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Fresno, CA

Outkast says 'Now what's cooler than bein' cool? Ice Cold'. So I ask what's more excessive than bein' excessive? Apparently 'excessive drainage' is more than 1" of water percolated into soil per hour. I did some testing based on instructions in the book 'Secrets to Good Soil' and we had literally one inch PER MINUTE! I started with 11" inches of H20 in both of my pits (one dry, one moist). All 11 inches of H20 were gone in less than 11 minutes (I was supposed to take measurements at 1hr, 2hr, & 3hr. I also did a poor man's soil texture test (sedimentation layers) and found my soil has over 95% sand. According to NRCS soil survey I have sandy loam, but I'm thinking it's more like silty sand. So now that I know I have crazy drainage, do you have any suggestions on how much compost, manure to add in Fall to have sufficient organic matter (last test through A&L labs showed only 3.5% organic matter before I added 1.5 yards of well composted (no smell) manure last Fall for a 240 sq foot patch.

8/25/2010 2:18:12 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Add as much aged compost/manure as you can. Resist the temptation to add clay.

Personally, I'll take sand over clay.

8/25/2010 5:16:34 PM

Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

NRCS soil maps only go down to a 2 acre minimum size in our area, and you can have inclusions of other stuff in there. They just can't delineate out everything, or no one would be able to read the maps. You oviously have an inclusion of sand. With such sandy soil you will always have a problem keeping your orgainc matter very high. All of the pore space that causes the excessive drainage will let in oxygen. Oxygen stimulates the soil bacteria that convert organic mater into CO2. And the pore space lets CO2 excape to the atmosphere. Tillage also speeds up the conversion of OM to CO2.

Adding silt will help fill up some of the pore space and improve your soil. Limiting tillage to the bare minimum and more OM additions will help too.

Tremor is correct: adding clay will turn your sand into bricks.

9/20/2010 1:20:17 PM