Talk:Soil pH
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[edit] Table
I just set up a little HTML-table to fix the typos in the image. Perhaps you might replace the image by this table:
| Acid | Neutral | Alkali | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4.5 | 5 | 5.5 | 6 | 6.5 | 7 | 7.5 | 8 | 8.5 | 9 | 9.5 | 10 | |
| Nitrogen N | |||||||||||||
| Phosphor P | |||||||||||||
| Potassium K | |||||||||||||
| Calcium Ca | |||||||||||||
| Magnesium Mg | |||||||||||||
| Sulphur S | |||||||||||||
| Iron Fe | |||||||||||||
| Manganese Mn | |||||||||||||
| Boron B | |||||||||||||
| Copper Cu | |||||||||||||
| Zinc Zn | |||||||||||||
| Molybdenum Mo | |||||||||||||
-- JeLuF
pH is not the ratio of hydrogen ion to hydroxyl. If it were, then neutral pH would be 0, not 7. Dwmyers 22:22 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Massive correction needed
Ouch! I don't have the time currently to fix this article, but there are several problems with it. I can't see that there is any support whatsoever that Ca, Mg, K etc. become insoluble. Rather the opposite is true. During acidification the relase of cations is increased. So, in the short term, soil acidification increases the availability of Ca, Mg and K availability. Eventually, however, the cation exchange resin gets depleted. Also, an article that talk about soil acidification must mention mineral weathering. Mineral weathering might either increase or decrease due to acidification: Low pH, high pOH (yes, that's right), high DOC, high pCO2 and wetness (mineral surfaces needs to be wetted) are factors that all increase weathering rates (there are thus 5 weathering reactions), but weathering is product inhibited, thus high Al, Ca, Mg, K, Na concentrations decrease weathering rates. An article about soil acidification (or indeed lake acidification) should also talk about Acid Neutralizing Capacity (ANC), positive ANC being alkalinity and negative ANC being acidity (although alkalinity and acidity often have operational definitions that differ from the definition of ANC (which is based on a charge balance).
One advanced place to start reading about soil acidification is the webpage of the Coordination Center for Effects (which is a body under the United Nations Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution): http://www.rivm.nl/cce/publ/ You'll find plenty of links there and information of state-of-the-art modeling of soil acidification. Saittam 08:40 21 Aug 2005 (CET)
OK, no one pithed in and I have a course coming up where I don't want my students to spend time trying to learn things that are simply wrong (some of them do go to wikipedia to get an overview). I thus made a quick and dirty fix to the article, removing some things which I deem as not consistent with the current scientific understanding, and adding a few things which explain why the world isn't quite as simple as the prior text seemed to indicate. Saittam 12:27 Sep 30 2005 (CET)
Also in review of the Hydrangea, the uptake of Aluminum is most important in causing the blue color of the flower. This requires a ph of 5.0 to 5.5 to release the Aluminum from the soil and make it available to the plant. The mere addition of Aluminum Sulfate is not the answer. The ph must be in range as well. 8:42 am EST FEB.17 2007
[edit] Chart needs a legend
The chart needs a legend to describe that Blue=available nutrient White=unavailable nutrient
[edit] Affecting Acidity
What happens if i want to increase the acidity of soil. It goes very in depth about redution but has little information on increasing the pH. --Iamcon 11:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- As of now there are a few sentences on acidifying soil. Feel free to expand with some references. Kingdon 13:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Commentary
I'm moving the following commentary by Jpaxson (talk · contribs) to here:
- Unattributable commenter "... thi[s] is totally wrong don't believe in this." removed from citation. I'm sorry, mystery commenter, but this is how science works. You are free to believe or disbelieve anything you wish. However, demonstrated facts are just that. If you disagree so strongly with the above conclusions, please conduct your own experiments that show the above article to be untrue. Please do not interfere with others who seek knowledge gained by the scientific method.
The talk page is the place to discuss the article, not the article itself. Kingdon 13:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
