soil ph testing

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trouble9039

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So I have thumbed thru what seems to be endless pages in this forum and can't find what I am looking for!! It seems my PH in my soil is off, I have A soil test kit and just don't belive it! What is the best way to test soil??? This is my first soil use and really noy liking it soooo far! Any help would be great.
 
its best to test the runoff after you water. If you have the test strips...then after you water, collect some of the runoff and test that. Also, if you have a soil ph meter, you can actually test the soil that way.
 
I've used those soil test kits before, and I don't like them either; I don't think they're accurate. If you have a pH meter then use it check the runoff water after you water. There are different ways of checking the pH of runoff. If I were to test the pH of the runoff I'd water well until there was a little runoff. Then I'd allow maybe 15 minutes or until the water in the soil has had a chance to assimilate the ions from the soil. After that I'd add more water until there is a good amount of water in the collection dish that the pot is sitting in. I'd take that water and keep running it through several times to help ensure that runoff water is the same pH as the soil. Measure the pH of this water.

This is just my idea of how to check runoff, perhaps someone else has a better way of doing it.
 
I got one of those two prong ph,moisture,light meters from Ebay for cheap. Seems to work ok but I have nothing to compare to for accuracy.
 
I was told not to test the runoff! I am doing great in hydro but this soil is complicated!!
 
Ok, if you don't want to test the runoff, then stick a teaspoon down into the soil about 3" deep or so, and get a teaspoon of soil for testing. Put the soil in a cup or some other container and add a teaspoon of distilled water pH 7.0. Mix the soil and water together well. Stir the mixture every three minutes or so for about 15 minutes. Then, stick the probe of the meter in this solution and measure the pH. However, I use my cheap meter for this, because the meters I have are for measuring solution pH, not for sticking directly into soil. I don't want to risk damaging my good meter. I've done this once before, and it didn't seem to hurt the meter.
 
thank you everyone! I went to the store and got A probe! I have A PH pen but didn't want to use that for this....
 
Those 2 prong probes are pretty inaccurate from my experience. I went through 2 with my plants looking like hell untill I bought a simple liquid drop ph test kit. Even cheaper and way more accurate. I test my ph the same way Alistair does, and it works like a charm. If anyone said don't PH runoff water, they were'n't referring to this method, cause this way of PHing soil is tried and true. Good luck man, you might want to check the accuracy of your probe next to your ph pen and see how on it is...
 
Yes, I was going to say what blancolighter said, but I didn't want to irritate you since you just went out and bought it. I tried those cheapy probes and in my opinion, that's exactly what they are, cheap.
 
yup, my soil probe said my soil PH was a respectable 6.4, but my plants kept showing necrotic spots. After consulting the sages in here and checking my runoff PH and low and behold I was below 5! Probe PH meters are officially junk in my book.
 
Bought a prong PH/ Light/ Moisture meter yesterday at Home Depot, around $7, not the best but gets the work done
 
Alistair Young said:
Ok, if you don't want to test the runoff, then stick a teaspoon down into the soil about 3" deep or so, and get a teaspoon of soil for testing. Put the soil in a cup or some other container and add a teaspoon of distilled water pH 7.0. Mix the soil and water together well. Stir the mixture every three minutes or so for about 15 minutes. Then, stick the probe of the meter in this solution and measure the pH. However, I use my cheap meter for this, because the meters I have are for measuring solution pH, not for sticking directly into soil. I don't want to risk damaging my good meter. I've done this once before, and it didn't seem to hurt the meter.

I would like to make something clear. When I was referring to the "cheap meter" I meant the cheap digital meter that I have. I would never trust my pH measurements to the pronged probe meter. The pronged moisture meter will work well provided that the tip is scoured with a scouring pad prior to using. As for the light meter component to that meter, I don't know.

There are relatively inexpensive digital meters for $50.00 or less. Some of them might not be the best, but they sure work better than the $7.00 meter. In my opinion, the $7.00 meter will only cause you grief.
 

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