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soil pH soil tester

hotenuff4u

hotenuff4u

Bought one of these $6 pH testers that looks like a fuel gauge on a pole. When in air it's always balanced at 7 of course, supposed to use it in wet soil to work. My soil apparently is always 7, the dirt in front of my apartments is 7 as well.

Seems to me I should have gotten some sort of slightly different readings, should I return this thing to the store?

If so, what kind of pH tester do you recommend? This is the only one I saw at the big box store
 
hotenuff4u said:
Bought one of these $6 pH testers that looks like a fuel gauge on a pole. When in air it's always balanced at 7 of course, supposed to use it in wet soil to work. My soil apparently is always 7, the dirt in front of my apartments is 7 as well.

Seems to me I should have gotten some sort of slightly different readings, should I return this thing to the store?

If so, what kind of pH tester do you recommend? This is the only one I saw at the big box store
Click to expand...

Generally speaking those soil pH meters are crap. Most people just pH the water/nutrients before watering. If you water til runoff and don't let salts accumulate, the pH of your media should stay pretty close to the pH of the nutes/water.

You can also test the pH of the runoff water after watering and compare it to the pH of the water you're pouring in the soil. If there is a big difference something is up.

I use that shitty liquid testing stuff for now but i'm getting a nice EC/pH meter for my birthday!
 
The 4-in-1 Rapid Tester does fine in dirt but not in water. Check e-bay, someone is always selling them. I think I paid $14 or so.

Mike
 
I say return it, I've never found a pH meter that is actually accurate. I have one that was sent to me by AJ (thanks AJ!) that I use for sauces but I had to calabrate it (it's off set by 3 pH) and use that for my sauces to make sure they are stable.

Your best bet is to send the soil in for testing. It's usually around $13 and includes loads more info than pH.
 
imaguitargod said:
I say return it, I've never found a pH meter that is actually accurate.
Click to expand...

Iggy,

FWIW, my tester returned the same results as the soil analysis Michigan State (OSU don't do dirt testing!) provided.

Mike
 
I got to put my two cents in here...I also have one of the meters I sent Iggy and use it for sauces...I just don't trust it for soil...

if you go the long route (and a PIA), you can use a regular soil analysis kit...

I bought one of these kits last year and love it...accuracy is key in analysis...

http://www.biconet.com/testing/LaMGarden.html
 
crappy products just piss me off, why make crap that people are gonna return constantly anyway, geez....I think I'm gonna spend some money and buy this analysis kit AJ's talkin bout

only reason is my mom brings over gallons and gallons of filtered water out of some really expensive system she has installed in her home, so I figured that'd be good for my plants to, skip all the junk in the tap water, but she mentioned to me the other day that her water is supposed to be basic....supposedly good for your body for some reason, got me re-thinking using her water, but I don't want to use our tap water and ....I was thinking that there's a chance my mom bought her filtration system from someone who's full of sh@!

haha
 
it may not be the best for my plants but I just use city water most of the time...I have three 55 gallon barrels set up for rain water collection but that doesn't last long when you water 300 plants...
 
I tried three of the under $20 pH testers that you stick the wire down into the dirt and all three of them were returned. Never once saw the needle move no matter what I stuck the wires in. Junk is the only way to describe them and I agree with you on how frustrating it is that manufacturers put crap out and stores stock it on their shelves.

I ended up using the one that you add a bit of soil, water, and the contents of some little green capsule to. It did work but I'm not sure how trustworthy the results are.

Your best bet is to go ahead and spend the money and get something good.

Best of luck to ya.
 
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