Just subscribed from the UK. Nothing better for most crops than the correct PH. We use a mulching topper on our farm to knock the weeds back. I hope to see the progress your grassland makes. We have plenty of legumes and other beneficial herbs thriving in our pastures.
Fantastic! Yes I love biodiversity. I have identified 33 different grasses and legumes not including the forbes and cover crops. Stay tuned we’re about to put out a update on the pastures. Cheers mate!
Our soil is 4.8. Pasture seeds don't sprout. Animals (equines, goats) have iron overload, low copper. I'll have to do this. What did you plant after to help maintain the soil? How's it going over the years? What season or weather conditions are best for liming? When can you introduce animals to pasture recently limed?
@@hicoteo if you want cool season grasses you’ll need to get up to around 5.5 Native warm season grass can tolerate much lower ph. Your soil seed bank has all the seed it needs. As you raise the ph and improve the soil life, grasses, forbs and legumes will germinate and fill the sward in succession. Ag lime can be applied anytime of the year and animals can be in the paddocks immediately. It has a couple year residual but takes a long time to start buffering the ph. If you want more immediate results apply pelleted lime or liquid chelated lime. We applied ag and liquid and they worked well together. Last year we applied Agritec International products to our sickly pastures coupled with a different grazing management strategy this year and voilà, we have grass. Lots and lots, so much grass at the rate we’re grazing it’ll take 1.5 years to graze it all off. Our small herd requires approximately 9,500 cows days of forage annually, 2 weeks ago I did a forage survey. If the pastures don’t grow another blade of grass, we’ve got 14,000 cows days of feed! My advice is to amend your soil with pellet lime, liquid lime, BioAct and Humic Acid (from Agritec) and possibly some phosphorus and potassium if indicated by soil tests. First fix your ph. Low ph will make nutrients unavailable to the plants. Don’t waste money on nitrogen fertilizer, it’s expensive and kills soil life. After applying amendments it’s ALL about management, management, management. If managed properly you won’t have to reapply anything. If you’re serious about improving your land and maximizing its potential, learn how to from Jim Elizondo. He has online study courses and tools. Also has groups full of other ranchers/farmers to interact with. Don’t listen to any other “guru”. I was listening to all the big names and the land wasn’t really improving. I can confidently say, our pastures have more grass (by a large margin) than any pasture we’ve seen this year. I know it’s a bold statement, but it’s true. You owe it to yourself to listen to Jim. Check him out at Real Wealth Ranching.
That looks like a super big win getting that done! We should check out PH levels! We've only got an acre, so it isn't a field we are going to use for crops of a big herd or anything, but it would be cool to know what we need to do to encourage nicer grass to grow than what we currently get!
I just found you and your awesome content today. Kudos to you AND the production work. I have people tell me all the time that I should have a channel, but as an old film photographer I know all too well how much energy goes into post production. Its relatively easy to create interesting content, but not so easy to serve it up in a palatable fashion. Awesome teamwork you have going on there! Keep up the great (and hard) work.
Welcome and thank you for the accolades! We’ll take pointers if you have any. We are still learning a lot about content creation and everything involved. You’re right, it’s a ton of work! My Son Tristan does all our editing thankfully because I can’t afford to outsource it. We’re on YT, TT, FB and IG including long and short content. Yeah, he puts many hours in everyday. If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be on SM. Thanks again Kyle
Agreed! Our soil tests indicate that we were on the low side for phosphorus and mid 5s for ph. Since applying lime, mob grazing and a couple mowings the broom sedge has been hurt bad. If I had to guess we’ve reduced it by 75% or better already (guessing the drought contributed also). I’m already looking forward to next grazing season! Cheers
So far I have identified 33 different grasses and legumes that are here on the farm. I know some have been imported from fed hay. At the moment I’m working with what is naturally in the seed bank. I’m a big believer in native plants. That being said I did seed some radish, turnip, clover, rape seed and winter peas for cover crops. They came in really sparse but I like the diversity they bring. Thanks for the feedback!
@@tickcreekranch That's impressive diversity! Nice work mate. Getting different seeds from hay is a big benefit IMO I am also a big believer in native plants and still learning how to understand the land better
I tried browsing the comments first but didn't see it.... what was your initial PH from the soil test? Love seeing what you are doing as I am beginning the same process (just purchased test kits). Great video just subscribed...
We took 200 samples to create 10 composites from our land. Our ph ranged from 4.8 to 5.4. Our phosphorus is also critically low and expect to apply 50 lbs acre in spring. We applied 2 tons acre lime and will apply another 2 per acre next year. Thanks for the new sub!
I sure do! We have a spot on the other side of the creek that was too rank to get the lime boys into. I mowed it since and it’ll be our control although the bottom ground where it’s located has a little higher ph than the hillside. 5.6 vs 4.9 being our worst.
I see you are in Mountain View. We are just 40 minutes south of you. I’d love to see your cattle some day. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you get you South Polls from?
@@tickcreekranch Oh cool!! Yea, I was wondering when I saw "Tick Creek", I chuckled to myself thinking "that could easily be someone around here". We got our first South Poll Bulls in 2012. We had an existing base herd of dad's old cows that he'd had since the 80's that he'd always kept back heifers from. They got pretty big overtime as he kept the bigger ones and set stocked a lot of the year and fed gobs of hay. But atleast they were acclimated to the ozarks. When dad saw the calves from that first year SP cross we were sold on 'em. We've just bred up from there. We have alot of Broadway (8401) influence in our herd. Predominantly Voss SP bulls mixed with our home raised crosses used over the years. BTW.. looked stormy in the south sky last night. Did you get any rain out of that? And yes. Let me know when you're up this way. I love to talk cattle 😁🐮
@@PremiumSouthPoll Great back story! We’ve started with 3/4 SP heifers (no Senepol in them). They have more hair than we want so we’re going to put a the slickest SP bull we can get from Greg on them next year. We’re in the Alton area. I figured the ranch name was appropriate considering this spring the ticks were of biblical proportions (well at least to outsiders:) I’d love to come up and see your critters sometime. We were in Mountain View last night for the rodeo benefit at the Rocking RV Arena. Keep in touch and ranch on.
We appreciate the encouragement. It’s amazing how fast the land is healing. We’re back in a drought again though. No winter stockpile if we don’t get rain soon. Thanks for the feedback
@@tickcreekranch Because you mowed it :P. I saw the video of you doing it and you had a good reason for doing it but it still may have been a bad idea in hindsight. Praying for rain across the Midwest. Ian dumped feet of rain over Florida / East coast but it stalled all of us out in a big dry air mass. I ain't mad at you for mowing, I might have done the same thing. Next time you might consider asking at a local feed store or MFA if anyone needs some pasture for their heard. In order to avoid potentially contaminating your land with antibiotics or parasites that could hurt your animals you could graze a different species like sheep. They could pay you to do the mowing and return you some fertilizer as they rotate through your pastures.
I’ll buy more hay if needed. I’m definitely not opposed to it. It will just bring more fertility and we need a bunch of that. Even with mowing we still have more grass than most. I think it will pay off but, time will tell. Thanks
Oh boy…it’s been awhile. Limes ph is subject to the concentrations of is base elements. Some would say it is neutral (7) while others would argue 9+. The ph of lime is almost irrelevant do to its ability to bind additional hydrogen ions. Acidification is due to hydrogen ion concentrations in the soil and in my area the most affected soils seem to be ones that have had a lot of nitrogen fertilizer added over the years. Limestone also increases the availability of phosphorus and molybdenum. The lime dissolves to form calcium, bicarbonate, and hydroxide ions. The hydroxide neutralizes soil acidity by combining with hydrogen ions to form water. As the concentration of hydrogen ions decreases, the pH increases. So my research indicates these things, however I’m no scientist. Just a guy who loves the land. Great questions btw but, somehow I think you already knew the answers👍
Where do you live? I used Greg Philips at Custom Spreaders. You could also call your local lime stone quarry and they should have numbers of spreaders in your local area.
some context would be useful about your current pH (including what test did you use) . Was oyur clacium low as well or magnesium (i'm guessing not otherwise yo probably would be spreading dolomite. ost of lime and spreading cost might also be of interest.
2000# / acre isn’t much. We usually put at least 6000#/acre unless the soil test shows more is needed. I put 10 ton/acre on my pasture (ore a 2 year period) and the ph went from 5.5 to 6.4-6.7.
We applied 2 tons not 2000 lbs. I’d like to put down another 2 to 3 tons an acre this winter. Do you have any experience with the liquid calcium that is so commonly advertised? Thanks
1st thing I would do is get the animals off lime treated property for a couple of days, anyone with common sense knows lime burns their mouth as they forage, 2nd don't lime dust, it blows away, lime crystal as it falls/shakes on into the earth for better soil penetration as moisture gets to it.
I was concerned about seeing the horse in the dust cloud from the lime spreader. I am far from perfect, this is not meant as negative criticism and I know you guys were under the gun. You probably know way more about horses than I do but I know they are sensitive to airborne pollution due to the massive volume of air that they breathe. I hope my concern is unfounded and that everybody is doing great.
This is ag lime not hydrated lime. It is non toxic/non caustic. It is a byproduct of crushing lime stone in the local quarries hence the dust. It has about the same consistency as mortar sand. It is 100% safe I assure you. It is as benign as dust from a country road. Thanks for watching
Love the drone shots…and tell your daughter she’s doing a great job as your editor!
Thanks Mom. I will tell her:)
Doing a great job Deann! Keep it up. Love following along
This series of videos on soil has given me food for thought for my vegetable garden.
Just subscribed from the UK. Nothing better for most crops than the correct PH. We use a mulching topper on our farm to knock the weeds back. I hope to see the progress your grassland makes. We have plenty of legumes and other beneficial herbs thriving in our pastures.
Fantastic! Yes I love biodiversity. I have identified 33 different grasses and legumes not including the forbes and cover crops. Stay tuned we’re about to put out a update on the pastures. Cheers mate!
Hang in there Deanne, we are appreciating the videos. I’m learning a whole lot. Cheers! 😊
We bribe her with ice cream and hunting:)
Keep up the great work. I enjoy listening an watching. 🇺🇸
We sure appreciate it. Thank you!
Our soil is 4.8. Pasture seeds don't sprout. Animals (equines, goats) have iron overload, low copper. I'll have to do this. What did you plant after to help maintain the soil? How's it going over the years?
What season or weather conditions are best for liming? When can you introduce animals to pasture recently limed?
@@hicoteo if you want cool season grasses you’ll need to get up to around 5.5 Native warm season grass can tolerate much lower ph. Your soil seed bank has all the seed it needs. As you raise the ph and improve the soil life, grasses, forbs and legumes will germinate and fill the sward in succession. Ag lime can be applied anytime of the year and animals can be in the paddocks immediately. It has a couple year residual but takes a long time to start buffering the ph. If you want more immediate results apply pelleted lime or liquid chelated lime. We applied ag and liquid and they worked well together. Last year we applied Agritec International products to our sickly pastures coupled with a different grazing management strategy this year and voilà, we have grass. Lots and lots, so much grass at the rate we’re grazing it’ll take 1.5 years to graze it all off. Our small herd requires approximately 9,500 cows days of forage annually, 2 weeks ago I did a forage survey. If the pastures don’t grow another blade of grass, we’ve got 14,000 cows days of feed! My advice is to amend your soil with pellet lime, liquid lime, BioAct and Humic Acid (from Agritec) and possibly some phosphorus and potassium if indicated by soil tests. First fix your ph. Low ph will make nutrients unavailable to the plants. Don’t waste money on nitrogen fertilizer, it’s expensive and kills soil life. After applying amendments it’s ALL about management, management, management. If managed properly you won’t have to reapply anything. If you’re serious about improving your land and maximizing its potential, learn how to from Jim Elizondo. He has online study courses and tools. Also has groups full of other ranchers/farmers to interact with. Don’t listen to any other “guru”. I was listening to all the big names and the land wasn’t really improving. I can confidently say, our pastures have more grass (by a large margin) than any pasture we’ve seen this year. I know it’s a bold statement, but it’s true. You owe it to yourself to listen to Jim. Check him out at Real Wealth Ranching.
That looks like a super big win getting that done! We should check out PH levels! We've only got an acre, so it isn't a field we are going to use for crops of a big herd or anything, but it would be cool to know what we need to do to encourage nicer grass to grow than what we currently get!
Do you have any animals on your land? Take some samples to the local ag extension office. They can help you out. Well that is if you’re in the US.
New follower here. Wish we were getting lime. Our pastures in North Texas really need it. Great channel.
Thank you! The lime has done wonders already.
I just found you and your awesome content today. Kudos to you AND the production work. I have people tell me all the time that I should have a channel, but as an old film photographer I know all too well how much energy goes into post production. Its relatively easy to create interesting content, but not so easy to serve it up in a palatable fashion. Awesome teamwork you have going on there! Keep up the great (and hard) work.
Welcome and thank you for the accolades! We’ll take pointers if you have any. We are still learning a lot about content creation and everything involved. You’re right, it’s a ton of work! My Son Tristan does all our editing thankfully because I can’t afford to outsource it. We’re on YT, TT, FB and IG including long and short content. Yeah, he puts many hours in everyday. If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be on SM. Thanks again Kyle
Low pH causes phosphorus to be unavailable. Broomsedge has a competitive advantage when phosphorus is low. Lime should help.
Agreed! Our soil tests indicate that we were on the low side for phosphorus and mid 5s for ph. Since applying lime, mob grazing and a couple mowings the broom sedge has been hurt bad. If I had to guess we’ve reduced it by 75% or better already (guessing the drought contributed also). I’m already looking forward to next grazing season! Cheers
Hey brother, You might want to look into more diverse "plant families" that like your kind of soil. Lime definitely helps just a thought
Good luck
So far I have identified 33 different grasses and legumes that are here on the farm. I know some have been imported from fed hay. At the moment I’m working with what is naturally in the seed bank. I’m a big believer in native plants. That being said I did seed some radish, turnip, clover, rape seed and winter peas for cover crops. They came in really sparse but I like the diversity they bring. Thanks for the feedback!
@@tickcreekranch That's impressive diversity! Nice work mate.
Getting different seeds from hay is a big benefit IMO
I am also a big believer in native plants and still learning how to understand the land better
@@premrapson2034 Amen to native plants! What country do you live in? I’m always interested in who and where.
Love the work, keep it up fam!!!
Thanks bud. We’re cranking here. Really long days but, I love it! You haven’t rsvp here yet. Someday maybe
@@tickcreekranch no rsvp today but its on the list.....
I tried browsing the comments first but didn't see it.... what was your initial PH from the soil test? Love seeing what you are doing as I am beginning the same process (just purchased test kits). Great video just subscribed...
We took 200 samples to create 10 composites from our land. Our ph ranged from 4.8 to 5.4. Our phosphorus is also critically low and expect to apply 50 lbs acre in spring. We applied 2 tons acre lime and will apply another 2 per acre next year. Thanks for the new sub!
Curious if you have a "control" for your experiment, a strip of non limed adjacent to limed for comparison over time?
I sure do! We have a spot on the other side of the creek that was too rank to get the lime boys into. I mowed it since and it’ll be our control although the bottom ground where it’s located has a little higher ph than the hillside. 5.6 vs 4.9 being our worst.
@@tickcreekranch interesting!
I see you are in Mountain View. We are just 40 minutes south of you. I’d love to see your cattle some day. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you get you South Polls from?
@@tickcreekranch Oh cool!! Yea, I was wondering when I saw "Tick Creek", I chuckled to myself thinking "that could easily be someone around here". We got our first South Poll Bulls in 2012. We had an existing base herd of dad's old cows that he'd had since the 80's that he'd always kept back heifers from. They got pretty big overtime as he kept the bigger ones and set stocked a lot of the year and fed gobs of hay. But atleast they were acclimated to the ozarks. When dad saw the calves from that first year SP cross we were sold on 'em. We've just bred up from there. We have alot of Broadway (8401) influence in our herd. Predominantly Voss SP bulls mixed with our home raised crosses used over the years. BTW.. looked stormy in the south sky last night. Did you get any rain out of that? And yes. Let me know when you're up this way. I love to talk cattle 😁🐮
@@PremiumSouthPoll Great back story! We’ve started with 3/4 SP heifers (no Senepol in them). They have more hair than we want so we’re going to put a the slickest SP bull we can get from Greg on them next year. We’re in the Alton area. I figured the ranch name was appropriate considering this spring the ticks were of biblical proportions (well at least to outsiders:) I’d love to come up and see your critters sometime. We were in Mountain View last night for the rodeo benefit at the Rocking RV Arena. Keep in touch and ranch on.
Dropping lime's like you're dropping rhymes..
keep going brother! once that grass pops all of TH-cam will be on your channel lol
We appreciate the encouragement. It’s amazing how fast the land is healing. We’re back in a drought again though. No winter stockpile if we don’t get rain soon. Thanks for the feedback
@@tickcreekranch Because you mowed it :P. I saw the video of you doing it and you had a good reason for doing it but it still may have been a bad idea in hindsight. Praying for rain across the Midwest. Ian dumped feet of rain over Florida / East coast but it stalled all of us out in a big dry air mass. I ain't mad at you for mowing, I might have done the same thing. Next time you might consider asking at a local feed store or MFA if anyone needs some pasture for their heard. In order to avoid potentially contaminating your land with antibiotics or parasites that could hurt your animals you could graze a different species like sheep. They could pay you to do the mowing and return you some fertilizer as they rotate through your pastures.
I’ll buy more hay if needed. I’m definitely not opposed to it. It will just bring more fertility and we need a bunch of that. Even with mowing we still have more grass than most. I think it will pay off but, time will tell. Thanks
What ph is lime?
How does it react with the soil? What compounds form?
I'm sure not just any acid would do.
Oh boy…it’s been awhile.
Limes ph is subject to the concentrations of is base elements. Some would say it is neutral (7) while others would argue 9+. The ph of lime is almost irrelevant do to its ability to bind additional hydrogen ions. Acidification is due to hydrogen ion concentrations in the soil and in my area the most affected soils seem to be ones that have had a lot of nitrogen fertilizer added over the years. Limestone also increases the availability of phosphorus and molybdenum. The lime dissolves to form calcium, bicarbonate, and hydroxide ions. The hydroxide neutralizes soil acidity by combining with hydrogen ions to form water. As the concentration of hydrogen ions decreases, the pH increases.
So my research indicates these things, however I’m no scientist. Just a guy who loves the land. Great questions btw but, somehow I think you already knew the answers👍
I need to find someone to help with that! How did you find the lime truck?!
Where do you live? I used Greg Philips at Custom Spreaders. You could also call your local lime stone quarry and they should have numbers of spreaders in your local area.
@@tickcreekranch thanks so much! I’m in Oregon. I will talk to the lime stone quarries!
some context would be useful about your current pH (including what test did you use) . Was oyur clacium low as well or magnesium (i'm guessing not otherwise yo probably would be spreading dolomite. ost of lime and spreading cost might also be of interest.
2000# / acre isn’t much. We usually put at least 6000#/acre unless the soil test shows more is needed. I put 10 ton/acre on my pasture (ore a 2 year period) and the ph went from 5.5 to 6.4-6.7.
We applied 2 tons not 2000 lbs. I’d like to put down another 2 to 3 tons an acre this winter. Do you have any experience with the liquid calcium that is so commonly advertised? Thanks
Our soil is 4.8 target is 6.5. They recommend 4 tons/acre.
We'll see.
@@hicoteo 4 ton will be a good start.
1st thing I would do is get the animals off lime treated property for a couple of days, anyone with common sense knows lime burns their mouth as they forage, 2nd don't lime dust, it blows away, lime crystal as it falls/shakes on into the earth for better soil penetration as moisture gets to it.
I was concerned about seeing the horse in the dust cloud from the lime spreader. I am far from perfect, this is not meant as negative criticism and I know you guys were under the gun. You probably know way more about horses than I do but I know they are sensitive to airborne pollution due to the massive volume of air that they breathe. I hope my concern is unfounded and that everybody is doing great.
This is ag lime not hydrated lime. It is non toxic/non caustic. It is a byproduct of crushing lime stone in the local quarries hence the dust. It has about the same consistency as mortar sand. It is 100% safe I assure you. It is as benign as dust from a country road. Thanks for watching