-----In 2004 we bought a falling-down house and 30 acres. This blog documents our progress-----

Monday, April 05, 2004

soil test results

These are the results of the soil testing which Dave's parents did, with some help from Mum and Dad

soil testing results

soil testing map

Overall, the pH seems to be between 5-6, so slightly acidic, although not as bad as I was expecting. The other minerals are worse than I'd anticipated though... I guess it just means we have to do a lot of preparation of the soil in advance; but in the scheme of things it's not impossible.


The tests were done after about 5 years of low rainfall, so all the soil was very dry. After clearing, the land was probably used for grazing, and at testing, grass was dry and sparse to very sparse. The soil is a grey to reddish brown loam
In most areas there is 20 to 30cm topsoil with small to medium sized quartz fragments on the surface or in the soil. The area called up creek and down creek was probably a shallow gully which was filled over the years with soil washed from the uphill forest area. The top soil here is at least 30cm and is a fine dark grey loam with an absence of quartz fragments. This area supports the greatest quantity of grasses. The ph tests showed the creek soils to be slightly acid probably relatred to the humus content and overall the creek soil would be the easiest to cultivate and probably the most fertile.

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