BeCrop Advisor Program

Module 3: Soil Chemistry

Script: Joy again here, module 3 covers the basics of soil chemistry. So let’s begin. Soil chemistry refers
to the measurement of the naturally occurring chemical composition of soil. Typically, we're interested
in a range of variables to inform us on what is occurring in our soil, such as macro or micronutrients, ph,
cation exchange capacity, and the level of organic matter. Feel free to pause the video here to write
down these definitions before I go into them in further detail, I'll give you a few moments to read the
slide.

But basically macronutrients, we're talking about understanding and measuring macronutrients like
nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, and potassium. These are paramount for effective agricultural
management. These cycle quantities greatly impact crop quality and yield.

Micronutrients are responsible for a host of plant functions. Some examples of micronutrients include
but are not limited to iron, calcium, zinc, manganese, magnesium, copper, boron, sulfur, and chlorine.

Let's start here in detail with our macronutrients. So, our NPKs this is what most of our growers are
readily familiar with. We're interested in measuring carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium,
primarily due to nutrient depletion from agricultural production. So we're growing our crops, we know
that each season they're removing nutrients from the soil, and we want to make sure that before we put
them in for the next season that the soil has adequate nutrients for them to uptake. So we're thinking
about yield and crop quality here. There are many steps involved in getting a crop from seed to fork so
this is one of them and different crops will cycle through carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium
at different rates depending on soil type, organic matter, ph, and as well as current exchange capacity.

Next here, we're looking at our micronutrients. This figure shows the macros as well as some micros
and how they overlay with the different pHs. So just a reference here for you- source available as well.
You can read the article, but like I mentioned before, micronutrients are responsible for all sorts of
different plant functions and in different crops they're more important than others. So knowing what
you're growing and what your soil history is with these micronutrients will help you monitor that as
well.

Next, I'm going to explain Soil pH. pH stands for potential of hydrogen. So we're referring to the acidity
or alkalinity of soil in a water solution. Here you have the pH scale. It starts with zero and goes to 14
with zero being the most acidic, seven being neutral and 14 being the most alkaline. When we're
thinking about soil, soils can range from pHs as as low as four to as high as ten on average. And that's
not to say that you can't be below or outside of the range. This is just what we see on average. So a soil
pH affects which types of crops can be grown successfully, combined with other factors such as cation
exchange capacity. Cation Exchange Capacity measures the number of positively charged ions or
cations that the soil can hold. With this information, we can make informed decisions regarding soil
fertility practices because the most common soil cations are calcium, magnesium, potassium,
ammonium, hydrogen, and sodium.

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So how does this work? Cations are held on the clay and organic matter particles in soils, and they can
be replaced by other cations. So that's what makes them exchangeable. For instance, potassium can be
replaced by cations, such as calcium or hydrogen, and vice versa. So once you know your CEC and are
familiar with its baseline based on your soil type, you'll have more knowledge to make informed fertility
decisions about what you add to your soil.

Next- Soil organic matter. Soil Organic Matter is the fraction of the soil that consists of plant or animal
tissue in various stages of breakdown or decomposition. So most of our productive agricultural soils
have between 3 to 6% organic matter. Again, that's not to say that we can't strive for higher quantities
or that some soils aren't known for having much higher levels due to their soil type or land
management history. Having higher organic matter is associated with several positive soil health
benefits, such as increasing cation exchange capacity, increasing soil pH stability, improving water
holding capacity and aggregate stability, and providing food for a living organisms in soil, just to name a
few. And then organic matter is made up of different components that can be grouped into three major
types: plant residues and living microbial biomass, active soil organic matter also referred to as detritus
and stable soil organic matter, often referred to as humus- not to be confused with hummus, a delicious
snack.

All right. So different types of soil testing. Now that you know what you're looking for, you might be
wondering, which test do I go with? So it's definitely worth doing your research on which test will best
serve you for depending on the data that you're looking for and once you have that data, we can make
decisions about management practices, such as the additional reduction of compost, tillage, cover
cropping, fertilizer, herbicide use, which crops to plant, risk management in terms of potential heavy
metal toxicity and more. If these topics are new to you, don't worry, we're going to go into them in
deeper detail in our other modules.

I'm going to go over to our most popular chemistry tests, the Mehlich and the Haney Test. Mehlich:
these are soil tests which utilize a chemical extracted chelating agent to measure the total amount of
nutrients present in soil. Mehlich I uses HCl and H2SO4 and it's not utilized as much these days as the
Mehlich III which is more popular but some soil chemistry labs may still recommend it regionally. It
gives you phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, and sulfur. And some many commercial
labs will also add in the macro/micronutrients, CEC, and organic matter percent. So just so you're
familiar with Mehlich I and III and then more detail on Mehlich III, this test uses an extract comprised of
acetic acid, ammonium nitrate, ammonium fluoride, nitric acid and EDTA, which the full name for EDTA
is spelled out there for you on the side. These samples are then run through ICP analysis.

So advantages and hesitations some might have about the Mehlich test. It's an established test with a
lot of literature and regional studies performed, so you can reference what other people have found in
your area. Hesitations some may have... Because the results are coming through a strong acid
extraction there's a chance that we're overreporting the amount of available chemical content for
plants. It doesn't mean that they're necessarily plant available. Also, the Mehlich test primarily
represents singular forms of NPK, but plants rely on this in multiple forms.

Next, I'm going to talk about the Haney test. So the Haney test is a relatively new soil test, which is
named after Dr. Rick Haney, who used to work at the ARS, Grassland, Soil and Water Research
Laboratory in Temple, Texas.

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So this is a newer soil health test that's designed to work well with any soil. The framework is intended
to answer the following questions: What's your soils condition? Is your soil in balance? What can you do
to help your soil? The test measures carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, aluminum, iron, calcium
along with soil respiration. It also provides the nutrient recommendation for and phosphate and K20 for
a variety of crops, and the test provides data on total available nutrients. So that's looking at the
multiple forms of NPK, organic and inorganic. It's based on a water based extraction, H3A extraction,
which is a suite of organic acids, oxalic malic and citric. The water extraction assesses the levels of
organic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, which soil microbes can unlock into plant in available forms.
And the H3A extraction, is designed to mimic the natural root exodus of crops that are composed of
various organic acids.

H3A extraction is intended to represent plant available nutrients for nitrogen, phosphorus and
potassium, providing data on their availability and a suite of micronutrients as well. The Haney Test
also integrates the soil respiration test, which provides an indication of microbial activity. So the values
used to estimate the extent to which microbes will utilize carbon and unlike nitrogen and phosphorus
and to plant available forms. Here is a summary of data provided by the Haney tests. Again, you can
pause your slide here to write these down.

The Haney test is among the first types of soil chemistry testing that acknowledges the integral roles
that soil microbes play in providing nutrients to crops, providing a carbon to nitrogen ratio in a cover
crop mix recommendation as well.

And just some advantages and hesitations some might have here. So advantages is that the test is
intended to provide the most accurate soil data on what's truly chemically available and how microbes
are breathing in response and sort of painting more of a holistic picture with soil chemistry data and
some hesitation some might have is that the Haney tests deliverables have not been as widely
documented. However, we know that soil biology's dynamic with an improved outlook on soil testing.
We know that each soil type is unique and the best standards to compare against our own over time.

Like those mentioned in module one, normal levels for different elements will vary based on soil type
and region. Collecting historical data on your soil is the best place to start to know if your soil is
experiencing deficiencies or overabundance of certain elements which could be causing stress to your
crops. Normal levels of elements also vary based on pH, soil type and crop type, and once we know the
plant available quantities of our elements of interest, we can start to make different management
decisions.

Historically, in the field of agricultural management, we stopped here considering soil physics, and so a
chemistry jointly and treating our soils for their deficiencies. However, with updated studies on the soil
microbiome, it's become clear how microbial interactions play a key role in painting the full picture of
soil health. So now in module four, we'll look at how soil biology intermingles in effects with chemistry
and soil physics.

Good luck on the questions!

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