Farming Video | Balancing High-Calcium Soils with Ammonium Sulfate

12 Feb 26 • 2m 3s

Todd Kimbrell Takes On 97% Calcium Soils—With Sulfur and Smarts

When Todd Kimbrell saw soil tests showing 97%+ calcium base saturation, he knew it was time to try something different. With help from Kelly Garrett and the XtremeAg team, Todd decided to throw 450 lbs of ammonium sulfate per acre across a 100-acre test plot.

Why sulfur? Because in these extreme soils, nutrients can get tied up—especially when the heat hits. That sulfur might just be the key to unlocking what’s already there.

The precision application matters too. Todd’s using a G5 John Deere spreader with section control to lay it down clean, even, and accurate—especially important when the app gets pricey.

This isn’t a quick fix. Todd’s planning to taper rates in future years and keep tracking results to see if they can shift those high calcium numbers over time.

It’s the kind of long-game thinking that turns a challenge into an opportunity—and Todd’s ready to see what the data tells him.

00:00:00 Todd Kimbrel Extreme Ag. Uh, we've been spreading some fertilizer and talking with extreme ag guys, 00:00:07 and especially Kelly, a lot about fertility and looking at our soil. Uh, we're in kind of a unique area. 00:00:15 Uh, we have real high calcium base saturation, so we're 97% plus base sat on our cow. And, uh, he had an idea, I've heard of it before, 00:00:26 but he had an idea we're, so we ran a test, uh, did a hundred acre farm with, uh, ammonium sulfate a MS at like 450 pounds. 00:00:36 Uh, gonna see if we can balance the soil a little bit better and maybe release some other nutrients with that, you know, 00:00:42 that heavy rate of sulfur. So, uh, it's always been a challenge. The application, uh, we've switched last year to a G five, 00:00:51 a deer spreader with the G five new liter spreader, uh, section control. So the entire spinner frame on the back, back there, 00:01:00 slides over for section control. Uh, so that really helps on a test like this when you're, you know, a high dollar, high volume application, uh, 00:01:10 section control is worth its weight and gold, in my opinion. And this spreader gives us an opportunity to do that. 00:01:17 So, uh, just looking at balanced the soil, uh, that's a challenge we run into. When it gets hot and dry, I think we tie up a lot 00:01:25 of nutrients in that real high calcium level. So, uh, just trying to be open minded, trying to balance the soil and see if we can maybe amend the soil. 00:01:36 And this will be a multi-year project on this farm. We're not gonna just do it this year. We're gonna, we may taper the volume down in the years 00:01:44 coming, but we're gonna keep trying this, keep doing it on this farm, and see if we can mitigate some of these extreme base SATs, 00:01:52 you know, with calcium and see what, see what comes of it. 00:01:55.125 --> 00:01:57.545

Up Next