How To Test Soil PH

Today, we're actually talking about soil pH, so this is determining how acid or how alkaline your soil may be. 

How To Test Soil PH

This is really important from a soil-management point of point of view because an acid soil or an alkaline soil can have some nutrient deficiencies, or some issues that may impede, how the plants grow in your soil. Most plants enjoy an optimum range of between 5 1/2 and 7 1/2 on the pH scale.

How to test your soil

It's important that we test to determine what we're working with.

The first step is to actually take your soil sample. Once you have your soil sample, you simply take a section from your surface soil. I'm just using a simple soil tray here which has small divots in it and allows for the soil to sit in it easily. You could use maybe just a plate or something simple that you have at home. Now, I've put a small section of soil in. I might do it a couple of times just to be sure. And you may like to do this at differing depths. This one is from the 0 to 10 centimetres, but you may want to go down a little bit further and take some from 20 to 30 centimetres. We'll do one with that as well.

Now, testing for soil pH is very simple, and this is something you can do yourself. You can pick up a soil testing kit from your local plant nursery, or it may be from your rural supplier in town. These little kits don't cost very much money and it's an easy way to test in the field. I've got some bigger sort of bottles here, but it's the same material that you find in your smaller pack. This is the material that's going to react with the soil and help to give the reaction.

I'll just put a couple of drops onto the soil. And then we use white powder simply to show the reaction in a more visual sense. We have our soil here. It's reacted with our liquid here and the powder is showing the colour reaction that we're seeing.

Using one of these simple cards (You will get in kit) we can determine what our soil pH is. The more acid a soil is the more green or yellow that the soil will react. And if it's alkaline you'll see a much more purple or grey reaction within the soil. Here we are looking at a pH of around about five in the surface soil. And I'd say similar, around about five, in that lower 20-30 centimetres as well.

Here, in just a couple of minutes you're able to sample your soil and test it simply and know that you have a soil pH that's around about five, which when we're talking about optimum pH ranges is slightly more acid than what we would want, but it gives us some simple methods for moving forward. So, now we know we may need to apply something to this soil to help it fit within the optimum pH range.

Summary
In summary, to test for your soil pH, grab a sample of your soil. Do it a couple of times, just to be sure. Put it on a white plate or something white that will show the soil indicator changing. Take the sample. Add your reagent, and then your powder, and use this simple card to identify what your soil pH is. And from there you'll know what you're managing pH wise. You can speak to your local agronomist or local natural resource officer and they'll help you to manage your soil for the pH issues that you may have.