East Texas again, I want to try a food plot this year-im on a pipeline- I threw down 400lbs of lime last year and will put even more down this year in the next month- i keep seeing people say to do the soil test but i dont really understand why-Im on a pine platation so i can say with confidence my soild is acidic-is there something more the test will tell me?

Not a food plot expert, but we have never soil tested and always found rainfall to be the most important and uncontrollable input.

A soil test is more for your nutrients such as N-P-K than pH. Nutrients are easy to add and you can change that with not much problem. pH is much more difficult to do something about.

Rainfall of course is important and uncontrollable. It has nothing to do with a soil test. If you want to maximize your potential then a soil test is where you go.

If you fertilize and your soil PH is low then your wasting your money. For the fertilizer to work the soil PH needs to be 7 or dam close to it. If the soil is to acidic the fertilizer will not react properly. Your county agent will ask you what you plan to plant and they will test the soil accordingly to whatever your planting and the test will recommend how much lime to apply, and the rate of NPK per acre to optimize potential of germination and fertilizer utilization. Some other things you may want to do before planting is round up the plot about a month or so before you till and plant so you wont have grass competing with your plot.

It would be nice to have soil with a perfect neutral pH

^ this & fertilizer costs $;
If you're gonna put out hundreds of pounds of fertilizer, why spend $ for hundreds of pounds of one nutrient that you don't need any more of ??? Get the correct ratio you need and you can only KNOW what you need with NPK test ....

correct, if you are spending money to add anything, get the test and add whats needed

Soil and PH test will reveal what you can plant now and what you afford to plant later on.

Water and deer killing everything before it had a chance to grow are the big variables. Make sure you fence off a small spot so you can see how it grows without animals eating it.

If you're going to the trouble of putting a food plot together, I would test ph and npk so you know what you're working with. It's cheap compared to the money and effort that goes into a food plot.