question about lime and my hay field

As you may know I work for the city water treatment company. Our treatment plant uses hydrated lime to soften the water. Then the lime sludge gets pumped to a lagoon and that is its final resting place. It is a liquid slurry until it sits awhile and the water evaporates off and then it stiffens up. I know companies buy this lime and dry it then sell it to farmers from other treatment plants. Our plant does not sell it or do anything at all with it. How can I get it to my field 10 miles away? I don't have a honey wagon so I would have to use the "drier" stuff. I was thinking of using my manure spreader to fling it out on my field. Will this work or not? Thanks

There are guys around me that get the same stuff out of Dubuque. They use manure spreaders to spead it. They usually have it hauled in dump trucks and have it dumped in a pile and let it dry six months to a year before they spread it.

A vertical beater spreader workes better than a conventional spreader at spreading it.

That lime is really rough on a spreader as far as wear. It is not totally "free" when you count the bother of drying/handling it and the wear on equipment.

Some of the guys have started stock piling it close to where they have their manure. They load the spreader 3/4 with manure and then top it off with the lime. This way it is not quite so hard on the spreader. Plus it is kind of balanced this way.

You need to check and see how much lime your fields really need. Some of the closer farms to Dubuque spread too much and they had to balance for that issue.

Since the lime is hydrated, it would react instantly thus adding alkalinity to the soil so rapidly it would "burn" any vegetation unless it would be in very limited amounts and spread very uniformly, more like fertilizer say 3or400 pounds per acre. Dolomitic or calcitic lime is finely ground rock that takes say a year to break down in the soil and provide the desired neutralizing effect for years so it can be applied by the ton per acre depending on soil type and target PH....Ron

I have been told I need to do a soil sample first. What will I learn from a soil sample?

First off, does your soil need it? only way to tell is with a soil test, very simple to take one.

And then, agricultural lime is rated and assigned a number.

I am not sure I remember enough to explain it.

here, read this.

http://www.aglime.org.uk/sitesearch/search.php

Gene

The soil test will tell the soil PH and water PH, and how much lime is needed to reach a target PH of 6.5 to 7. Most field crops grow well in the 6 to7 range. Also the liming product would have to be tested for a relative neutralizing value. It is much easier to raise the PH level than to lower it. About the only way to lower it is with sulfur and nitrogen fertilizer and lots of it. The soil test will also tell the pounds of available phorsphorus and potassium , magnesium, aluminum and cation exchange capacity....Ron

What you will learn from a standard soil test is pH, the measure of
acidity of the soil. hopefully you will also learn the CEC (cation
exchange capacity) which you can with the pH, plug into several
formulae, to determine how much lime is needed to move your soil
pH into the right pH range, for the crop you want to grow.

You want to take soil samples from individual fields, pull a sample
from the worst areas of each field, as these are the areas that you
want to improve.

I've done some work with this type of lime material. "Typically", this lime will have a higher "effective neutralizing material" rating than most conventional lime sources. Here in Missouri, "most" (conventional) lime will contain 350-450 pounds per ton. The analysis' I've seen from the water treatment plants will be almost twice that.....usually running upwards of 7-800 pounds of neutralizing material per ton. AS has been mentioned below, this material needs to be hauled in dump trucks and let dry. Spreading via manure spreaders is hard on the spreader and often results in WAY too much overapplication. In other words, you can't spread it thin enough via a manure spreader. A conventional spreader will apply (in the ball park) 20 tons per acre of manure. "At most" you will only need apply 2-3 tons of the water treatment lime per acre. It would be easy to create a problem with the use of a conventional manure spreader. As for the quality of the treatment plant lime....it is VERY good. It is an excellent product for agricultural use....it just has "handling" problems. 'Best solution is to haul the wet material to your farm via dump trucks, let sit till dry, load onto a regular lime bed applicator and spread. Works good. I CAN tell you that shoveling a load of lime off the top of a busted floor chain in a manure spreader IS more pleasant than shoveling a load of manure.

I would be darn careful about taking ANYTHING from a government job without paying for it, with a negotiated contract from the powers that be. Getting that lime for free might end up costing you your job and maybe even getting you in legal problems.

Worth it? I doubt it. Good luck!