So I’ve got a tote full of used soil that I re amended a number of months ago with a bunch of random stuff I had lying around. I decided to get a soil test to see what was up with it before I tried to use it in any way. Pretty glad I did as you can see it’s excessive in almost all regards. More Importantly it seems to be crazy high in sodium, which has me really confused. My plan overall is to basically buy a base soil material with little to no nutrient content like the Coast Of Maine bar harbor or seedling blends and basically cut the hot soil in half with it to mellow it out. But I’m really curious as to how to remediate sodium in soil, is there an input that I could add to do it or does it just need to be flushed like crazy? Basically looking to just dialog with some folks that know better than me on these points and see if my heads in the right place for next steps here. Here’s a screenshot of the test results, hopefully resolution is decently legible:
I sent in about a cup and a half of soil out of a 25gal tote’s worth, and for the crop code I put tomato’s. Let me know what you think
@JohnnyPotseed tagging you here specifically just cause you and I spoke briefly about soil testing before so I know you’ve done this dance in the past.
To get rid of sodium you have to flush with water.
Once you flushed you will need to test again to see what’s changed. If it’s still fully loaded and the sodium is depleted, just add more soil and something to areate it like perlite to get its NPK in a lower amount.
Throw some Scotts humus and manure found at tractor supply for 2.50 a bag, some coir and some lava rock. That should cool it off enough to work with it
Yes, your sodium number is quite high. Are you using kelp or fish products? Both those tend to have a lot of sodium. Otherwise, you may consider getting a water test as well to see if that’s the source of sodium.
You need to push that sodium off the CEC sites with a different cation. Since your pH is 7.3, that calcium number is drastically over rated with a standard soil test. I would get some solution grade gypsum (calcium sulfate) like Diamond K and flush the soil with that.
Looks like you are a little low on iron and manganese as well. I would apply some micro nutrient with those in it like TM-7.
If you really want to get the most out of your soil testing, I would suggest you pick up a copy of Steve Solomon’s book The Intelligent Gardener. That book will take you step by step to amend your soil.
so i admittedly don’t remember exactly what i re-amended with entirely, i basically used the remaining bits of some stuff that i had on hand. the two things i know for sure i used was probably the last 1/3 of a bag of Roots Organic Uprising:
as well as probably a third of a bag of earthworm castings. i have been using kelp and fish products, but not excessively in this batch of soil. i am concerned about the sodium content of my water and will be looking into a test to determine if thats a contributing factor, really hoping its not so i don’t have to look into a filter system, that seems like it’d be a real pain. i know that we have hard water in our well, so a higher mineral content wouldn’t surprise me.
@ReikoX yours is probably the third suggestion ive gotten for reading Steve Solomon’s book, so i think that means i need to sack up and buy it already. luckily this soil doesn’t really need to be used anytime soon, im in the process of building up a collection of enough soil to fill three 25 gal totes so that, theoretically i can have fresh soil on hand as the others are filling with depleted soil to be reamended for future use, so this isn’t a big hitch in that plan as much as it is an eye opener to the re-amending process, hopefully a good learning tool. regardless, i think my plan will be to find time to throw this stuff into a large fabric pot and flush the living hell out of it, then ill probably stash it until this current run is wrapped up and cut it with the old soil being used currently and re-test to see where we’re at.
HOLY NUKE SOIL!!! That’s insane! Great topic of conversation because I need to do this next spring. Where did you learn how to read a soil test? I have that book called the Intelligent Gardener but I haven’t finished it yet.
Anyway I think, as others have mentioned, that flushing is the best way to leach nutrients in soil. Your idea of cutting it sounds good but it looks like you may need to cut it by more that double or even triple. You may have a lot of soil on your hands at that point. I’m also pretty sure that gypsum brings down sodium levels in soils but honestly I am just learning myself!
edit: Note to self… Read through the thread before posting.
The Intelligent Gardener is probably the best place to start. It is the easiest to understand for your average home grower. I used the calcerous soil worksheets at the end of the book to amend my last round.
I actually started down this rabbit hole by trying to read the Slownickle thread on ICMag. It went completely over my head the first time I read it. All I got out if it was that calcium, particularly gypsum, is important and that the AA@8.2 test is what you want to use for high calcium. It did get me used to looking at my soil test results and knowing what to numbers to concentrate on.
I then saw this Build-a-Soil video on YouTube where he suggests reading Solomon and Astera. So I picked up The Ideal Soil 2.0 by Micheal Astera. I devoured that book, and immediately picked up Solomon’s book.
Slownickle’s thread referenced the work of Tiedjens a lot, so I read his book More Food From Soil Science. After that, I was able to re-read the Slownickle thread, and this time it made sense!
I even went back and read Albrecht’s book Soil Fertility and Animal Health and Hensel’s Bread from Stones
man. yea i follow all of Jeremy’s work at build a soil religiously. my wife’s eyes start rolling as soon as we put the kid to bed every Wednesday and Sunday cause she knows that ill be downstairs watching the latest BAS video. i really need to read a lot of the work he suggests, i just have such a hard time finding the time these days to be honest. but i’m more likely to actually do it if i have the books on hand so i should really just start buying them to have them here when i get a wild hair to check em out.
I would inquire with the lab as to how they’re calculating that tCEC and saturation number. When I run your results (using the formulas in The Ideal Soil v2) I come up with Ca at 68% Mg around 19% K just under 4% and Na around 5.5%. Of course you’ll have no exchangeable Hydrogen with a pH at 7.3 and a few % gobbled up by the remaining cations in the soil. I’m also very curious what that soil organic matter % represents and how they test for it. Typical SOM% ranges are 1-6%. 20% would be quite high. 40% makes me think they got a cup of amendments or something. Maybe I’m off base here but this test seems a bit strange to me.
(edit) I meant to add this: before you do anything drastic to try and change your soil based on this test, I’d make sure it’s well mixed up, then take a gallon or two and plant a diverse mix of seeds in it. Some brassicas, daisies, grasses, legumes, mallow, potatoes… really whatever families you have or can get cheap, stick some in there and see what likes growing in it. Stuff like peas can also illuminate if you have excesses as they are pretty sensitive.
But not in stuff like pro-mix… or home-made “super soil” where we’ve been encouraged to get to >40% Definitely high but shouldn’t be a problem like the sodium or crazy NPK he’s showing.
Shooting from the hip, @LegsMahoney I’d use that soil 1:10 with something already more balanced & neutral. For one thing it’ll take less time than repeated leaching/flushing.
It’s not the high NPK that is the problem, it’s the ratio of Ca,Mg,K, and Na that is the issue. All of my numbers are higher that his, except sodium. It is all about balance, the plant takes up what it needs.
i had this thought, that i could just really cut it heavily, i mean i also had the thought that i could just scrap this batch, put it into compost and let it just get re-used through our vegetable gardens and whatnot in small top dresses. this seemed like an opportunity to learn though how to remediate an issue like this with no real consequences since im not like needing this soil right now.
@grow i like your suggestion of growing some varied plants in it, would you think that this would help to balance out some of the issues or would that be more of a litmus test to confirm the results of the soil test?
oh and @cannabissequoia that wouldn’t be the first time my grammar or punctuation has gotten me into trouble
Got those two in the line up as well!! Thanks for reminding me. I’ve been trying to figure out what I needed to read and this was the kick in the butt I needed.
The balancing part happens, though I believe that the beneficial effects of multi-species plantings are more related to the microbes than the mineral balancing. If you’re returning 100% of the harvested plants to the soil to decompose, you’re essentially relying on increasing CEC to shift your sodium saturation down, assuming you’re not watering to runoff. If the soil is way too hot though, whatever you plant will tell you pretty quickly and you can save the ass-ache of wasting a more valuable seed.
Sorry… 
Definitely high but shouldn’t be a problem like the sodium or crazy NPK he’s showing.
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