Soil Fertility Analysis

Savio shaking his groove thang

     The fertility analysis revealed information about how well our soil will be able to grow plants. The soil responded to the tests in various ways and helped us understand the positive and negative traits of our collected soil.

Phosphorous test

      We started with the phosphorous test, which showed us that there were only trace amounts of phosphorous in our soil. In our nitrogen and potassium tests, the results were not very encouraging either: the nitrogen test results showed us we had trace amounts of nitrogen in our soil, and because the potassium test took so many droplets of the solution to turn the other solution a light blue color, it was revealed that we had low levels of potassium in our soil (0-120 lbs/acre). All the nutrients we tested for in the soil were at low or very low levels, which does not bode well for producing crops in this soil. Because the soil was unfertilized, we now understand why so many farmers use fertilizers on their crops because if they had soil like ours then it would be much more difficult to grow productive crops with soil with low nutrient levels.

pH test

Potassium test

Cuba Marsh

     Our pH test had a more positive result. Through the test, we found that our soil's pH level was very close to precisely 7, meaning that the soil was very neutral, neither too acidic nor too basic. In the area of Cuba Marsh in which we collected our soil, there were mostly grasses and some trees, but not an incredibly abundant amount of plant life. The plants did not necessarily look healthy around us, but the season was turning towards winter when we collected the soil so it may have been that the plants were changing in accordance with the seasonal change. However, most plants need a soil pH of between 5.5 and 7.0 to truly thrive, so I think the pH level of our soil is good, and most plants that can survive in this climate could live in this soil based solely on its pH level (in terms of nutrients and formation perhaps not so much). The grasses and trees around the area in which we collected our soil were surviving and were successful based on the soil pH but may have looked not as healthy due to seasonal change or the low nutrient levels in the soil.