I'm trying to make a judgement call on whether or not to go ahead and apply the manure this year and let the cards fall where they may..... next year get tested again and see what happens

My manure analyisis is N 1.8 P 2.4 K 1.3 S .27
According to my calculations if I add ballpark 2.75 tons manure per acre, I'll be adding an additional 130.5lbs P per acre for total of 253.5lbs P per Acre.

I have free Potassium and sulfur and N etc in my manure and I'd like to use it.

So, would this level of Phosphorous be taking me into never never land?

Options are to apply Ammonium nitrate etc to bring up nitrogen and Sulfate of Potash to bring up potassium to acceptable levels (both low).

While I'm not diehard organic, I'm working my way there and would prefer not to add the synthetics...

Opinions please.

Note that too much K will doubtful become a problem around here. The challenge ( I believe) is always going to be P because of the ratio in my manure and it's inclination to stay put.

Thanks!

Kimmsr-
To a degree, I understand how excess P affects the availability of other nutrients.... although only a superficial understanding. So yes, I agree that too much P is not a good thing. That being said, I do not have a handle on the numbers that are considered excessive and where in the excessive range things start to get out of whack. Also, don't know if the P range from Low to Excessive is a linear range or Logarithmic (?) (meaning that for all practical purposes just the excessive range could be between 120 (which it is in this case & 5000 (which I highly doubt), but the fact that excessive is at the end of the range complicates things because it's unlimited. Just want to know how much my addition of 130lbs moves the bar into the excessive range.

Note that my water is on a well, so yes the excess P levels concern me. That being said, if my well water is going to get contaminated it's probably from all the farm land around me rather than my relatively insignificant tract. All that aside, I still want to do "the right thing", just want to be smart about it.

Note that the only way that the P levels could have gotten this high in the first place (assuming they are this high) is because of the synthetic fertilizers I added last year. Anyway, I'm trying to come up with a system now that is sustainable from my point of view and I'm attempting to start now rather than later. Thus trying to avoid adding more synthetics when possible. Meaning, they got me into this mess in the first place.

I have a composting experiment going right now with the chicken manure just not sure how it's going to work. Chicken manure and pinestraw..... yeah, I know not ideal but it's what I use for bedding because I live on pinelands and it's readily available and free. Just not sure how it's going to compost. If it works, I'll be more inclined to compost. If not, less inclined to do so. That being said, I have 3 or so acres planted in oat/clover cover crops right now that I could use to make compost later- a possibility. But, that "requires" more implements/labor etc than rotating out cover crops with cash crops. Bottom line is it's more efficient for me to come up with a method that I don't HAVE to compost, especially since I have my poultry manure available.

To answer your question about humus level, right now it's pretty limited and it's sand loam (mostly sand), so yes leaching is a problem. I'm steadily building the soil with cover crops and mulch but still have work to do.

Thanks!

Note that too much K will doubtful become a problem around here. The challenge ( I believe) is always going to be P because of the ratio in my manure and it's inclination to stay put.

Thanks!

Kimmsr-
To a degree, I understand how excess P affects the availability of other nutrients.... although only a superficial understanding. So yes, I agree that too much P is not a good thing. That being said, I do not have a handle on the numbers that are considered excessive and where in the excessive range things start to get out of whack. Also, don't know if the P range from Low to Excessive is a linear range or Logarithmic (?) (meaning that for all practical purposes just the excessive range could be between 120 (which it is in this case & 5000 (which I highly doubt), but the fact that excessive is at the end of the range complicates things because it's unlimited. Just want to know how much my addition of 130lbs moves the bar into the excessive range.

Note that my water is on a well, so yes the excess P levels concern me. That being said, if my well water is going to get contaminated it's probably from all the farm land around me rather than my relatively insignificant tract. All that aside, I still want to do "the right thing", just want to be smart about it.

Note that the only way that the P levels could have gotten this high in the first place (assuming they are this high) is because of the synthetic fertilizers I added last year. Anyway, I'm trying to come up with a system now that is sustainable from my point of view and I'm attempting to start now rather than later. Thus trying to avoid adding more synthetics when possible. Meaning, they got me into this mess in the first place.

I have a composting experiment going right now with the chicken manure just not sure how it's going to work. Chicken manure and pinestraw..... yeah, I know not ideal but it's what I use for bedding because I live on pinelands and it's readily available and free. Just not sure how it's going to compost. If it works, I'll be more inclined to compost. If not, less inclined to do so. That being said, I have 3 or so acres planted in oat/clover cover crops right now that I could use to make compost later- a possibility. But, that "requires" more implements/labor etc than rotating out cover crops with cash crops. Bottom line is it's more efficient for me to come up with a method that I don't HAVE to compost, especially since I have my poultry manure available.

To answer your question about humus level, right now it's pretty limited and it's sand loam (mostly sand), so yes leaching is a problem. I'm steadily building the soil with cover crops and mulch but still have work to do.

Thanks!

Nonsense. Phosphorus is of very low mobility underground. It sorbs well. Its main problem is stream pollution and when from agricultural or horticultural sources this almost always involves physical soil erosion (the P is sorbed onto the eroded grains). P in drinking water is not a problem anyway.

Nitrate is what leaches easily and contaminates drinking water and can sicken or even kill infants using formula made from nitrate-contaminated well water.

There is a veritable font of misinformation here.

Some lakes surrounded by coarse gravelly glacial deposits and large numbers of homes on septic tanks (especially in the phosphorus detergent era) or by intensively fertilized agriculture have shown a problem attributable to groundwater because the coarse sediments have such low surface area and sorption ability. This is the rarer exception. Phosphorus in groundwater is not a common problem. Nitrate is. Most phosphorus enters streams and lakes as wastewater discharges and as surface runoff of soil with P sorbed on it or by direct runoff of animal manure. Overfertilization with P is not particulary an environmental problem itself, soil erosion is.

Excess levels of Phosphorus in the lakes around here are causing algae blooms to a greater degree today then in the past. So where is this excess Phosphorus coming from?

Answer:
80% of the Phos. in lakes comes from leaves and other organic debris from the surrounding forest. Ponds far away from cities, lawns and rivers, would be 100% coming from surrounding forest debris. They have algae bloom too. Lieing about Phos. leaching through the soil, doesn't educate anyone, it makes everything stupid. No offense. :)

P can bind to soils, to be sure, to the point that there are not enough sites for other nutrients to bind to and cause nutrient deficiencies. In other words, beware and don't over do it with the P as IT can be difficult to get rid of once it is there in excess. You might check with your extension service for soil analysis values and recs. for your crop(s) of choice, they might have already done all the work figuring that out. If your state doesn't have the info., you might look for one that has your soils and the recs., that would give you a ball park estimate at least.

Oh yes, all of the state BMP recs. I've seen for manure applications on commercial ag. fields are based on the P in the soil and manure, not the N, this is due to the fact that the N doesn't hang around in the soil and the P can accumulate over time, not a good idea. Good luck!

Kimmsr: please post some of the research you refer to indicating that P leaching downward into the soil profile is causing water pollution, I am unaware of any and expect you will be able to find some a lot faster than I can. That P so readily binds to soil, combined with that soil eroding into surface waters has been demonstrated to cause problems, for sure.

What's the route to groundwater in MI, I don't expect you to go into as much detail as the FL site you posted the link to?