Best option for testing soil ph in fields?

February 22, 2023 2:07 AM

What kit should I invest in if I want to test soil ph in greenhouse, garden, and pasture, so lots of ongoing tests, but small scale not large commercial? Willing to spend up to £200 for reliable accurate equipment that will last. Only interested in ph, not moisture etc. If I can measure straight from sticking probes in the ground, no test tubes, that would be great, but if the answer really is test tubes then I will cope. Thanks!
posted by Rhedyn to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Here in Vermont one can take soil samples and send them to the local extension program at the University of Vermont. Many state/landgrant schools will do this. I am not sure about Wales -- but I am going to reach out to a farmer friend in the Monmouthshire area to see if she has any suggestions.

At our place we had cleared a bunch of white pines and expected the soil to be acidic, but we wanted to know more as we planned to try and get grasses to grow for sheep. The UVM extension had us gather soil from a variety of locations in our fields and send them as one sample. They analyzed the samples, sent us the results (pH and minerals) and made suggestions on how we could repair the soil.
posted by terrapin at 4:59 AM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks terrapin, I should say that I have plenty of choice for places to send soil samples and have done so in the past and gotten some recommendations, but my pasture is very varied and I am interested in doing targeted improvement over small sections especially for the sheep maternity field to see if I can get it really good. So I would like to be able to test myself as I might be looking at many tens of samples.
posted by Rhedyn at 5:09 AM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’ve had a battery powered soil pH meter, not hard to use on anything at all like garden or arable soil. The cheap ones are very cheap but not terrifically accurate — of course, the real variability in soil can be high, so many noisy samples can tell you more than a single accurate one.

Iirc the better ones can be calibrated against pH strips, etc.

examples (magazine review article)
posted by clew at 10:25 AM on February 22, 2023