I got the results back from the lab (top 12 inches = pH 6.8) and they don't support my field kit (pH 8.0). This makes total sense.
Considering how long I've been nursing my bottle of indicator solution (stuff goes bad), I truly should have seen this coming. I hope my humble apologies for a premature and boneheaded call are acceptable.
Soil pH did come up from pH 6.5, but certainly not enough to cause any of the nutrient problems I was speculating on. In fact, the lab has available P at 53 mg/kg (10 is adequate), so even if I was to induce pH 8.0, I am unlikely to see P deficiency symptoms.
Other highlights, Organic matter is up at 8.6%, clay is 0.6%. CEC is up at 39.6 and must be largely accounted for by the compost and charcoal. Nitrate-N is high at 24.4. I see higher in my work, but am very glad I have the charcoal to help hold it. Email me at psmall2008 AT landprofile DOT com if you want to receive a copy of the soils data as an xls file.
I learned valuable new stuff in the process of digging into the books, and in discussing my problem with other soil scientists. Researcher Christoph Steiner kindly wrote me to tell me that he observed that the chicken manure he used raised soil pH more than the charcoal he used. I also stumbled across the handy fact that charcoal above pH 8.2 (buffered to that point by CaCO3) indicates CaCO3 has been replaced with CaO b/c it was made at closer to 1000oC than 600oC. Higher temp is common for boiler ash, thus the proliferation of published data that indicates wood ash in the pH 12-13 range.
