 So here in southwest North Dakota we're starting to see more and more of an issue with soil acidity or low pH in the top soil, especially in long-term no-till where you're putting down large amounts of nitrogen over time. We're starting to see this in the top two inches if you've been applying surface nitrogen or a little bit deeper down if most of the nitrogen is coming on as a hydrosimonia. So a typical zero to six or a zero to twelve soil sample might not pick up a small layer of low pH, but we're really starting to see the impacts of this issue and maybe they thought they were fine, but after this producer changed up their soil sampling technique they were able to pick up a very very low pH sometimes below four, anything below a five point five you're going to start to see issues. So once the pH drops below five point five that changes the availability of things like aluminum and manganese. So aluminum causes something called aluminum toxicity and that stunts the roots of the plant and makes it drought stressed. So in a year like 2020 in southwest North Dakota we're under drought conditions, right? So you have a reduced root system as well as reduced moisture that doesn't really add up to a very healthy crop. And you have a crop that's already stressed in these low pH areas. You're seeing extremely stunted plants and more than likely not very good yields. So the best way to manage this issue is to fix the soil pH. So that would be done with application of lime at least one ton. Our research is showing about two tons of lime minimum to really change that pH surface applied lime application. It's not going to be a very quick fix. So in the meantime while you're waiting for that soil to change there are some strategies and management tools that you can use to try to get through this issue. One of the most important tools is your crop selection, alright? So things like hard red spring wheat have some tolerance especially within certain varieties. So here at the Dickinson Research Extension Center the past three years we've been doing a low pH variety trial starting out small in 2018. A few more in 2019 this year we have 16 hard red spring wheat varieties as well as four Durham varieties. So we're testing these varieties out to see which one is going to do best under these conditions. Along with that we're looking at some different amendments in the soil and we need a few more years of data to really tell you if there's anything you can put on other than just lime to try to fix this issue. There is some work out of Montana that shows putting high amounts of phosphorus with the seed can help spring wheat yield better under these conditions. But really that crop selection is what's going to help you the most. So if you can choose some type of hard red spring wheat variety that shows a certain tolerance that would be great. Landing out of Montana has a certain gene in it called the TAAL1 gene that allows for the plant to be able to handle aluminum toxicity. We know for a fact that soren is susceptible to this issue and we're out here testing to see what other varieties are susceptible or tolerant. We know that Durham is very very very susceptible to aluminum toxicity. As you can see over here we have some very yellow plants and Durham does not like low pH very much. Crops like oats, teff, corn can handle this low pH issue a lot better and you're definitely not going to want to choose any type of legume. The legume gets hit twice as hard in these low pH conditions because not only are they being impacted by the root size but acidic soil also impacts bacteria. Why do we need bacteria for legumes? Well that's how we fix our nitrogen, right? So in order to make sure that we're getting the most out of our field choose something that's going to do well under the conditions that you have. On your left here we have a known susceptible variety soren grown in a low pH environment. On your right is a known tolerant variety landing. You can see that there's a pretty great difference in the amount of above ground mass as well as some slight differences in the root mass but really these are both being impacted by that low pH environment. If you compare these to something in a more neutral environment you're going to see a difference in growth. These hard red spring wheat varieties even though they don't look that great don't look much different than your Durham variety which is also extremely stunted under these conditions. So this low pH variety trial in order to truly see how much it's impacted by this low pH issue we also have a site that was planted the same day with the same treatments on a soil where pH isn't really an issue. So we're also dealing with moisture stress out here but when you remove the added stress of low pH and the impact that has on water uptake and those kinds of things you really have a big difference in growth. So on your left here is soren our susceptible check grown at our low pH site and this is soren grown same day on your right much larger not dealing with that aluminum toxicity issue. So these look like two completely different varieties but under different conditions this variety does really well when there isn't a major stress but when you put something like low pH on this variety you're really decreasing your yield so you're not getting the most out of those dollars put into seed for that crop. Here on your left we have landing from our low pH site and on your right landing from our neutral pH site. There really isn't much difference in the height of these plants but you do notice that there is a tiller at our neutral site. The plant is overall looking a little bit healthier than this one but that tolerance really comes through when you see the healthy plant versus the plant from that acidic site. So it's really important that you're choosing a variety that can handle these low pH issues. This fall and winter I'll be presenting on data from our variety trial at this low pH site so we'll have more information to follow on which varieties you should choose if you have to deal with low pH in your field.