How to Lime Your Foodplots (the Easy Way)
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2015
- If your soil needs it, lime is one of the first, most important things you need to do to get the most out of your foodplots. Here I try to summarize what I've learned about lime and make it easy.
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I think you should have still mention and covered the bulk agg lime option. Pelletized lime in some instances may be "easier" but much more expensive. A great way to spread bulk lime Is to tow it on a trailer with a friend operating a backpack blower. As you make your rounds your buddy is constantly blowing it off the trailer. It's a very cheap and effective way to spread bulk lime without equiptment. And bulk lime is so much more affordable...
Great info on the tools you use to spread lime.👍🏾
Great video!
Nice video. I am making my 1st food plot and maybe my last b/c i had to manually cut my way through the woods to make this food plot area. Years going forward should only require maintenance. It was a lengthy process and should have it cleared soon then start the liming, liming, and more liming. I may get one of those spreaders you have. I have a Polaris ATV and can pull it behind me as you did but my land is not really flat and even but I'll get it done. Thanks for the video. I subbed you.
Man that sounds great, good luck! I sure hope it pays off. Thanks for the sub.
great video! good ideas about lime. you must be in radio cause you have an easy voice to listen to! gonna subscribe
+outofcontrol thanks, I actually did work in radio in my 20s lol. Thanks for the sub and I hope I can keep it interesting!
Ag lime can be spread by bag on small plots and is cheaper. Finer particles will work faster to raise pH. Wear a mask. Lime dust can put you on the ground if you breath it in. It can also burn your eyes/skin and be careful to get it off your clothes and shoes so you don't track it in your house.
Believe it or not, pelletized lime is faster and particles are smaller. Yes, the pellets are larger, but they are comprised of finer particles and when the pellets get wet those finer particles enter soil much faster than ag lime. Ag lime particles are as small as they get from day one. Ag lime takes months, pelletized lime takes weeks. Ag lime lasts much much longer though, and is cheaper if you need a lot.
Hey Chris L, thanks for watching! You're right, that's a lot of lime! The test results are posted in this video at 2:10 or so--and I double checked, 12,000 pounds per acre to get me to 6.5 ph. The other fields I tested were 6,000 and 9,000 to get me to 6.5. And the tests were done by Penn State Analytical Agricultural Labs, the best in the business (from what I've read, many other states actually use them for their work). It's pretty common to be sour here in Northeast PA. Granted, this is about as bad as it gets, but still pretty common. Suffice it to say, I won't be adding too much lime with my little spreader in 40 pound bags lol.
My Juniata Co. soil test last fall look very close to yours. I used Penn State also. My Ph is 5.5 and my recommendations for lime were very high also. We get a lot of acid rain in Pa and my plots are newly created surrounded by lots of oaks. I had success with a test plot of winter wheat in the fall. Deer ate it to the ground over the winter. I am expanding my areas and adding clover this year.
Facts are that - it takes about 1 tonne (~2200 pounds) of crushed dolomitic lime or lime sands to raise your Ph 1.0 whole Ph point, towards neutral from the acidic side of the scale.
I recall having a 8 acre hay paddock that hadn't been limed in 100 years and the soil tests came back at 4.2 Ph (Acidic / or sour as he calls it in the video). Down at that level legumes like clover won't germinate. ou end up with sour weeds like sorrel and dock etc that grazing animals including wild deer don't want to eat (I was farming deer at the time on that 8 acre paddock/field).
So to come from Ph 4.2 (acidic) up to around 6.7 (almost neutral) I needed 2.5 tonnes / acre over 8 acres (20 tonnes / 44,000 pounds total) to raise the Ph by 2.5 Ph points!.
He says he has a plot that is sour and 3 acres in size and talks about spreading 6 x 40 pound bags?.. (240 pounds)?
Even to raise it just1.0 whole Ph point - he would need 3 tonnes or 6600 pounds!.
Granted 240 pounds is better than no pounds...but really - the amount he is talking of adding over 3 acres is only 3.6% of the amount he would need to move his soil Ph by 1.0 Ph point towards neutral from the acid side.
So on that basis his soil Ph MIGHT go UP by 0.036 (36 one hundredths) of 1.0 Ph point!
It will make a very slight difference but Not much!
Next pelleted lime.
The finer the lime the easier it incorporates into the soil and begins neutralizing the acidity. Pelleted lime is the worst choice for quick results. You are s'posed to incorporate (plow) your lime into the top 3 or 4 inches so the soil down at the plant roots is best benefited as quick as possible.
It can take years for pelleted lime to make its effect felt way down thru the soil profile if just broadcast on top & not incorporated in some way. The much finer lime sands (from sand dunes located within a mile of the beach front) have a slightly lower calcium (lime) content, however the finer granules will self incorporate a lot quicker than pelleted lime so they require a little more volume but incorporate a lot easier by themselves if just broadcast and left to work in naturally. Lime sands from sand dunes a mile or so inland from the beach will have had enough freshwater rainfall to leach the salt out of them so you don't salt up your soil.
Around here if your buying lime in bulk by the 30 tonne semi-lift behind a prime mover(tractor trailer) its currently around $14 a tonne loaded then cartage on top of that so while you need a lot of it - it is relatively cheap to buy bigger quantities.
Those agitators in the bottom of that spreader- soak them with diesel & a paint brush after each use to slow / reduce the tendency for them to corrode after you washed all the lime of them first.
Deer and Lime.
Deer are a unique species in that the males drop antlers each year. Deer being the only species thats evolved this trait... so nature never does anything for no reason so - why do deer drop antlers?
Well take a look at their thin spindly legs, that run at around 40 miles an hour jump over 7 feet in height and 15 yards in length at a single bound and stop & turn on a dime.
Them spindly little legs, need to be mighty strong not to snap like a twig.
Something else - deer are long lived usually up to 25 years or more sometimes if they get lucky (in captivity for e.g).
So seeing they reproduce from their second year (And white tails can and do often twin fawn as a matter of course) so that one female might have to produce the calcium skeletons of maybe as many as say 20 years x 2 fawns of 40 fawns over its life time.
If you ever study any scientific papers on antlerogenesis (The process by which deer grow & then cast antlers) you would find out that the females cannibalize their own skeletal calcium, to produce the skeletal calcium requirement of their fawns growing rapidly in utero. In order to do this they first have to lay down skeletal calcium the season before taken up from the calcium in the food they eat. Its a 2 year process (for the makes that grow antlers also) cannibalize their own skeleton but only after laying down excess skeletal calcium the year before.
So "Really big game heads" don't START appearing until the 2nd year AFTER you lime your deer plots & as the lime neutralizes the soil and is up taken by the grasses and trees roots (deer browns hard mast material i.e. leaves and twigs off trees for up to 50% of their dietary requirements).
Those bucks / stags antler casting is timed y nature to occur during the last 3 months of the approx 8 months gestation period of the females with calves. And the females that are pregnant actively seek out this supplemental source of calcium in the form of cast hard antler and they chew it eat it up with relish in fact. That's why you don't often find that many cast antlers in the forest despite high stocking numbers of male deer which all cast - unless you stumble on one before a pregnant female deer it is gone within a short period.
So liming your ground if it is acidic (sour) will attract way more deer to your plots because the chemaphore receptors in their noses are able to smell the relative contents of protein and calcium in grasses and trees leaves and twigs.
This is one reason burying lime/calcium stock licks near deer watering and feeding bedding down locations is so effective in attracting and keeping them in an area if the surrounding soils are sour / calcium deficient.
The use of acid in producing super phosphate - means that 200 + years of farming practices applying super phosphate to the soil to grow hay crops each year progressively acidifies the soil.
There's an old saying with sour farm land "if you don't lime it, you lose it" and thats because a LOT of essential trace elements become bound within the soil and unavailable to the plant roots.... and when this happens the grass isn;t that attractive to wild deer (or domestic livestock).
When you sweeten it up with lime you also sweeten any near bye waterways via runoff - for better aquatic insects growth (Which require lime for their exoskeletons) and then the trout grow bigger and feistier and much quicker also.
There's a heap of benefits - sweeter honey from the bees and so on and so forth.
Hope that helps a few out who are thinking about liming their fields / deer plots etc.
If you put everything the deer needs in the way of good quality grass and browse, protein in the way of free feeders with grain rations, lime stock licks buried at ground level, and lime the soil as well if needed, then you will attract deer like kids to sweets.
If you sow say high protein crops onto your plots like leguminous peas variety's (lupins) - then again the attractiveness of your deer plots over everyone else's also goes way up. Plant trees around the plots - fruit trees like apples for e.g. and of course nut trees as well... deer love high protein foods. (Put round weld mesh trunk protectors in held in place with steel start pickets to prevent the males rubbing ther antlers n the fruit & nut trees while they are growing / maturing.
You can have every deer in the county dining at your place if yu put some time effort and $$ into making it the most attractive feedlot in the area.
Most of the atypical trophy heads shot these days come from deer that frequent horticultural orchards during the night time to feed where high liming and fertilizing regimes along with irrigation and permanent sweet green grass, provides them with every possible physiological need to grow huge antlers - remembering they have to get away with grazing the orchard for 2 years before the skeletal calcium laid down the first year gets up-taken from the skeleton to grow antlers the second year!.
There are no magic instant results to get deer to grow big antlers.
On deer farms that grow deer antler specifically for the Chinese pharmacological industry the basics of liming paddocks/fields to grow bigger antlers thru the process of antlerogenisis is well understood.
Applying the same principles to deer plots to hunt and shoot bigger fatter better eating deer and stags/bucks wit larger and atypical antlers starts with what they eat.
Some of the deer farms even resort to the use of injected anabolic type steroids (Ralgrow) to get even bigger muscle mass and antlers on top of all the lime and feed considerations.
I'm not sure there's any place for that sort of manipulation of wild deer tho - hardly sporting - although for strictly deer farm purposes where large antlers affects the bottom line - many of these steroid infused and over fed males once they reach 12+ years of age and their antler potential starts to drop they do tend to find themselves shunted off into "pay to hunt behind wire" ranching operations - where your "guaranteed" to shoot a trophy head.
Good luck with the liming..
My lad drives road trains and carts 90 metric tonnes (200,000pounds) per trip of lime sands to broad acre cereal growing farms here down under. I farmed deer (Red Fallow and even white tail for a brief while) for 20 years all up.
Don't be afraid to use a lot of lime IF your soil Ph tests show that it's needed.
2 tonnes (4400 pounds) to the acre for a movement of 2.0 Ph points isn't unheard of at all...
And forget the pelleted get the lime sands, the finer the better!.
Keep testing each year and add more if things start going south within a few years remember your super phosphate fertilizer at 1 bag to the acre - is effectively reversing what your doing with the lime in that it is made with acid and acidifies your soil each time you apply it.
Man I wish got paid by the word for this stuff. Accidentally vaccinated at birth with a gramophone needle and haven't shut up much since. Nick Name is "Bic Biro" - yep you guessed it - "Guaranteed 1000 words in every refill"!
Chad Houser Well we’re all waiting for your corrections professor. You provide one snarky comment saying “many incorrect statements” but don’t offer any constructive responses or corrections. I thought Ian’s comments were educational and well thought out.
I have never heard deer living 25 year that statement is a little outrageous they only grow one set of teeth and once they grind them down to nothing that's pretty much it longest deer I've heard living 13 years oldest one I've seen is 9yearold doe
If anyone thinks a white tail deer lives for 25 years Then there an idiot. In the wild, Deer normally live 7 to 8 years. Their teeth weir out and they cannot process their food, so they get sick and die. If you have breeding pens they may live 10 to 12 years because the food they are eating does not wear on their teeth. It makes me wonder about the other information that you are spouting out if you were so incorrect about Deer longevity
matthew Boyd I farmed deer for more than 20 years and had a pet one that lived 25 years.
They can live that long in ideal conditions. They are a long lived species like horses. Sure they can die earlier in the wild - they can be predated upon, hunted, hit by cars on roads & even succumb to enzootic heamorragic disease if winter stressed for food, but in good conditions they can easily persist to 20 years.
They aren’t short lived like cattle at 8 years & their teeth certainly aren’t worn out by then.
Good Video thanks.
+Harold Woods tahnks for watching!
@death by bunjie have you re done your soil test yet??
I don't know if you can get a large truck to your food plot or not, but around here...... you can have lime spread for about $16/ton. That's for the lime, delivery, and spreading. Pelleted lime is ridiculously expensive. Bulk lime is $5-6 per ton. You're probably paying that much for 80 lbs.
Totally agree, can't get truck there and small plots so not breaking the bank BUT long term better solution is have them drop off a load and spread with a tractor for sure.
If I wanted to plant soybeans around may should I go ahead and lime now?
Hey rich, thx for all your videos professor, you have taught me a ton about food plots, hunting and crossbows, plus adding lime, fertilizer and your agri-fab tow behind spreader, I just bought one thru Amazon and it was reasonably priced, I hope you get this since the video is an older one, yes I have subscribed and I look forward to more videos, keep them coming please, ok, here’s my question, my ph is 5.6, so I need 1500 pounds per acre, I have a local coop that charges 80 bucks a ton, that’s cheap in my area, here’s my question, my soil test is calling for zero nitrogen, 100 pounds per acre for phosphorus and 100 pounds of potassium per acre, I found pelletized fertilizer at tractor supply, does the fertilizer bags tell you what setting the agri-fab should be at so I know how many bags per acre to make up the 100 pounds each per acre???????
I think they do tell you the settings, or you can contact the company, but I just do small plots these days so I'm only spreading out a bag or two most of the time, sorry I don't have more information for you!
Pelletized lime is expensive and very slow to break down use powdered lime cheap same season results
Go to a concrete company and buy lime screenings. Better yet check with local farmers and ask them where they get their lime. They don't buy little bags for their fields.
Ah, but they don't have little Fields LOL
Couple of things.
Its not sweet or sour, its acitic or alkaline
In east Texas it takes about 3 tons of lime per acre or 6000 lbs to get to a 6.5 to 7 ph.
Its easier to add lime than to add acid to the soil. Pine needles work but are slow.
It takes about 6 months for the soil to absorb the lime. By using lime a lot less fertilizer has to be used .
I get he is just using sweet and sour for people who don't know but it's really not a good comparisons
Google sour soil and you will see this quote: "Old-time gardeners referred to soil as either sweet or sour and knew which plants preferred which type of soil. Sour soil is classified as acidic and may even have a sour smell when tilled. Researchers discovered that the pH levels in the soil dictate whether the soil is acidic (sour), alkaline (sweet) or neutral." Its not jsut me. I also wouldn't waste my time with pine needles. I'd just over fertilize and that'll work the excess lime out in a planting or two. But where I am, no chance of soil getting too sweet. If I can get to a pH of 6 I'd do a dance lol.
Same here in Georgia. I'm 65 and always heard farmers and home owners (with a back ground in farming or gardening) use the term sour or sweet soil. Cool huh? And no, I wasn't referring to the temperature. Lol
Gary Ponder its sour or bitter
(Acidic or Basic/Alkaline), not sour or sweet
I suppose some lime is better than no lime. It depends on how acid your soil is. One yard application I saw was 1.5 lbs per 100 sq/ft. 10 times that would be 15 pounds per 1000 square feet. There's 43000 sq/ft. in an acre. 43000 divided by 1000 is 43. 43 times 15 pounds is 645 pounds per acre. A 1/4 acre food plot would need 161 pounds of lime. Pelletized lime comes in 40 pound bags. Bags are currently $5 each at Home Depot. Ag lime may not spread well in some spreaders?
Hand spreader, so ag lime won't work plus pelletized lime reacts quicker (but doesn't last as long)
Oh, I'm talking about hand spreader I use these days. That pull behind might do ag lime but pelletized is really easier.
Good point. My HD is selling it right now for 44.32 @ 40lbs. That's pretty reasonable as far as i'm concerned.
12,000 lbs per acre is a phenomenal amount of lime. To the point that I would strongly suggest pulling another sample and having it tested . . . by a DIFFERENT lab. I don't know where you are located but my fields have never had the Ph adjusted and the soil test called for 2,000 lbs per acre. I have a lot of pines which will make the soil acidic. I find it hard to believe you need 6x more lime than I did. Maybe. But doubtful.
@Chris L 12,000lbs of lime to bring his pH in line IS a lot of lime, however, it's not completely out of the question. Soil conditions vary greatly from region by region, state by state, county by county and even food plot by food plot. We're in north central PA and for us to move pH from 6.2 to 6.5 requires 4,000 lbs per acre. If he has generally poor soil in the mid 5's, then 6 tons seems completely within the realm. Take note, he's got a well pad in the background... it's hard to say what has leached into the soil!
I had a soil guru at The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences tell me to NEVER add more than 3k lbs of lime at any one given time. If necessary to add more then make an application in the spring and fall of less than 3k each.
that dude was a never a farmer then.
Pine does NOT make the soil acid. Pines grow in acidic soil.
What kind of fertilizer do you use?
for clover, i try to get 2-10-40 but for brassicas i like 10-10-10 mostly
doesn't look like you got much out or your frost seeding? didn't see any clover at all
Clover is a slow start, by fall it was awesome: czcams.com/video/24V3VazkRso/video.html What you see in this video is residual ryegrass, which I show here how I controlled it nicely: czcams.com/video/Z2aW58-HDaA/video.html
I thought you were supposed to put lime down in the form fall
i found out that ph tests are pretty bogus with regard to soil. works ok on pure liquids, which is what the lab does to your samples. but then, this is really the ph of dissolved solution from the sample. it neither reflects correctly on actual soil ph or, more importantly, how much of available calcium is present.
unless on calcerous soil, calcium gets depleted slowly, as it's used to make cell walls. it's the only mineral the plant takes up directly and only during transpiration. all other minerals plant roots will "recruit" mycorrhizal fungi to get or plant roots will ion-exchange with soil.
better to not focus on ph and instead try to have good ratio of calcium to magnesium. your soil test should show this.
calcium is required for all other nutrients to be available.
lime is great for turning most horrible clays into soil with crumb/aggregates. it flushes out salt and aluminium in the process of making better soil.
pee H smee H. You need to get your calcium magnesium ratio right. cal 68 mag 12 percent. You can have 40% cal and 40% mag with a 6.5 pH and be all bound up. A good soil test will tell you what kind of lime to use...........