🎯More ACCURATE PH than MySoil? How to test your own soil pH like a pro ++ lab recommendations ++
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- Опубліковано 26 кві 2024
- Non-commission link to my 21” stainless soil probe:
(very well made and sharp… actually stainless)
a.co/d/bBzgTS2
Non-commission link to my pH tester:
a.co/d/bjaNNua
Non-commission link to my microgram scale:
a.co/d/hW6KZDR
Non-commission link to the 23ml pipette used:
(these are pretty handy to have around actually)
a.co/d/jhSm5dU
Non-commission link to my favorite spreader (works for pelletized lime):
a.co/d/bmlQnV0
For a quality soil test I recommend your local extension office. Google “turf extension office near me”… typically a nearby college. You’ll need to buy your own soil prob. Stainless recommended to reduce possible iron contamination.
If you don’t mind spending an extra $40 or so and you’d like a more thorough test, Midwest Laboratories is the highest quality test I’ve seen (who I use once per address… I don’t mind paying a premium once).
Waypoint Analytical also has a good reputation for excellence in the space but I’m not as impressed by their test vs. a local turf extension office.
I highly recommend round filing any soil test nailed in water. I consider them of no value whatsoever except as a tool for a marketing department maybe. Tests like Mysoil and Yard Nastery or Soil Savy I will not personally use unless I’m demonstrating their inaccuracy beside the results of a reputable lab.
I prefer PH between 6.0-6.8 ideally.
Plants can thrive at a very wide pH range, but less issues (like disease or deficiency) and generally better color can be expected with on point pH.
A lime video is already in the making.
Pelletized lime saves time and I like a Solo chest mount spreader. In my area 60 pounds per 1,000’ is the rate I typically apply. Water slowly gets the lime into the soil. 1 liming per 10” of rain ballpark is the rule of thumb I use per interval (when multiple applications are needed).
#soiltest #lawncare #diylawn #howto - Навчання та стиль
Try a firmly attached hose clamp for setting consistent sample depth🤓
Thank you, very helpful video!!
I would think 2:1 vs 1:1 ratio would have a more noticeable difference when the soil pH is at the lower or higher end of the scale. But at the end of the day consistency in your year over year testing, in either method, should drive the change you want if you stick to the same analysis process. Also, soil time in water solution needs to stay consistent but I do wonder how long that timeframe should be. Testing every couple hours for 12 a hour period would be an interesting DOE. Anyway, great vid man. Thanks.
Spec is 30 minutes. Testing every hour would have probably given the same result. I tested after 2 days and the 6.6 moved to 6.7 and the 5.9 moved to 6.1… after 4 days I tested again and the 6.7 stayed but the 6.1 moved even more to 6.2.
My guess is the acid gets closer to neutralized the longer it goes prior to testing. Buffering capacity probably has something to do with how far it moves before plateuing but IDK.
I’m keeping my test going and I plan to test every few days just to see what happens to try to mimic the unreliability of a mail in water PH result. I’ve seen mail in water be 1/2 a point off side by side and I’ve even heard of pH being closer to a full point off.
I phoned Hanna because I wanted to test spray solutions also and stuff on the other end of the spectrum.
They helped me choose, also they have a dealer for storage solutions, ph standards and cleaners near to me.
That store sells supplies to beer and wine makers and distilleries.
That’s some next level stuff right there… after 6 months sitting there this cheap tester knows the 4.0 is 4.0… it knows the 7.0 is 7.0 and it knows the 10.0 is 10.0. Since PH is logarithmic, I think that’s a pretty good sign that we’re getting a result pretty close to lab to the point that any error shouldn’t be enough to change turf color or anything.
Home tests are where I’d expect them to be based on prior Midwest Laboratories test done on each lawn Feb 2022 so that isn’t an air tight case but it’s good enough for my needs. I still have that dirt… I could send that to local extension as another data point possibly.
The most important thing in Lawns and Gardening. Always do a Soil Test! Multiple Tests depending on your Property. Soil in Balance can fight-off weeds better. Soil in Balance, can actually use all that Fertilizer you have been putting on your Lawn, and not working. It's the Soil PH. Aeration, Dethatching, Amended and Adjust the Soil PH. Use your Lawn to Recycle your Yard and Lawn Waste, and Organic Food Waste. Know the PH Zones of your Property.
Makes sense in the garden… I don’t agree in the lawn, but everyone gets to vote on their own property what they want to do and how they want to do it. If that’s the way you like to do things, great. Lawn for me is just something I enjoy seeing how good I can make it look with as little effort as possible. I think data supports synthetics in lawns and they can also cost a whole lot less. One study was done for 15 years… one plot 100% organic and the other plot 100% synthetic. The organic fert plot had 10% more bacteria but not necessarily better turf. Organic fert is about 9x as expensive in my area and it is at least others for the local environment but it also requires 6-10x more deisel to transport, and a lot of it is burned human crap by market share (which means pharmaceuticals and PFAS.
There isn’t enough nitrogen in food scraps or coffee grounds to make a dent in the needs of turf, but I could see that working better in a garden. Bagging or mulching I could go either way with, but I want less organic matter in the lawn for a few different reasons so I bag.
Grass likes pretty much everything you mentioned except it doesn’t like excess organic matter and organic fertilizers are bad for the lawn and the assumptions about them being good for the environment don’t hold. Grass can offset much imbalance in its root exudates but if PH gets too extreme that isn’t helpful.
And don’t do “a soil test”… do a reliable soil test… 50+% of soil tests people get are worthless… they need to be done per spec or no scientific trial can be applied because non spec tests can’t be compared to anything or adjusted per any standard.
great video. pH on my last 2 soil tests from my extension have been 8 and 7.8. This will be convenient for to monitor my Citric + ES applications and see how much I'm moving the needle.
Yeah, AMS is surprisingly effective + citric at about a pound per K’ every few inches of water and you might want to also apply a little elemental sulfur which will start doing something once PH gets under 7.5 or so. Sulfur bacteria don’t do much to help sulfur effectiveness at PH that high, but the citric can help bridge that gap.
And as a possibly relevant tip: generally I advise to stay away from Lilly Miller AMS because it is prilled in wax as best as I can tell and that could be pretty hard on drainage long term.
In areas of notably low pH and especially in areas of high PH especially self testing PH makes a lot of sense since pH is a slow play at the extremes.
Hope it works out and seems accurate for you. My readings have all been in line with expectation per prior lab tests and they’ve been spot on in the calibration solutions pretty consistently so I have a fairly high confidence that the self test I’m doing are good enough to be able to judge lime accurately. No lime for me front this year. I don’t expect a color response in my back from lime but I’m liming the back anyway. Ideal PH is less likely to have issues and liking is easy and benefits the next homeowner as well. 5.8 is totally fine, but I’d rather see it closer to 6.5 give or take.
With PH around 7.8 I’m assuming you’re in an area with not a lot of rainfall or low altitude.
@@LawnCareMinimalist Growth Potential is just hitting 60% in my area (South Texas Border). I've done 1 application of Citric (1lb/K) and 1 application of Elemental Sulfur (5lb/K). We'll go 90 days + without rain + 110F easy.
My test showed deficiency in N & P, so I'm applying a 1-1-1 until I can test again and switch off to AMS/Urea. I figure I'll ride the 1-1-1 for the year and test again. My plan is to apply 2lbs N for the year in addition to my Citric + ES apps. All my applications are foliar.
Oh, I was thinking ES was a typo meant as AS (how some people write Ammonium Sulfate) but elemental sulfur makes sense now.
AMS is magical for pH. I’d switch to AMS ASAP at your PH.
A 1-1-1 is not what you want in heat (very salty). Rey Ito syndrome :)
East Texas can have some deficiency and West Texas doesn’t generally need anything… based on your PH and lack of K needed it would be more likely that you’d be in West Texas so I doubt you’d need much P if any.
In the interim while you wait for your PH to correct, the fertilizer I’d recommend is a ProPEAT 13-5-8 unless you already have the 1-1-1 because a 13-5-8 ratio is already more P & K than the grass can use so there’s no chance of deficiency while waiting and some things can get better as PH improves since acid is generally what solubilizes nutrients…
ProPEAT has a really nice prill size and is AMS based. If your PH we’re lower who knows what your soluble PPM’s would look like, so loading them 1-1-1 before you get your PH on point (especially with that much heat… salt index) likely is going to have cons and possibly no pros other than nitrogen.
Are you referring to a quality soil test like a local turf extension office or Waypoint to come up with that “low” conclusion or was it a mailed in water soil test?
What would be even better than ProPEAT would be spray grade AMS and a very small amount of MAP to supplement since the test you had didn’t even recommend K.
8-1-4 nominal shoot NPK ratio… no point of loading P Beyond an 8:1 until PH allows more confidence in what’s actually there… adding K is not your friend in heat… “Stress blend” or any bag that says “stress” on it isn’t honest marketing because potassium beyond about 70PPM generally increases stress on the plant rather than reducing it.
What approximate city?
@@LawnCareMinimalist I'm in Laredo. 2Hrs south of San Antonio.
I sent my soil test to Texas A&M Extension. A m3 test. N ppm was 3 and P ppm was 38. Their recommendation was .8lbs N/K and .6lbs P/K. The reason I chose the 1-1-1 over going the AMS route is due to not returning clippings to the turf often because of disease pressure. I get hit with GLS + Tarr almost yearly. My disease prevention program isn't great. My plan was to go 2lbs N for the year and retest, while investing in better fungicides to prevent GLS + Tarr, so that I might be able to return clippings and switch to AMS. I definitely could switch to AMS as I have spray grade on hand. I'd just need to get a MAP and figure out how many ppms I've added thus far with the 2 applications I've done.
That Texas A&M soil test should be solid… just never know… when I hear soil test it doesn’t mean anything without a qualifier of who did it.
Yeah, if you want to do a 1-1-1, ProPEAT does a 10-10-10… all ProPEAT products are AMS based which will move your PH noticably faster than a urea nitrogen source. I would personally stick with my recommendation of the 13-5-8 (at least near times of stress) and you could do the 10-10-10 in low stress months, but I would personally also choose the 13-5-8 then as well because AMS is going to be the logical choice for N for a while, and you won’t see deficiency with that ratio because N will be the limiting factor. If you eventually get your PH closer to 6.5 you could get away with Scott’s starter every 10 applications or so and apply potassium around a 1:3 to nitrogen… easiest thing would be Scott’s “Winterguard” 32-0-10 for the other 9 applications and the cheapest thing might be urea and SOP applying K about 1:3 to N.
But first, ProPEAT or spray grade AMS (similar price). You should most likely be AMS only for your nitrogen for the next few years and I wouldn’t want a 1-1-1 salt index when a 13-5-8 is more ideal and allocates more salt to AMS… at either ratio N is the weakest link. Texas is hot… less salts becomes more important.
I don’t know what returned clippings has to do with AMS… potassium is going to dance away to some extent but you could build your Phos number, but I wouldn’t want added disease pressure so I’d be bagging and get my P & K from my applications.
Any fertilizer with at least an 8-1-4 ratio has very little risk for seeing deficiency (this is the typical dry weight ratio of top growth. Since 13-5-8 is beyond that it would build your numbers without being too excessive for salts.
Lots of ways to do it, but that’s what I’d do… easy… faster results… better health during stress (and there’s lots of stress). I don’t remember how big your lawn is but AMS is essentially a fast forward button on your PH if you don’t mind spending the budget on it. Buy one bag of ProPEAT maybe and see what you think… I have no use for it, but it’s very nice stuff and I’d probably be granular in your situation.