Veritas vos liberabit.

Only a quick one from last night which will be repeated to make sure, HAD to sleep before sending

Day 5:-

Air Dried Water Droplet Test

Take some soil from different profiles - Top 60mm, Mid 60mm and Lower 60mm of a Hole Cut Core.
Air dry them FULLY
Water Droplet added to see what levels of water interaction occur

Contender No. 1... Ready.. You will go on my first Whistle..

Lower and Mid Zones took water almost instantly, the Top Zone was slow at between 1.5 to 2 minutes.

Contender No. 2....Ready...

The quickest take up of the 4

Lower and Mid Zones took water again almost instantly, the Top Zone was between 25 to 35 secs

Contender No. 3.. Ready

Lower and Mid Zones took water again almost instantly, certainly under 5 secs the Top Zone was howevere well over 2 minutes

Contender No. 4... Ready.... Pheep

Lower Zone just loves water, Mid Zone is very slow to take water in at around 30 s

The Top!.. I got bored after 2 minutes.

This will be repeated, it is only day 5 so will give it couple of days to dry on, slightly smaller samples taken and put side by side with each Zone, slightly more controlled than variable depth soils and rough timing.

First time I have had Mid Zones consistently pulling water in BUT that is the whole point of this, up to now I have been looking at specific problem Greens not finding out what is the 'norm' and try to get some sense into this 'Its Hydrophobic, its fine' Industry attitude.

Regardless of whether it is showing distinct signs, creating obvious problems or not the levels of soil coatings in the upper regions are so strong and the hydrophobic nature so severe this surely can not be good for the soil profile. By the nature of what it is doing or more importantly not wanting to do with water it will lead to increased nutrient run off, destructuring in wet periods like we have just seen this year to maximum effect as the particles in the soaked profile will be trying to push away from the water surrounding it, leading to softer surface, your all blaming the thatch, well I am seeing that any % of thatch the effect can be the same.

We will see on the rematch......

Only other thing today was to have a good look at the biological tests.... interesting..

Well I think we can see a difference in activity there,... Dark isn't good btw, not bad either for this test but not good until taken in context of the other 2, these are at Day 3 of this run so any activity tells us it is very active and in high numbers.

One of the other tests was kicking off for signs of Anaerobic Bacteria at busy levels too. 

Now it must also be remembered that a soil MUST have good levels of active biology for it to 'work', it is when these become unbalanced even with specific types having too much of an advantage that the problems begin I think.

Is one of the problems in understanding what is going on the Testing Protocols? No one seems to be differentiating between the distinct biological zones, the Redox lines or the lower profiles. 

QUICK CRYSTAL BALL MOMENT: It may be that points at which Biology can go off on one, creating issues within the soil are not at a visible physical change in the soil, it may be that this 'point' may not be obvious to the eye or any lab bound tests YET it is clearly definable with the right look. Expect a new gadget for your so called 'Experts' to be running around with soon.

Sleep tight every one..... sleep tight