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Montoursville, PA

WOOD'S END, the home of much serious technically sound scientific testing and functional programs has come up with a dandy! It is called the Solvita Soil Test Kit. For seventy five bucks and change you can accurately make twelve tests where you could not have afforded tests before.
.....This test measures accurately the biological levels of activity right now, in your patch. The exciting thing I see here is the absolute truth is now, in your hands, for before and after testing. Example: you can beyond a shadow, of a doubt, see if and how much something you do, to your patch causes biological activity change. Many have said, "Whatever you do either helps or hurts your biological growth or condition, in the patch". Now there need be no guess work. Now you can add a biocide (anything that supposedly hurts) and test to see exactly how much good or bad has been created. For the first time, at a price most can afford, this knowledge is immediately available, to those with the Solvita Soil Test Kit, in hand.
....The only thing I see, of any concern, would be the evidence of continued testing over a whole season and perhaps over all future growing years. For instance long term effects must now be recognized and discussed fairly without becoming enamored about a short term event. This for the first times puts the truth in your hands.

Go here to see the Solvita Soil Test Kit:
http://www.woodsend.org/aaa/suelo.html

2/4/2004 10:55:48 AM

Cornwall UK.(50N 5W)300ft.

Thats where my Pumpkin budget for this year will have to go.

Are inorganic fertilisers really "nuking" my patch?
Is liquid seaweed really doing any good?
How good a job does heat treating soil do?

All questions I might be able to get answers to now.

2/4/2004 6:07:15 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

If these test kits prove to deliver good accurate results, then this opens up a lot of interesting possibilities.

I very much look forward to trying this.

Steve

2/4/2004 8:07:43 PM

Montoursville, PA

Steve....What do you mean if they prove? They work on a direct reading, of what is going on, in the patch at the time, of the test. It is already a proven method delivering specific stated results. Coming from this firm of the highest regard I wonder what futher proof of biological activity would be needed, for those of us unable, to afford, the slightly more accurate testing.

The results are easy to read on a one through five scale.
Where I had nothing before I now have a major break through tool. Just one little test of biological activity before inground application, of Merit and after the application will be very interesting, to me. That compared with foliar use of Merit also showing the before and the after in the soil. I find it exciting to be able to trust my own findings while avoiding dependency, on the makers, of Merit...or any additive I use, for that matter.

2/5/2004 11:46:36 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I literaly just left a meeting with a tenured tree care industry pHD who utilizes & promote the theories of The Soil Food Web, Inc. Soil food web theory speaks to managing the health of living soils rather then just the plants that grow in them. We all seem to be in agreement thus far. You would really enjoy conversing with this man. He is amazing.

My presentation today dovetailed with his regarding the health of soils. My job is to deliver the paints & brushes that his artists use to manage soils found in the urban forest. He trains the artists. Together we teach their people how to sell & execute a service of total tree care management. We do this well. We've been affiliated since around the time I finished obtaining my professional credentials in 1988.

The trouble is we are finding descrepencies in the biological test results from commercial lab reports. If these pro labs & the major ag schools are having trouble getting consistent results using the most sophisticated methods in existence, I would imagine the same is true for the DIY kits. Otherwise the labs would just pitch all their mass spectrometers & vapor recovery tools and purchase these kits instead.

Not that they aren't useful. I just doubt that they're the end all accurate diagnostic tool that they're being promoted as. But we'll see. I've been wrong before.

Steve

2/5/2004 2:42:15 PM

Montoursville, PA

Steve.........I may be uninformed too. The purpose I thought I saw was an accurate indicator to simply better or worse biological overall conditions. Nothing being promoted as specific that I can see in the present advertising.

All the literature that came with the kit is pointing to five levels of total biological activity. That will show low, average and excellent activity levels.It appears that poor would be a level to better. It appears that if I nuke my patch I will see this in simple reduction of biological activity. Likewise if I excite, feed and maintain by some action the test will show me an "atta boy" by indicating increased and stable biological activity. That's an easy way for me to read what is going on without being a worm counter or leaf reader all of which comes toghether to confirm planned improvements....or to worry about mistakes is just as important.

The instructions indicate that ongoing tests are a must since a series of tests over a given change period will always be better than just one. On such a simple thing as the addition of molasses we may now get an indication as to what is more right than any given practice that could be to much.

I think in five to ten years there might even be more specific indications possible as more data and experience gets filed. Surely different crops will also respond or develop good, better and best by observation. We might even discover that a pumpkin for instance may not like the highest most active biological levels. Since we know nothing presently we are all pretty much guessing. There may be proof developed that indicates a one time major production can be excited but then receeding conditions and production may follow.

I don't see and absolute conclusions about hardly anything within our hobby of growing the big critters. Don called attention to a trend to use less fertilizer.

2/5/2004 7:36:46 PM