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 Eleutherios
Registered: 07/05/08
Posts: 76
Last seen: 13 years, 7 months
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 Testing Soil pH 
#99188 - 07/31/08 03:30 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Is this a routine necessity at all? I have a electronic pH meter that a friend used to use for his hydro grows. How would I go about testing soil with this. Mix some in water? How much? Thanks
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 coda
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 4,736
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Re: Testing Soil pH [Re: Eleutherios]
#99358 - 07/31/08 06:55 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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to use an electronic meter to test soil you need to mix in equal parts soil to water. So, lets say you take a gram of soil for a sample, you'll need a gram of water to mix it with to test.
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Sirius
Saturn Ascends
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 1,540
Loc: The Milky Way
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Re: Testing Soil pH [Re: coda]
#99393 - 07/31/08 07:10 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Another option would be to test the run-off water and see the difference between that and the pH of the water before its added.
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Eleutherios
Registered: 07/05/08
Posts: 76
Last seen: 13 years, 7 months
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Re: Testing Soil pH [Re: Sirius]
#100304 - 08/01/08 10:55 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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If you were to do that would the run off equal the soils pH. goes in 5.6 lets say comes out 6, the soil would have a pH of 6? Also the meter measures ppm. How do you calibrate this? Would that help to monitor salt build up in the soil? How would I tell the difference between salt and outer dissolved solids?
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Sirius
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Re: Testing Soil pH [Re: Eleutherios]
#100563 - 08/02/08 07:56 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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From what I've read about testing pH of soil, the first few drops that come out will be more of an accurate measure than if you let it drain out completely before you measure. As far as I know, it should pretty much be the pH of the soil, of course, if the pH of the water coming in is much different than what the pH was initially, then it would adjust the pH of the soil to some extent. If you tested using the same pH coming in as one previously has used to water, though, it should be more clear what the pH of the soil is. If the pH of the run-off is different than the pH going in, it would need flushed more with water adjusted to the pH that you want it to be. I don't really know much about soil though, or how easy it is to adjust the pH of the soil. Different elements in the soil might make it gravitate towards a certain pH, depending on what kind of stuff you're using. Coco tends to have a natural pH drift that will pull it up from the intended 5.5-5.8 into the lower end of pH 6, for example.
So your pH meter is a combination meter? Does it come with an EC meter, or a TDS meter? The EC meter measures the electrical conductivity and the TDS meter measures the total dissolved solids. The readings each give off will be different from each other, but they both pretty much measure the same thing. I wouldn't know exactly how yours would be calibrated, but I'm assuming you'd need a buffer solution that you know what reading it should say, and then adjust it to that... One of those can definitely come in handy for knowing if you need to flush your soil and also whether or not your nutrient water is too strong. 
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Yrat
Happy Planting
Registered: 04/20/08
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Re: Testing Soil pH [Re: Sirius]
#102256 - 08/04/08 09:15 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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if you have access to RO water (reverse-osmosis) or ddH20, putting a small amount of soil into a bit of water should yield you a solution that has the same pH as your soil.
this works because pure water has absolutely no buffering capacity, and should be absolutely neutral at pH7. adding soil to it will instantly bring the pH of the whole solution to that of the soil.
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Lucky7s
Captain
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 86
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*DELETED* [Re: Sirius]
#106989 - 08/10/08 12:56 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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*DELETED*
Edited by Lucky7s (08/18/09 06:34 AM)
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DJYoshaBYD
Grand-High Pooba Joo
Registered: 08/04/08
Posts: 48
Last seen: 12 years, 2 months
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Re: Testing Soil pH [Re: Yrat]
#109613 - 08/15/08 09:18 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yrat said:
if you have access to RO water (reverse-osmosis) or ddH20, putting a small amount of soil into a bit of water should yield you a solution that has the same pH as your soil.
this works because pure water has absolutely no buffering capacity, and should be absolutely neutral at pH7. adding soil to it will instantly bring the pH of the whole solution to that of the soil.
nice.. 
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Chronicbs
Registered: 07/17/08
Posts: 107
Last seen: 15 years, 11 months
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Re: Testing Soil pH [Re: Eleutherios]
#110007 - 08/16/08 12:29 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Eleutherios said:
Is this a routine necessity at all?
It certainly is possible but it is far from a necessity... Just mix some dolomite lime pellets into your soil before hand and I don't think you should never have any p.h. problems. If you didn't mix them in before hand you can just add the pellets to the top soil. Even without the lime you shouldn't really need to test the p.h. for a soil grow, I never used either lime or a p.h. meter and I used soil for years... I've only used the dolomite lime since moving to coco.
Edited by Chronicbs (08/16/08 12:30 PM)
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