$14 Can Deliver Your Best Hunting Ever

$14 Can Deliver Your

Best Hunting Ever (And Peace of Mind) By Whitetail News Staff

When compared to the total When you consider all amount we spend each year on that together, you can see that a laboratory soil test’s hunting, the $14 cost of a greatest benefit to ensurprofessional Whitetail Institute ing optimum food plot growth is its accuracy. laboratory soil test is extremely small. Lime and fertilizer rec

Even so, that tiny expense can yield a ommendations in a laboratory soil test report are wide array of benefits to your hunting developed by analyzing the acas well as your peace of mind. tual soil from your plot to determine its existing

The importance of soil pH and fertility and their interaction is one stand why. Obviously, forage plants must be able to freely uptake nusoil pH and fertility, the soil’s ability to Benefits to Hunting hold lime and

It’s no secret that in most cases, high-quality food plots are the best the specific ferway to quickly attract deer to a property. It stands to reason, then, tilizer requirethat if we want to maximize attraction, our food plots need to be as ments of the lush, thick and palatable as possible. Of all the factors you can control planting. That accuto maximize forage growth, making sure soil pH and “soil fertility” racy lets you ensure that (the levels of essential nutrients in the soil) are optimum is the most your food plot planting can important and can only be addressed with complete accuracy by a grow thick and lush and be as qualified soil testing laboratory. attractive as possible. of the most important things in food plotting, and it’s easy to underPeace of Mind fertilizer, and trients from the soil if they are to grow optimally. There are two parts Your Wallet! We’ve talked about the to that: (1) the essential nutrients must be present and at optimum benefits of precision in determining what levels in the soil, and (2) they must be freely available for uptake. lime and/or fertilizer your food plot may need. Consider

First Key Understanding: Soil pH plays a critical role in forage that this precision also lets you avoid buying lime and fertilizer that growth. Nutrients in the soil are free for uptake by high-quality forage you really DON’T need. plants only if soil pH is neutral (6.5-7.5). Acidic soil pH (soil pH below To explain, each Whitetail Institute food plot product comes with a 6.5) acts as a roadblock to nutrient uptake in that soil nutrients are set of seedbed preparation and planting instructions right on the bag, bound up in a way that plants can’t freely access them. Low soil pH and they aren’t all the same. As I mentioned earlier, all forage plantcan be corrected by disking or tilling the appropriate amount of lime ings for deer don’t have the same optimum fertilizer requirements. into the soil in advance of planting. Recognizing the importance of ensuring optimum soil pH and fertility,

Second Key Understanding: There is no standardized chart that and that laboratory soil testing may not be available in a limited numtells you precisely how much lime you should add to your specific soil ber of situations, the Whitetail Institute also provides default lime and based solely on its existing soil pH because soils widely differ in their fertilizer recommendations in each set of instructions. It’s important ability to hold lime activity. to understand that these default recommendations are designed to

Third Key Understanding: Soils also differ widely in the levels cover the majority of cases. If the default recommendations are preof essential nutrients they hold and in how well (or poorly) they can cisely what’s needed in a given case, it will be purely a matter of hold the fertilizer you add. chance.

Fourth Key Understanding: Fertilizer needs aren’t the same for Anyone who has ever planted food plots knows that lime and ferall types of food plot plantings. tilizer can be expensive. If you don’t actually need to add lime and/or

fertilizer to the seedbed, a laboratory soil test will tell you that with complete accuracy, which helps you avoid buying lime and fertilizer you really don’t need.

Risk Management. When you think about it, peace of mind is a benefit that comes from effectively managing risk – eliminating risks that can be eliminated, and minimizing risks that can’t. By performing a laboratory soil test and following its lime and fertilizer recommendations, we can eliminate the risk that our forage plants won’t have free access to all the nutrients they need. To long time readers of Whitetail News, that’s nothing new. It occurred to me, though, that we may not have covered another risk-management benefit of using a laboratory soil test to ensure that soil pH is optimum before planting. This realization hit me when I thought of calls I occasionally get from customers who didn’t properly address soil pH before planting and experience problems later. Most often, the complaint is that the planting isn’t growing as well as it should. To raise soil pH, lime should be incorporated into the soil by disking or tilling, which is problematic when you don’t want to damage or kill a forage crop that has already been planted in the site. Had these customers properly ensured that soil pH was neutral before they planted, the problem would have been avoided. Conclusion. The Whitetail Institute’s laboratory soil testing service provides all the accuracy of laboratory soil tests performed by agricultural universities, county agents, and farm supply stores. The difference lies in the structure of the Whitetail Institute’s laboratory soil test report. Unlike soil test reports designed for commercial farmers, the Whitetail Institute report is designed specifically for food plotters and is extremely easy to read and follow. Whitetail Institute soil test users also consistently comment on how quickly they get their results back from the lab (especially when they provide an email address on the soil-submission form that comes in the kit). And finally, whether you use a Whitetail Institute soil test kit or another laboratory soil test kit, you can get quick, accurate assistance from the Whitetail Institute’s consultants if you have any trouble understanding the report. The consultants are available to answer any questions you may have regarding soil testing or any other food plot related questions.

You can find out more about the Whitetail Institute soil test kit such as how to prepare it and what the report looks like at whitetailinstitute.com. If you have any questions, please contact the Whitetail Institute’s consultants at (800) 688-3030. ^