Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ample, are often thought of as acid-loving. In reality, they love magnesium, which is
sometimes more available at a low pH, and they aren't particularly fond of calcium.
They'll grow just fine in a high pH soil if they have sufficient magnesium. Other acid-lov-
ing plants may just need a fungal-dominated soil. Fungi decrease soil pH, so it may be
that these plants don't care at all about the pH, and they just want their fungi.
Trying to make your soil acidic by applying peat moss or chemicals doesn't give the
plants the nutrients they need or the biology they need. What we need to do is focus on all
of the soil management practices we will be looking at, such as creating high quality com-
post and using things like rock dust and seaweed in order to give the plants the chelated
minerals they need. When all of these factors are brought in line, the pH will follow.
Even if we have a perfect pH, we don't actually know which nutrients we have and how
available they are to plants. This is where soil testing comes in, which is coming up later
in this topic.
