Lime spreading?

When having lime spread how does one know it's been spread as paid for? The ground is frozen and bare so I don't see wheel tracks everywhere. It has rained so I don't see material on the ground.

You can't really know for sure.Years ago there was a company that spread lime and fertilizer around the area and they had a reputation of spreading a ton or so at one of the owner's farms before going to the farm that was paying.Ticket from the quarry only showed what left the quarry not what arrived at the farm.

The ground sure is not frozen here and has not been for a while now. What does your supplier tell you? Maybe they could not run the whole field due to fear of getting stuck? I am surprised that anybody spread this late. Usually, material stops coming from the quarry well before now unless this has been planned for a while now. Tracks and material on top of the ground are your best clues but it sounds like there is a trust issue of sorts going on. Soil tests next fall will confirm what was done unless none were done this past fall to be compared with.

That's called trusting your supplier. Trust but verify needs to be enforced though. Do they have GPS in their trucks? If so ask to see the map.

(quoted from post at 06:18:55 12/28/21) When having lime spread how does one know it's been spread as paid for? The ground is frozen and bare so I don't see wheel tracks everywhere. It has rained so I don't see material on the ground.

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Guess you'll have to trust in that case.

I spread my own, I do trust what is on the slip is what was actually delivered.

Around me it is all brought in on dump trucks and dumped in a pile. Later they come in with a loader and the empty spreader and load the plie from the field. So there is always a big white spot where the pile was dumped and then loaded out as they cannot get it all up without loading dirt they do not want in the spreader. Havent seen any spreader trucks bringing in the load for at least 20 years now. A lot of water treatment plant lime spread here as the treatment plants have to change it out every once in a while. That was the end of lime being hauled from quary in spreader trucks. You can always tell the water treatment lime as it is brown in the pile not white as fresh lime is. The delivery driver never knows if or when the lime is actually spread as their only job is to get it to the field.

Around here, the lime is pre-delivered (by dump truck), and dumped in a pile, before the spreader shows up to spread it. A loader follows the spreader around from job to job to load spreader when its actually being spread. They do this so they don't have to wait on loads being hauled while they are spreading. Its not un-common to see a pile at edge of field waiting to be spread a week to a month in advance of the actual spreading. Also, not un-common to see the pile dumped onto a small area of crops that haven't even been harvested yet. They do this so it can be spread as soon as the crop is harvested.
If this is done in your area, and you know the spread pile showed up, that would ensure that it got there and was spread. Applicator would of had no way of taking it with them unless they left with some in the spreader or loader bucket.
Otherwise, its all just about the trust thing. If your having doubts about it, your only guarantee is haul and spread it yourself. I guess you can ask around. About if the outfit your talking about is reputable. If they screwed you over, they likely doing it to others, and got a bad rep going around.
Sometimes complicating things makes people more honest. You might hire one place to do the hauling. Another place to do the spreading. Wouldn't be as convenient to get away with some free lime.

We have to trust the dealer. An untrustworthy dealer gains a reputation pretty fast in a smalltown farming area. They eventually get caught. I know of two dealers in my area that were watering down chemicals and selling them to farmers. One went to prison I don't know if the other dealer went to prison or not. A neighbor of mine had lime applied to bare ground in the middle of an open winter. Day after day the wind blew that lime in white clouds over onto the neighbor's field. The neighbor that was the recipient was known to be sneaky and always end up on the top end of the deal with any money business with his neighbors. This time the sneaky neighbor could just sit there and smile as the lime blew over on his land. Sneaky had low PH soil that needed the lime anyway.

They do have GPS.

You might want to check the pH of your soil. If it is higher than it was before the spreading, that would prove that it was spread.

Soil test was done in the fall.

They dump it in piles in the area they are going to spread then load so you usually see the pile or the spreader and loader there. Did you have them do the grid sample or just sample the field. The difference is the grids are sampled with the location marked and then they spread according to the grid so if you need a ton per acre in an area and 3 ton in another area of the same field that is how they spread it. Takes about the same amount total just more efficient use of the lime and fertilizer. You could look for some of the heavier areas for lime. Lime we get looks like sand and dusts that color when spread.

Field sample.