# Lime



## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

what is the lastest I should lime my fields, or did I miss it?

Im just south of Nashville Tn about 40 miles,


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

I've got two that I'll do next week. Your winter is longer, and probably wetter than mine so it should be fine.


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

Assuming that you have a soil test that indicates that your soils need lime, "The best time to lime is anytime" is a common response to your question.

However, the best time to lime depends on several things:
1. What is the next crop that you plan adjusting the soil pH for?
2. Will you use a course lime (ECCE ~60%) or a fine lime (ECCE ~95-100%)? 
3. Will you be able to incorporate the lime, or is a forage/crop already growing? Incorporation of the limestone with the soil is highly important, especially if it is the more course material. Course limestone applied and left on the soil surface is only very slowly effective.
4. Most times, whether you can get limestone applied depends on how busy the dealers are with spreading fertilizer. In an active fertilizer season, they don't want to slow down to apply limestone when they can make more dollars spreading smaller amounts of fertilizer on more acres.


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## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

I do have a soil test which states i need to lime

and we are operating a hay farm, and we just did out last cut last month, so it has been 1 month since we have been in fields and wont retun until june of next year.

I would like to fertilize in the spring so i would like to lime now.

I just wanted another opinion as to if it was too late into the season for the lime to do its job..i am hoping the fall is a wet one where the summer is either dry or it down pours and all my lime just washes off the field and down he drain..

Well that my thinkning.


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

Middletn, The best time to lime is when ever you can get on the land and not make any ruts in the field. If it is in hay now, it will take a lot longer to work, but it will work. I continuosly monitor my soils for ph and apply as needed whenever I can. Mike


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## rdbigfarmboy (Jul 11, 2010)

Depending on the grade of lime it may be a few years before you get the actual pH change you want. In the Maury county area a lot of fields are not needing lime or much phosphorous. to the west (Centerville) lime may be more important.
what are you growing alfalfa or mixed grasses?
Always best to work the ground at least a bit after spreading.


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## gman1772 (Mar 20, 2010)

OK here we go. I use almost as much lime as fertilizer on my hay meadows. I farm on old rice fields that have poor nutrient retention and very little natural nutrition for grass. It pretty much seems like if you spit in one spot twice your high dollar fertilizer leaches right out and leaves the acid. To that end here are some hard learned facts about reducing acidity and increasing your fertilizer yield. Right now is the time you lime. Urea and ammonia sulfate hate lime. Liming in conjunction with fertilizing is a waste of money as the lime on the surface will neutralize the Urea and Ammonia Sulfate. You will have to use K Mag or coarse lime this late as lime is intensively hydroscopic and the nice fine stuff will suck up moisture like a sponge and be impossible to spread other than by loader or shovel. LIme is not a fertilizer by itself but neutralizes acidity in the soil which is a real big deal with potash and urea utilization. Also, if you use urea based fertilzer you are defacto putting acid back in the soil because of the way urea breaks down into nitrogen.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Hopefully you are utilizing hay testing. Usually thes include P, K, Mg, & Ca mineral levels. 
Here you will learn if your liming is supplying the calcium your crop needs.

My customers are only interested in protein, so I request plant analysis which provides a lot more mineral information & I compute CP by percent nitrogen times 6.25 = percentage crude protein (%N X 6.25 = CP %)


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

Producers farming on acid soils in Texas have access to two widely differing grades of limestone. Both are produced from the same limestone rock, and rock is not hygroscopic. The old standby, usually called ag-grade limestone, has an effective calcium carbonate equivalence (ECCE) of about 62 to 64%. This means that 62 to 64% of this limestone will effectively neutralize acidity in soil. The remaining 36 to 38% of this low ECCE limestone will largely be very slowly reactive or essentially non-reactive because these limestone particles are too large. If a producer opts to use this coarse-grade limestone, he or she needs to apply about 1.6 times the soil test suggested rate of limestone in order to achieve application of the recommended rate. The soil testing labs recommend limestone based on it being ECCE100%.

The other grade of limestone is the ECCE 95 to 100%. This is very fine limestone that nearly all passes a 60-mesh screen (60 holes per linear inch). This high ECCE limestone, although not hygroscopic, is sold containing about 7 to 9% moisture to keep it from blowing away as dust when it is spread. Because this material is so fine, it must be hauled in covered trucks to the field and spread immediately, or at least before it is rained on. If it gets rained on before it can be spread, then spreading it becomes a problem. A good limestone dealer will take your order for this fine limestone and wait for favorable weather (a non rainy period) to haul and spread it.

For about the same cost, the high ECCE limestone is superior to the low ECCE limestone for neutralizing soil acidity. In field research trials, one ton of the ECCE 100% limestone has repeatedly been shown to be at least twice as effective as is the ECCE 62% limestone at neutralizing soil acidity. The old adage that limestone must have some larger particles to keep the soil from rapidly re-acidifying has been proven wrong. This is true because the finer limestone neutralizes much more acidity, raising the soil pH to a higher level and maintaining that higher pH level for a longer time.


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

Gman1772 is correct in stating that you don't want to apply nitrogen as urea or ammonium sulfate on soils that have recently been limed and the limestone has been left on the soil surface. Both of these nitrogen sources will lose nitrogen as ammonia volatilizing into the air. The same is true of urea ammonium nitrate (liquid 32% N) broadcast on the limed surface soil.

All producers probably have heard that nitrogen fertilizers containing ammonium (NH4) acidify the soil. The acidity occurs when the soil bacteria convert the ammonium to nitrite (NO2) that rapidly converts to nitrate (NO3). With nitrogen applied as anhydrous ammonia, urea, or ammonium nitrate, it generally is accepted that for each pound of nitrogen applied, about 1.8 pounds of calcium carbonate neutralizable soil acidity are produced. With ammonium sulfate, for each pound of nitrogen applied, the generally accepted value is about 5.4 pounds of calcium carbonate neutralizable soil acidity produced. Producers fertilizing with ammonium sulfate on the more sandy acid soils must be much more diligent about maintaining a good liming program based on frequent, possibly annual, soil testing. Of course, producers who farm on high calcium carbonate alkaline soils don't have this problem.


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