Soil Analysis

Soil Testing your Horses Grazing Paddocks and Fields

Contents

Soil Analysis – An Introduction

If you are keeping horses grazing on your land year after year it makes sense to have a soil analysis done. Apparently with many soils there are deficiencies of Copper, Selenium and Iodine as well as excess of molybdenum and iron which then interfere with copper availability.

I am by no means an expert in this field and for what it is worth, I sometimes find it all rather complicated.

However, I appreciate imbalances and deficiencies in trace elements occur in our soils, so anything we can do to help balance this, will help towards improving the health of our horses.

Once you have had a soil analysis done, you are then in a position to re-mineralize your paddocks and pastures with any trace elements which are required which will then improve the quality of your grass (and hay, if you are making hay.)

A Brief Summary on How to Improve your Pastures

• Feed it with organic compost such as manure,
• plus remineralization which can be done if first tested or add a general seaweed feed to your soils,
• regular aerating/harrowing which will get oxygen into the soil and improve the soil structure,
• re-seeding with a medievel pasture mixture of different grasses and herbs
• rotating and resting your paddocks – 12 weeks being the optimum

All the above will greatly improve your paddocks and grazing and is money and time well invested.

Our Experience With Soil Analysis Testing

When we had our soil analysis done the results were the following:-

• PH – Normal
• Phosphate – slightly low
• Potash – Normal. It will only need topping up if we take cuts of hay (which we do)
• Magnesium – Low
• Calcium – High. This is because we ar in the bottom of a valley surrounded by chalk hills. The calcium levels are high due to the surrounding chalk hills.

However it is better to have a high level than a low level due to the necessity of calcium in cell division.

• Sulphur – Low Important for grass growth and disease resistant of grass.

This will improve as we put back manure on our fields, as manure contains sulphur. (Otherwise we could consider using a nitrogen + sulphur fertilizer in spring. I prefer to use manure.)

• Manganese – very low.
• Copper – Very low. Very important for healthy animals.
• Boron – Normal.
• Zinc – Low
• Molybdenum – Normal.
• Iron – Normal.
• Sodium – Very low. Again necessary for good animal health.
• Cobalt – Low. Again necessary for good animal health.
• Iodine – Very low. Again very important for animal health.
• C.E.C. – Normal. This is the measurement that show the ability for the soil to hold its nutrients.

Summary

OK. Once we had our soil testing and the results, we were then in a better position to know what to feed our fields.

I know with all testing their can be slight differences but this type of test will give you an overall summary of your soil and the quality of your grass.

You can then address and feed your soil as and when necessary.

Conclusion

If you need any further help contact us. Otherwise I suggest you get your soil analyzed. The results are interesting in themselves. The amount of soil needed by the labs is only a small amount and you can easily send samples to many labs in the post.

They will usually send a test kit and advise how best to take samples.