- Author: Ben Faber
Many states have a designated state bird, flower, fossil, mineral, etc. In California, the state bird is the California Valley Quail, the state flower is the Golden Poppy, the state fossil is the Sabertoothed Cat, and the state mineral is Native Gold. The state rock is Serpentine which contains chrysolite asbestos which is a carcinogen. It's a beautiful rock, though.
The state soil is the San Joaquin series. The series concept is that a given soil has certain properties like pH, depth, color, texture, etc. that distinguishes it from other “soils” or series. So wherever this soil is found it is given the same name. San Joaquin series is a soil that is found primarily along the foothills of the Sierras in the Central Valley. The name comes from where it is first described, in this case, San Joaquin, but it is found in other places. Yolo series is named after a soil on the campus at UC Davis in Yolo county, but it is also found in San Diego county, and in other states.
A description of the state soil can be found at the link below, as well as the state soils in other states:
http://www.soils4teachers.org/files/s4t/k12outreach/ca-state-soil-booklet.pdf
http://www.soils4teachers.org/state-soils
Soils can be highly variable depending on the context in which they are found. Going to flat old Kansas which is actually flatter than a pancake (http://www.usu.edu/geo/geomorph/kansas.html), the variability from spot to spot across miles can be minimal. But going to a place like Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo Counties of the Sierra foothills, you can't step on the same soil twice. That's because of the terrain and landforms. Where there is natural erosion (yes, it doesn't take humans to cause erosion) or accelerated erosion (this is where humans have often changed the landscape with roads, houses, removing ground cover) soil gets moved around and deposited in different positions and over time forms different soils with different properties. On large tracts of land that have not been altered much, such as avocado orchards, the naturally formed soils can be seen. In a housing tract where soil has been moved around to level and compact housing pads, it is often hard to find a natural soil because it is so highly disturbed. The soil can have been moved from one end of a 100 acres tract to the other with big equipment. It's all one big homogenous mix down to several feet at times depending on the slope.
In many cases, it is still possible to see the natural soils and knowing their series classification, it's possible to learn some of the properties and some of the problems that will be encountered when working with them. Knowing the pH prior to working it means that it could be adjusted before planting. It's a whole lot easier to adjust before planting than when the plants are in the ground.
You can see the soils in your area by going to the USDA-NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) website - https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm - and typing in the area code to find the soil at a given site. It probably isn't the state soil series, but it's your soil series.
For a great text on understanding soils, check out Soils: An Introduction by Michael Singer and Don Munns.
- Author: Ben Faber
A recent website just posted hopes to make research papers available to the general public. Many times these papers are locked away in archives or libraries and are hard to access. This website wants to change that. It is sponsored by various group0s, including USDA, University of Missouri, industry, Resource Conservative Districts and other entitites. It's a small data base at this point, but hopes to build over time. check it out:
http://soilhealthinstitute.org/about-us/
There's a lot of distracting stuff at the site, but the guts are at
http://www.soilhealthinstituteresearch.org/Home/Search
Other good ag websites are the USDA's National Ag Library:
USDA's Agricola
https://agricola-nal-usda-gov.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu/
USDA's ATTRA which is loaded with basic and detailed farming information:
USDA's Farming Information Center
https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic
It's a new year, READ ON!!!!
- Author: Ben Faber
From the UC Weed Science Blog
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/UCDWeedScience/
A repost and link today to a recent Weed Science Society of America press release entitled: "About Weed Seeds and Their Longevity" Click the link to go to the full article.
An excerpt from the press release and links to the free download:
Did you know some weed seeds can lie dormant in the soil for more than a century and then sprout when conditions are right? A new factsheet available for free download from the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) dives into the topic of weed seed longevity, as well as how weed seeds travel, when and why they germinate, and ways they can be eliminated.
“Understanding weed seeds and their lifespan is critical for both farmers and backyard gardeners alike,” says WSSA member Greta Gramig, Ph.D., associate professor of weed science at North Dakota State University. “Seeds can remain viable in the soil for extended periods of time. That means if even a single weed is allowed to go to seed, you may be battling the aftermath for years to come.”
Here are just a few of the many facts about weed seeds that are covered in the new WSSA fact sheet:
- Moth mullein seeds buried by a researcher in 1879 were still able to germinate more than 130 years later.
- Weed seeds can easily be spread and transported far from their original location. Some have found their way into the earth's planetary boundary.
- Earthworms are known to collect weed seeds and move them into their burrows.
- Weed seeds that remain dormant in the soil will often germinate in response to changes in temperature, moisture, oxygen or light.
- Carabid beetles are voracious eaters and can consume large quantities of weed seeds that drop to the soil.
In addition to its fact sheet on weed seeds, WSSA offers a variety of other free fact sheets and educational materials online, including infographics and presentations on herbicide resistant weeds and their management.
/span>- Author: Ben Faber
Calcareous soils have often more than 15% CaCO3 in the soil that may occur in various forms (powdery, nodules, crusts etc…). They are relatively widespread in the drier areas of the earth. California is notable for its young soils, that is, soils that have a relatively high level of nutrients because low rainfall means that natural productivity has not been leached out. The potential productivity of calcareous soils is high where adequate water and nutrients can be supplied. Water is the most limiting input to making California soils productive.
The high pH associated with these soils, though, is not the level of calcium present. It is the carbonate in the soil or the bicarbonate associated with the waters found in those soils which controls the pH. The high pH then controls the availability of iron, zinc, manganese and copper. These nutrients need to be added as foliars or soil applied, or better yet, the soil pH needs to be dropped to around 7 to make these nutrients available.
Recently someone asked if replacing the calcium with potassium would change the pH. No, it won't. The carbonate needs to be removed. Calling it a calcareous soil confuses people about what caused the high pH. The carbonate or bicarbonate needs to be removed with acidification, it turning it into CO2 gas. This is done with urea sulfuric acid or sulfuric or sulfurous acid. There are actually magnesium dominated soils in the San Luis Obispo area that have high pHs due to carbonates. They are carbonateceous.
- Author: Ben Faber
I am frequently asked if I can recommend a book on Soils. And yes, I can. It is Soils: An Introduction by Michael Singer and Donald Munns. The sixth edition recently came out so there's a lot of older used copies floating around on the wed for under $10. This book takes a different tack on describing soils. Instead of tacking the tack of a chapter on Nitrogen another on Calcium etc., it weaves a story of how all the parts are related.