ANRA:Lecture:Acidic farmlands
Testing and treating Acidity in the Soil
Most plant will tolerate acidic soil better than alkaline soil. The soil of the Protectorate has been tested in a few places, and deemed a strong, but not unmanageably so. For individual testing, Red cabbage juice can be used as indicator of acidity or alkalinity of the soil. First, boil and distill 2 liters of water. Chop cabbage finely and boil in distilled water, or pure water produced by water elementals, if any are available. Cool the resulting liquid and filter out the plant material. This filtered liquid is used as indicator. According to acidity or alkalinity of the solution, the colour of the indicator will change.
The soil should be sampled and dissolved in distilled water. This resulting liquid should be filtered and mixed with indicator solution. According to acidity or alkalinity of the solution, the colour of the indicator will change.
Blue-violet when it is near neutral. Blue-green when alkaline, greenish yellow when strongly alkaline.
Red when strongly acidic, purple/pink when acidic. If the resulting colour of the indicator is light pink to violet, the soil is in ideal range of acidity for the plant growth.
Avoid planting in alkaline soil, if at all possible. There is no practical way of permanently, or even temporarily, counteracting naturally occurring alkalinity of the soil. However there are some plants that are tolerant of such conditions.
For acidity, Lime is often most ideal solution to counteract acidity of the soil. First, test how much lime you will need to add with sample of soil. Use about 1 barrel full of soil for the test. Using method mentioned above, test each time you add small amount of lime to the sample. Once the ratio of lime to soil is determined, apply the amount to the plot. ~Always err on side of caution~ Counteracting acidity is far easier than counteracting alkalinity.
Continuing these tests spread out throughout the growing season will help to judge how quickly the soil regains its acidity. Plants can actually cause the soil to become more acidic, as they grow. Plants take in different nutrients, like we take in food. when they do this, they take in what is called a 'base.' The base cancelled out the acidity in the soil. Fortunately the plants balance this out by returning the base to the soil when the plant material we don't eat is turned back into the soil. It will still take testing to figure out the correct amounts of lime and plant material.
If lime isn't readily available, crushed sea shell can be used instead. We are looking into finding different sources of lime, and will give more information about it when we've compiled a good list.
Moira