A lot of valuable lessons were learned in 2009 :

• Dealing with high moisture corn - some grain bins may need to be purchased in the future.
• The need for testing corn for toxins may be required in the future - Mycotoxins,  Don(Vomitoxins),  Ochratoxin, Full Screen
• Soybean Aphids - Plan for spraying- Ohio Area

Planning for 2010

• Spend more time in the field - looking for pests and answers
• Spend the time to determine the best seed for your specific field conditions.
• Need to soil test before next year
  • Know your soils potential
  • Know the areas of poor fertility
  • Keep a log on each field

Once again, read the full article, its well worth your time.

-    improves your home’s value – curb appeal is absolutely necessary for selling
-    maintains your home’s worth if you are not planning to move
-    encourages you to enjoy your yard and use the full potential of your lot
-    saves money by limiting fertilizers and pesticides - these aren’t regularly needed when your plants and lawns are healthy.

One of the best tools you have at your disposal is soil analysis from soil testing companies such as Midwest Labs.

Soil testing can tell you:

1) Physical ingredients in your soil.  Soil across the world is made up of three primary components, and the percentages of each are a factor in growing a healthy lawn:

* Clay
* Silt* Sand

The ideal soil for lawns is called “loam,” which is 40 percent sand, 20 percent clay, and 40 percent silt.

2) Consumers can also opt for contaminated soil testing. Options may include examining for harmful substances as lead.

3) Chemical imbalance. The overuse of chemical pesticides or fertilizers has been an environmental concern for years. Improving the balance of the fertilizing chemicals in the lawn, makes for healthier grass, but also puts less fertilizers into the environment.

Midwest Labs professional soil testing can offer more practical information on how to make improvements. Reasonable recommendations can be made to help you easily develop a green, beautiful lawn.

Greenery requires a chemical balance to function properly and grow well. A soil test is cost effective in that

•    You can be better able to manage healthy growth for your plants,
•    It negates the need to replace dead or poorly thriving landscaping,
•    Provides you with a tool to maintain a beautiful and bountiful lawn and garden, which helps you enjoy your area so much more,
•    You can greatly reduce your costs for fertilizers and pesticides,
•    If you can adequately nourish your plants they can fend of pests more effectively.

Midwest Labs soil testing will give you pH balance and chemical makeup of your soil sample. The results can tell you what the acidity levels are. A pH balance is required for optimum growth.  Midwest Labs test results also include

•    information on micro-nutrients,
•    organic matter percentages,
•    and any harmful contaminants.

Test options are also available to check for heavy metals in your ground.

Midwest Labs soil testing lab is the key to bringing it all together and finding a better garden.

Several nutrients are absolutely essential for proper plant growth. Equally as important is the pH level.   Midwest Labs soil testing lab will advise the proper fertilizer and or lime you need to use, and they will help you to not over-fertilize your plants. Over-fertilization:

1.    is a waste of money,
2.    can lead to burnt, overgrown plants with maturation problems
3.    is bad for the environment.

Your soil testing results will report the pH level as well as levels of:

1.    phosphate,
2.    potassium,
3.    manganese,
4.    calcium,
5.    zinc
6.    and magnesium.

Based on the testing results, the soil testing lab will recommend the fertilizer you should use for optimum plant growth.

An analysis from soil testing lab, Midwest Labs, includes levels of key nutrients that are essential for your plants’ proper development. For instance, the typical test will determine the current levels of phosphorus, calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc and manganese in your samples.

Once the testing is complete, a recommendation will be made about the best type of fertilizer to use for the specific types of plants you intend to sow.

For traditional growing methods, a customized analysis of your garden or farm fields ensures that you won’t waste money on over-fertilization, or worse yet: do your plants physical harm by adding too many chemicals.

For organic growers, the test will suggest what nutrient minerals are lacking.  This will help you determine what organic mulch may be necessary.  You can use compost as an alternative to fertilizers. If you opt to use this option or the chemical option, a soil testing lab is the best resource you have to optimize the success of your crops and gardens.

Manure varied in nutrient content and in contamination levels  - contaminated by microbiological pathogens or heavy metals in the environment. Because this variety is significant, it is just as important to test the manure you will be using as it is to test your soil.

Usually, samples of manure are sent to the lab, and then dried by the lab before testing. Their results are sometimes reported in a dry-weight measurement … just something to keep in mind when you receive results back from the soil testing lab.

You can sample manure either before or during hauling. If you sample before hauling, the results can help you to determine this year’s proper application rates. However, this is not always an easy process.

Sampling during hauling will be more accurate since the substances have had the chance to settle. It will also be faster and easier to obtain the samples. However, you’ll only be able to tell what nutrients the plants have already obtained if you gather the samples during the application process. The testing will still let you know what the plants were given in the fertilizer, and it will be a good gauge for next year’s planting.

Crops take up nitrogen that is released to the soil as a direct result of several catalysts, including atmospheric deposition … soil organic matter mineralization … crop residue decomposition … and animal manure and/or inorganic fertilizer applications.

A deficiency in nitrogen causes severe damage to crop yields - and can even cause a catastrophic, total crop failure. However, an excess of nitrogen may lead to excessive vegetative growth, lodging, delayed maturity, increased disease susceptibility and low crop quality. Excesses also may contribute to acid rain, destruction of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, the greenhouse effect, an increase in chemical nutrients in surface waters, contamination of ground water, and fish and other marine-life kills, among other negative side effects.

It’s clear, then, that it’s important to growers - both from an economic and an environmental standpoint - to carefully control the nitrogen content of field soil. The ideal situation is to maintain adequate inorganic nitrogen during the growing season and to minimize the occurrence of inorganic nitrogen during the off-seasons, when nitrogen may be introduced into field soil via surface and groundwater.

The PSNT is different from routine soil tests in that nitrogen testing shows specifically when nitrogen fertilizer applications need to be adjusted to suit crop- and field-specific conditions.

The PSNT generally is most useful for confirming legume and manure nitrogen content and for determining the amount of nitrogen in a specific field. It’s especially important to do a PSNT when not enough hard data is available to determine nitrogen content using more standard techniques.

For example, a PSNT can answer a lot of questions when a grower doesn’t know the previous manure application rate or nutrient content of a particular field. It’s also useful when the stand density of a previous crop is unknown. (Stand density is an absolute measurement based on basal area, number of trees per acre or volume per acre. It reflects the degree of crowding of stems within a stand.) Another instance when PSNT is of particular value is when unusually cool weather conditions may have impacted nitrogen mineralization rates, or when excessive rainfall causes a dramatic loss of inorganic nitrogen - both of which conditions would be missed without the PSNT.

Soil samples for the PSNT generally are taken after planting, when the crop has begun its initial growth and is several inches above the ground. By this stage of the growing cycle most of the conversion of organic nitrogen sources to forms of nitrogen able to be utilized by plants has occurred.

PSNT core soil samples are collected to a specific depth, determined by the type of crop, and are collected randomly over the full field. Then, the cores are mixed to obtain a composite sub sample and are submitted to a soil-testing laboratory.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), as well as local colleges and universities, will have charts and graphs for growers in all areas of the country to determine the ideal soil nitrogen content for their specific crops. The wise grower will have his or her soil undergo a PSNT to assure the best possible crop.

A soil test allows a land owner to balance the potential impact of harm from soil contamination against the cost of undertaking a cleanup operation with the advice of our soil testing lab. 

Soil testing is used as part of contaminated land rehabilitation projects to determine the presence and levels of harmful substances. A site is deemed to be contaminated when areas or the entire site has toxic chemicals in the ground that are harmful to humans or the environment at levels higher than those normally found in the region.  

Midwest Labs is able to test for the presence of heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury, and zinc, other toxic metals such as cobalt, beryllium, nickel, and chromium, carcinogenic solvents like toluene and benzene, oils, fuel additives, radioactives, cyanide, pesticides, poisons, and fertilizers. 

These substances can make their way into the ground from sites of heavy industry like smelters and factories, manufacturing plants, transit infrastructure like airports, docks, the roads, rail yards, and other vehicle depots, from leaking storage tanks and pipelines, runoff from agriculture, waste disposal sites and dumps, and even from commercial and residential sources.  

As well as direct exposure, contaminants can make their way into environments that have never directly housed toxic substances, by blowing onto the site from neighboring properties through the wind, or leeching into the local soil and groundwater through the underground aquifers. 

Once a soil test determines that toxic substances are present on a site, you need to consider how likely it is to affect those who come into contact with it. This depends very much on which substances are present and their quantities, where the site is, and what it shall be used for.  

Some contaminants can cause harm to humans simply by inhaling dust from the air, or by contact with the skin and mucus membranes such as the eyes and mouth. In other cases, drinking tainted water can cause health problems. Towns which have high levels of heavy metals in the environment show increased rates of birth defects, retardation of newborns, lower IQs, and increased rates of many types of cancer. 

In agricultural areas, plants and livestock can also be affected by these contaminants in the same way, and after being tainted, can pass on toxic substances to anything that eats them through several stages of the food chain.  

In residential areas where children are likely to be present, contaminated soil testing is crucial, as lower concentrations of toxins are considered acceptable when compared with zones near heavy industry like ports and rail yards.  

Moreover, children typically come into closer contact than adults with the dirtier parts of the environment by their nature, whether that means getting dirty while playing or ingesting dirt directly. 

Government guidelines for contaminated soil testing and management vary across different regions, however, they tend towards an approach of risk management: It is necessary that some areas become polluted for the wheels of industry to keep turning, so town planning focuses on concentrating heavy polluters with waste disposal, landfill, and high-risk operations like chemical factories, away from the residential and commercial districts. When soil tests show the presence of toxic substances, it does not always make sense to launch a clean up operation, at least until levels get so high as to violate EPA regulations.  

Instead, what action is to be taken depends on likely it is that the contamination will cause harm. The risk of damage to business and lives must be balanced against the potential impact of such harm occurring and the cost of remedy. 

Fortunately, there are many ways you can commence soil remediation following unwelcome test results, with potentially cheaper options available for sites that have a low risk of causing harm.  

Ideally, Midwest Labs will be able to advise you on which of these is the most appropriate for a given site.  

In extreme cases, it may be necessary to completely excavate the affected soil, and seal it in below ground pits or an alternative waste storage repository. This is the method used to decontaminate areas affected by radiation and radioactive fallout, such as nuclear test zones, and the aftermath of nuclear power plant accidents.  

Modern landfills are usually interleaved with layers of thick plastic membranes where there is a risk of contaminants reaching the groundwater, thus spreading.  

Agricultural soil affected by excessive fertilizers and pesticides can be reconditioned by flushing with large quantities of water, as the containments tend to be concentrated water-soluble salts. Some contaminants can be bound in place with the addition of cement, while other harmful substances can be broken down by burning, rinsing with biodegradable chemical solvents, or with the addition of microbial agents into the soil.

Depending on the levels and type of toxicity, a cleanup operation can involve relatively inexpensive remediation methods, such as simply rezoning and sealing affected land, or the introduction of suitable microbial agents into the soil to digest certain chemicals at one end of the scale, and at the other, total excavation and containment of affected topsoil, such as has been conducted in retired nuclear testing sites in the deserts of Australia and China. 

Before redeveloping any land after a significant period, you should consider contracting the services offered by leading soil testing company, Midwest Laboratories, in order to ascertain the presence or absence of any potentially harmful agents.  

Contaminated soil testing will reveal the presence of several types of contaminants, such as volatile compounds like acetone, benzene, chloroform, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, and toluene; other organic compounds like oils and petroleum products, PCBs, and gasoline additives; heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury, and other toxic substances like barium and hydrogen cyanide. 

Other substances that are not strictly considered pollutants may also be found at excessive concentrations, like fertilizers, pesticides, and their metabolites. When found in sufficiently high concentrations, these can act as pollutants by changing the pH of the soil, reacting with nutrients, or rendering the ones present less readily available to plants.  

A comprehensive soil test from Midwest Labs will not only show which toxins are present, but with professional interpretation of the results, can also be used to predict what cleanup methods will be most effective. This will depend on various factors, especially the makeup and characteristics of the land, and which contaminants are present. 

For example, some contaminants will more readily adsorb to the surface of sand or clay particles, which is the way chemists describe one substance sticking to another.  

Removing them may require the introduction of a chemical agent, or might involve simply flushing sufficient water through the soil to gradually lower the level of contamination to acceptable levels.  

After any remedial action is taken, a soil test - or several if covering a large area - must be subsequently conducted to ensure that the cleanup has succeeded as planned. 

Midwest Labs can provide you instructions on how to properly collect samples for your initial test, analyze your samples with a battery of tests that will vary depending on your site, produce a detailed report based on the results, and more importantly, give you a professional interpretation of what those results actually indicate.  

From there, we can suggest a plan of action in consultation with our clients to return the land to its desired state.   

Whether that means making the land suitable for the crop or livestock of choice, getting contaminants down to safe, legal levels, or where the soil test indicates contamination is significant, but of only minor real concern, alternative measures to a full clean up, such as how to build over the affected land in such a way that it will not adversely affect human health or the environment.