SOIL ANALYSES AND COMPUTERIZED FERTILIZER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR VEGETABLES IN PENNSYLVANIA

As a tool of education twenty years ago soil testing for the growers was initiated by the College of Agriculture.
Today, annually 70,000 samples are analyzed of which about 5 procent are samples connected with vegetable production.
During these years further soil testing, fertilizer, and crop research was conducted.
Finally, the computer age arrived and during the last three years recommendations for fertilizer application as based on the soil analyses results were made through the computer.
The vegetable crop procedure is a segment of this large program.
Needless to say that a computer is only as good as the data fed into it.
In other words nonsense will return nonsense.

Soil analysis starts in the field and poor sampling habits will bring bad results.
In Pennsylvania the grower has to take his own soil samples according to recommended procedures.
He has to buy, at the county agent’s office, a so-called mailing kit which costs $ 2.00. This kit contains a mailer, plastic bag for the sample, and an information sheet (Table 1) to be filled out by the grower.
On the back this information sheet is another questionnaire (Table 2), in case of previous crop problems, must be filled out as a help in arriving at recommendations.
A carbon paper and second page are attached to the information sheet serving as a grower’s copy.
On its back soil sampling instructions are given.

Symposium on Nutrition and Fertilization of Vegetables

E.L. Bergman, R.F. Fletcher

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1973.29.10