Best Way to Test Soil Nutrients 🌋🌳💲 Should You Get a Soil Test?

[@GARDENER42]

I used a friend's Rapitest kit a few years ago & it said my soil was low K. Then had a lab test (they're not that expensive in the UK - about £10) & it showed high K... I've not bothered since & my plants & vegetables keep on growing just fine.

[@brianseybert192]

Completely agree with everything regarding soil test for a home gardener. I only send in samples of my vermicompost on occasion as a manure to see how things are going, I do biological assays with my own microscope. Have a safe and prosperous New Year! Stay Well!!!!

[@seanrich1367]

Thanks for posting. I agree home test kits = save your time and money. Pro soil analysis can be a wonderful thing.

[@ZZ_Trop]

You seem to always drop a video on stuff I'm thinking about. Most of the time you completely ruin it for me but now I look forward to you ruining my day when I see a new video 😂.

[@gioknows]

Great video. Cheers from Tulua, Colombia 🇨🇴

[@Alan_CFA]

I live in Austin and garden in raised beds. I use peat, composted manure, and potting mix as a medium and added organic fertilizer to it. I planted cover crops as it was late October when I finished building the beds. The cover crops grew well followed by vegetables with varying success - we had an extremely wet spring here with mushrooms growing in the raised beds as well as the lawn; the rain rotted the potatoes. In any event, I knew things were growing fairly well, but I wanted a soil test performed. I used Texas A&M’s service. Their Routine Analysis is $12 and covers PH, NO3-N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, S and Conductivity. This test is a base test for basic fertilizer recommendations. However, I chose the Routine + Micronutrients option which adds Zn, Fe, Cu, and Mn to the analysis above and costs $19. The results were back in about 8-9 days vis email link to a pdf file or pdf attached, i forget which. Anyhow, it contained a graph for the levels, including a Crtitical Level line (past which, you don’t add nutrients). It also included fertilizer recommendations which, for me, meant doing nothing, because they had plenty of everything. That was reassuring.

[@racebiketuner]

My local lab can analyze leaf tissue for nutrients. This is a good option for avocado production, as flowering is very sensitive to boron.

[@Chris-op7yt]

super phosphate will address your low P, if you wanted to. couple of things, one is that leaf tissue spectronomy is another way farmers can measure nutrient defficiency/toxicity. it's a different way of assessing nutrients, as abundance of nutrients vs availability due to conditions is complicated. Yet another way, that is not nutrient specific, is testing the sugar levels of fruit produced. Leaf spectronomy is not cheap, but a very precise comparison of nutrients present in your crop vs published optimum values for crop. second thing is something nobody seems to talk much about. reason why home gardeners avoid lab tests is that we often dont have homogenous soil for much area. even a modest veggie patch itself will have various soil strata and mineral amendments added in a typical suburban garden situation. once you take all the garden borders into consideration, i'd really need a soil test every ten feet or so. i think this is why a lot of the hesitation with soil tests, and we just end up bumbling our way fertilizing. we see interveinal and/or wholesome clorosis, and we apply fertilizers and foliar micronutrients. not applying nutrients is not really an option, as things arent going to improve by themselves, and we do need to replenish nutrients as they are used up, especially on poor soil in suburban home situations.

[@Mark_Nadams]

Well you have managed to convince me that testing my little garden's soil is a waste of time. I garden on about 1/2 acre. I'm not going to afford or learn how to use a professional test kit. The home gardeners test kits are notoriously inaccurate. Professional lab tests take time and effort I just don't have the time to learn how to take samples accurately or patience for the lab results return. I'll keep doing what I am doing and let the plants and the soil life in our little garden tell me what they need.

[@lorrainedurgee1761]

Excellent video - I agree with all your saying - saving us a lot of money again - thanks .

[@exvictorian3605]

Thank you

[@jennifergreene8891]

PH is all I am interested in.

[@DavidMFChapman]

I always think I should get my soil tested, but I never do it. I just keep spreading home-made compost on my raised beds. So far, so good.

[@bart9409]

After looking at 1,000s of soil test results most of our Agricultural Agents in our area don’t recommend lab tests for the homeowner. The reason… they all come back essentially the same. They all need nitrogen and nothing else most of the time.

[@michaelboom7704]

Like this video!

[@viktor.voytovych]

Thank you!

[@sdoitla1431]

I purchased Miracle Grow (MG) organic soil for my raised beds. I noticed problems right away. This organic soil was about 40 percent uncomposted sticks, bark, and wood chips. I sifted out the chunks and filled the beds. Most of the seeds that were direct sow never germinated. Those that did had very poor performance and never got to a harvestable size. I finally decided to have a Professional lab run soil test done. The results were rather shocking. Nitrogen was at 1.61 ppm while the recommended is between 30 and 60ppm. Calcium was at 421.32ppm, well above the recommended high of 320. Their recommended target for calcium was 240ppm. Magnesium was at 100ppm with the recommended range being 27 to 70ppm. The recommendation was replace the soil as the calcium and magnesium levels were so high they would prevent proper germination of most vegetable seeds. Unfortunately, I'm not the only person in my area to have this issue with this MG product. Apparently, the soils sold under the MG moniker are produced at facilities all across the US and the one producing the soil we've been able to get are not following MG's corporate guidelines.

[@fabsouth69]

I am under the impression that generally the pH of a soil doesn't matter unless it's extreme. What matters is at the rhizosphere the interaction between the organic organisms and the roots. Is this true??

[@achang8599]

I heard that soil too high in N attracts aphids. Is that true? Thank you for providing truthful, helpful tips!

[@orlandop1804]

A pesar de lo que se dijo en el vídeo, yo he tenido buenas experiencias detectando deficiencias de nutrientes en las HOJAS de los vegetales y en mis árboles frutales. En los árboles frutales he detectado deficiencias de fósforo y de calcio, viendo resultados positivos dias después de aplicar la enmienda necesaria. En los vegetales observe amarillamiento en las hojas inferiores, claro ejemplo de falta de nitrógeno, las plantas volvieron a la normalidad 3 o 4 dias después de aplicación de nitrato de amonio. Para una detección un poco mas preciza, es importante identificar los patrones de coloración de la hoja y en qué zona de la planta se encuentran las hojas afectadas. Claro que no es el método mas exacto, ya que en ocasiones, ciertas coloraciones se puede deber a excesos de agua, minerales antagonistas, y hasta por enfermedades fungicas y plagas. Pero en la mayoría de las ocasiones SI FUNCIONA. Saludos a todos!!!!!

[@charlesmawale9114]

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