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| I have a few aquariums and have an at-home testing kit where I can test the water for all sorts or chemical levels that might pertain to healthy fish. Is there any kind of at-home soil test kit, or does one pretty much have to send a sample off to a lab? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by karl_bapst_rosenut 5a, NW Indiana (rosenut@rosenut.com) on Sun, Dec 16, 12 at 7:53
| It's best to send it off. A soil test is more than comparing colors with a chart or sticking a test paper into a bit of water. The labs that perform the tests have equipment that can do a much more thorough and accurate test, A good lab will tell you what and how much of any nutrient is needed to get your soil at the nest fpr roses or whatever you're growing, I recommend Dr.Good Earth from EarthCo. EarthCo offers a professional soil testing service designed for home gardeners giving convenient, fast service plus easy-to-understand reports and recommendations to improved garden soils and diagnose plant problems. Three Good Reasons to Test Your Soil... Most soils are deficient in one or more nutrients An EarthCo Soil Test Will Give You: Full instruction are on their website. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Soil test
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| Thank you Karl. I have been at my current home for about a year and only now am doing some serious garden planning, testing my soil will be a good start. |
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| Check with your county extension (cooperative extension). Most states offer very cheap soil tests that are fully adequate to the home gardener's needs. You can bring it here for discussion since the state lab tests usually come with minimal commentary. A home soil test kit will probably cost about as much as a state test and will yield only minimum information (NPK and pH). Plus you may have trouble getting reasonably accurate results. |
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| Michael, I went ahead and sent a question to the Master Gardeners in Brazoria County about soil testing through the county, they say it will take 48 hours to answer. The 'complete' soil test at the sit Karl recommended seems pretty complete though. I have no way to gauge accuracy between the county and a private organization, why do you think that the private firms may be less accurate? While Texas A&M and anything connected with it has my highest respect, I've personally seen gummint work from time to time that was less than stellar. I'm grateful for your input though, if the county is reliable and low cost, it might be a good deal. |
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| Texas A&M offers basic soil testing for $10. Soil testing is free in CT--we found that we just needed to add nitrogen to our soil--which meant that we could use cheap lawn fertilizer and leaf compost to meet the needs of our 200+ bushes. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Texas A&M Soil Testing
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| Zack, awesome link, thank you. If A&M is doing the testing, I have confidence it will be done well. Michael thanks again for mentioning county testing. |
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| I meant a home test would be less accurate than either a state test or a professional private test. The county extension agent serves as a go-between for the state test and will answer questions you may have about the results. The actual test is performed at a central lab supported by the state department of agriculture and the land-grant state university. You can expect this lab to be competent in every state. California does not provide soil testing for home gardens, so people there (and maybe some other states) have to use private testing labs, which are much more expensive, but supply more detailed information. |
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- Posted by wirosarian z4b WI (My Page) on Mon, Dec 17, 12 at 12:23
| I agree that the home test kits are not very good & "Fine Gardening" had an article several years ago that made the same observation about them. The reason why I'm not a fan of these home test kits is that I'm retired from a job where I used a professional grade field test kit for water, All our test chemicals had expiration/replacement dates & we had to store our kits out of direct sunlight & keep them out of extreme temperature situations because all these conditions could cause the test chemicals to degrade & give incorrect results. |
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