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News Blue Rapids Free Press - Thursday, October 25, 2012 4A
Riding Club...
The Blue Rapids Riding & Harness Club held a benefit ride on Saturday. More than 90 riders participated in the
event. The ride was to help Jeremiah Specht with medical expenses. (Photo by Deb Barrington)
Former State Auditor Joins Task Force
By Gene Meyer
Kansas Reporter
FAIRWAY — Two years
ago, Kansas Legislative Post
Auditors told Brian Pekarek
how they thought the tiny north
central Kansas school district
he led could cut expenses by
$232,000 a year.
Now Petarek has been
named to a state task force to
help all of Kansas’ 286 school
districts find similar ways to
streamline their spending so
that more of their funds end up
in classrooms.
Kansas Gov. Sam
Brownback appointed the Iola
Michael Vogt
Marshall County Extension
Agent
With the low drought
induced yields, producers
should consider soil testing
their fields this year.
Especially on fields that were
planted to corn because there
could be higher levels of residual
nitrogen.
Farmers should think about
sampling their fields while
weather conditions are mild.
Soil testing is a low cost way
of putting on the proper amount
of nutrients, that way you don’t
over fertilize and waste money,
or under fertilize and reduce
your yields.
Emphasizing the need to soil
test on a regular basis is a summary
of ten years of soil sample
results in Marshall County.
71% of all the agricultural
soil tests required lime.
55% of the agricultural
soil tests required additional
phosphorous.
Less than 1% required
additional potassium.
90% required additional
nitrogen, which is no surprise.
However, you do want to apply
the right amount of nitrogen, or
you might waste it.
We are seeing more
fields requiring sulfur and zinc.
Soil tests are relatively easy
to take. Follow these procedures:
Use a soil probe, (the
Extension Office has one you
Unified School District 257
superintendent to the
Governor’s School Efficiency
Task Force following criticism
that only business executives
and accountants were named to
the panel three weeks ago.
Two years ago, as leader of
the smaller Clifton-Clyde
Unified School District 224,
Pekarek and the school board
there volunteered for a performance
evaluation by the
state auditors as part of an earlier
effort to see how Kansas
schools might cut overhead and
send that money to classroom
instruction. Only six other dis-
can borrow), coring device,
pipe, auger, trowel, spade,
knife, or other tool to collect
slender cores of soil samples to
a total depth of 6” to 8” for a
routine soil test. For a profile
nitrogen soil test, you will need
to take two samples, one that is
6” to 8”, and one that is 16” to
18” in depth at each location,
and place in separate plastic
buckets.
For reduced-tilled/notilled
fields – a split sample
from the top 6 or 8 inches (i.e.
0 to 3 inches and 3 to 6 inches)
is encouraged to assess pH and
nutrient stratification near
the surface.
Using a zigzag pattern,
collect 10 to 20 soil cores every
40 acres.
Collect cores from areas
of similar soil type and crop
history.
Dump cores from each
40 acre set into a plastic bucket
or tub, and mix throughly.
Remember, if you are doing a
profile soil test, you will use
two buckets. One bucket will
be used for the top soil sample
and the other bucket will be
used for the sub soil sample.
Place 1 pint of mixed
soil in the soil sampling bag
that is provided to you
from the Extension Office
and label it. Do not dry the soil
sample artificially.
Take it to the Extension
Office so that it can be sent to
tricts similarly volunteered.
The audit found that Clifton-
Clyde could save as much as
$232,000 a year in operating
expenses, primarily by putting
more students in partly filled
classrooms and eliminating
departments with low enrollment.
Kansas statutes make it an
official policy to aim to spend
no less than 65 percent of state
school money on programs and
projects that involve actual
classroom instruction. But
determining exactly what constitutes
classroom instruction
needs to be the first order of
Soil Test After A Drought
the K-State Soil Testing Lab.
Make sure you can answer
some questions about the
field’s cropping history, fertilizers
applied, and the tests that
you would like to have run.
In about a week, we will
receive the results of your
fields, and I will make the soil
test recommendations.
The cost of the soil test will
depend on which soil tests you
would like to have run.
The routine soil test, which
tests for soil pH, phosphorous,
and potassium, costs $6.50 per
sample, plus a charge for
postage.
A routine soil test plus
organic matter and profile
nitrogen test will cost $10.50
per sample, plus a charge for
postage.
If you would like to test for
sulfur and zinc, we have an irrigation
soil test that tests for
everything mentioned above
plus sulfur and zinc for $15.50
per sample.
I recommend profile nitrogen
test for crops that will be
planted to corn and milo. Also,
if you are in the EQIP or CSP
conservation program, you will
need to have the routine plus
nitrogen test.
We can run other tests for
zinc, sulphur, organic matter,
chloride, cyst nematode, and
soil texture to name a few.
Soil tests should be taken
on a field at least every four to
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business for the task force,
Pekarek said Thursday.
“We have to ask how they
came up with that 65 percent
number and what’s in it,” he
said.
Task force members are
scheduled to meet Nov. 9 in
Topeka. Brownback, meanwhile,
has also opened an
online portal on the official
state website where Kansans
can anonymously post suggestions
for curbing perceived
spending abuse or increasing
spending efficiency.
five years,
unless you have a high yield.
Then you may want to test a
little more often.
Once the soil sample is
taken, you should send or
deliver the soil to a reputable
soil testing lab.
In the Extension Office, all
the soil tests go to the K-State
Soil Testing Laboratory, and all
results and recommendations
are based on years of research
conducted by Kansas State
University. There are differences
in soil testing lab results,
but K-State’s Soil Testing
Laboratory has a national reputation
for its accuracy.
Remember, soil testing doesn’t
cost, it pays, and soil test
results are no better than the
sample collected in the field.
For more questions about
soil testing, contact me at the
Marshall County
Extension Office at (785)
562-3531 or E-mail me at
mvogt@ksu.edu.
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