Ewest, I just had to give you this update.....
Rather than calling the soil testing lab, last Thursday I went to the County Extension office. The office assistant was very helpful, gave me a couple of soil sample boxes and paperwork for submitting samples for HOME LAWNs. She told me she was unfamiliar with pond bottom sampling but would check with one of the agents and have them reach out to me and she sent me on my way.
Later that afternoon, I received a call from one of the agents, an older gentlemen who professes to have been around for quite some time. "In all my years of doing this, I have never had anyone request a soil sample of their pond bottoms...." So he was going to call the lab and find out whether or not they do them, what form I should submit with the sample, yada, yada.
So, after having a weekend to drink copious amounts of beer while watching all my teams get beat in their conference championships, I think what I will do is just send the pond sample to the lab using the HOME LAWN form and insert a note explaining the origination of the sample, etc. I'll also keep some excess of the sample as backup in case they refuse to analyze my sample and I have to go elsewhere.
Surely their are other pond owners in VA who have been through this before?
Regards to all,
Paul
