ammonium acetate Therefore basic kind of saturation percentages made from these two possibly erroneous numbers Would also be misleading and there's no true statement. I'm probably right. That is definitely true You're going to dissolve some calcium using ammonium acetate by summation on cec And you're going to greatly overestimate the cec and greatly overestimate the calcium percentage in the soil, which gives more ammunition to the quacks And it's going to oh calcium's way out you got 90 calcium in your soil When on on calcareous sand putting greens that that is it is a problem Moreover cation ratios like calcium magnesium made from the ammonium acetate method would also be erroneous Calcium magnesium ratios more than two times higher in the analysis provided from ammonium acetate method compared to the ammonium chloride method Further work needs to be done to determine how many private laboratories are using incorrect soil testing procedures For calcareous soils and how that affects the interpretation of fertilizer requirements for turfgrass system Now how many times have you heard me say If your turfgrass looks fine, you haven't have any pre-conditioned pre-existing conditions But the soil test you need tells you you need to do something. It's not you and the turf that's wrong It's a soil test that's wrong and they're putting it in a scientific article right here They're just wording it in a respectful scientific manner More work needs to be done to determine how many private soil testing labs are fraudulently proly giving recommendations out they score what they're saying They shouldn't be doing it on calcareous sand greens All calcareous soils they shouldn't be doing it, but they're doing it And as a result many people are duped into believing that you need to be applying elements that you'd probably don't need to apply because of that Final paragraph The research revealed no increases in the calcium content of the creeping bent grass No changes in visual color or quality of the bent grass and there were some possibly detrimental interactions between added to calcium and other nutrients Therefore there was no indication of a need to apply extra calcium to creeping bent grass grown on calcareous sands used in this study Okay This was the acknowledgement. This was funded by the Iowa turfgrass institute and the Iowa golf course superintendents association Okay So that's who funded the study Pretty too. I don't know if they're not I don't know if they're uh, not for profit but there are two associations that Don't have an invested interest in selling calcium Or selling base can saturation. They just want to know what's going on So I would have great deal of confidence and on calcareous sand putting greens that You don't need to apply any calcium. I have a great deal of confidence in that in that assertion Partially but greatly because of this paper But as well as many other papers Calcareous means you have calcium. It's I mean the definition what how did they were to have a really good definition? Calcareous sands are defined as having any amount of free carbonates usually as combination combination of calcium and using carbonate Okay So you probably don't need to play any calcium full stop probably anytime Let's be honest unless it's a lime you're doing it for ph or it's gypsum you're doing it for sotic soils You probably don't ever need to apply calcium Particularly on calcareous putting greens or calcareous sands You could you didn't need to be putting greens. You'd be saying cap fairway sand cap football fields It could even be a just native soils that happen to be calcareous sands You have almost no chance of ever seeing any benefit on applying that calcium. Okay guys and gals That's all I have today tomorrow. We're going to be going over a video That is very difficult for me to watch. It's I get sort of depressed watching it I've seen it once years and years ago and I rewatched it briefly this weekend and it's uh just I'll get through it But it's just a shame that you know, we do so much work and then you know Some people come out and just completely Either they're delusional or indoctrinated or whatever the case is I don't know and then they come out with these videos and it's just silly and not evidence-based And so I'm gonna go over that tomorrow to the general public at 10 I will have the chat open initially, but keep in mind if you're a member you'll always be able to chat if if there's somebody comes in here and starts causing problems and I'll just switch it to members only chat and um So if you're a member, I really appreciate it I just sincerely from the bottom of my heart really appreciate all the members The pro members know from our past meeting. I showed the money on the channel and how much money we're generating which isn't a lot But the majority comes from the members and I really appreciate everything that you do And I appreciate your support you don't know how much it really means a lot to me that I have so many people who are willing to support the channel and support turf grasser research by giving just a little bit of money Each month it it really means a lot to me. Thank you very much I'll see you guys tomorrow. I look forward to the video tomorrow and we'll see how that goes. Okay guys. Have a good monday. See you Bye. (whooshing) (beeping)
