Accurate pH tester for outdoor soil

[Treevly]

I have one of those $9 thingamabobs which you stick in the ground. I would gladly trade it for a kick in the ass. I also have one of those thingies which require you to add powder and water to dirt, shake vigourouly, and read the colour chart. Trouble is, the colours on the chart are 12,000% denser than the colours which actually show in the tube. Translating one to the other may be a fine art, but I may not live to perfect that art. Is there a pH tester product which you use and like? Thanks very much.

 

[Grapefruitroop]

I dont have one, but the BluLab meters have a very good rep.
They have a Soil Ph Meter...

 

[AgentPothead]

I'm not sure on which meter, I've just used a generic ph pen off amazon. But slurry test is the way to go for soil ph tests.
https://blog.hannainst.com/soil-ph-testing

 

[voidpainter]

Try kelway soil pH meter, a bit pricey but accurate. No need for batteries either.

 

[Fred Sanford]

The Blue lab soil meter works great in both soil and liquid. I loved mine until it fell and the glass broke. No repair, just be very careful with it, they're pricey.

For what it's worth all the soil I tested was always 6.2 to 6.4. Many different pots and bins but nothing outdoor, it broke before spring.

 

[Digigig]

Neutral Soil

Neutral Soil

You can mix Bone meal and lime. Then feed Bat / Sea Bird Guano. It should fix your Problems.

 

[Treevly]

You can mix Bone meal and lime. Then feed Bat / Sea Bird Guano. It should fix your Problems.

Thanks for that, but I did not actually say that I had a problem. ..... but I do. It have pH in various spots ranging fom 6.25 to neutral. The lower stuff could be better. I have a bag of "dolomite soil sweetener" which I bought a zillion years ago. Would that help?

 

[voidpainter]

I’d rather go with agricultural lime not dolomite lime. Ag lime has less Mg and more Mg will cause you problems if you’re already high in Mg.

Woodash would also raise your pH but be careful, the ash I use is over 9 pH

 

[Treevly]

Would bonemeal be useful?

 

[voidpainter]

Bone meal has minimum effect on pH, I’d say you wont spot a difference. But if you want P and want to raise pH a bit then go with soft rock phosphate. Adding that raised my soil pH for around 0.3

 

[mdgg4]

Best way to check soil pH is the runoff or a sample of soil directly from your root zone, the rhizosphere to be correct. Half soil half distilled water shake real good let set several hours check pH of water. Fuck those probes have ya all fucked up.

PEACE!

 

[voidpainter]

From my experience a good soil probe works fine outdoors. But It looks like it gets fucked if you use it on mixed mediums for indoor. For example peat certified at 6.0 will show up as 6.8 on a probe. Stick it in a “super soil mix” it will show all kinds of weird numbers on different spots.

But stick it in real soil outside and its very accurate, gives same values if compared to a slurry test. Very useful if you want to measure on a field without taking samples for slurry and waiting hours for it to settle.

And Im talking about a proper probe not that 8$ crap.

But if it’s feasible to make slurry tests I agree it probably better.