How to Test Soil for Fertilizers and Manure?

Posted by Micro Biometer on September 18th, 2019

If you want the best crops that grow at the best possible rate, you need to take extra care of your soil in which your garden grows. Depending on your soil’s fertility and what you grow, your plants might perform for years without additional fertilizers. However, sometimes your plants may display stunted growth, depending on the particular nutrients they lack, of color leaves. A periodic soil test allows you to detect the soil problem and catch nutrient deficiencies before they progress that far. Besides this, a soil test can also provide information on soil acidity, the percentage of organic matter in your soil and its texture. A soil test is not appropriate for poor soil drainage, insufficient sunlight or insects and diseases. You need to check other aspects of plants that can cause off-color leaves. You need to check what threats can cause plants to cause stunted growth and rule them out first before moving on to a soil test.

Plants need to have the right amount of phosphorous and potassium as they are the essential nutrient in the soil. If the pH is not in the correct range they cannot survive for longer.

You can purchase a soil microbiology testing kit to ensure that your soil has the right nutrients in it. This is a useful technique to decide how much fertilizer you need like nitrogen, potassium and phosphate and overall analysis of your soil. This is a more complex type of kit and allows you to test easily for the pH levels and other nutrients. Once you have the results from your testing you can act on the information quickly.

Benefits of Soil Test Kit 

1. Over fertilization- Applying fertilizer to your soil without knowing the exact and actual nutrients will cause environmental damages. Over fertilization might result in water pollution, nutrient leaching and irreversible harm to aquatic life. The overuse of fertilizers poses a threat to the life of crops as well as humans. A simple test is recommended to determine soil quality and prevent environmental pollution.

2. Soil degradation- A general research shows that each year more than 24 billion tones of fertile soil are lost because of erosion. In addition to this, land degradation affects the livelihoods and health of an estimated 1.5 million people. Soil testing can somehow prevent soil degradation where before anything you can add soil fertilizer for soil restoration. It is important to pull a soil test once a year. The soil pH will change over time from rain events that wash away basic ions ac calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium.

3. Productivity- The current population puts more pressure on the soil than ever before. There is a need for fertile soil to produce crops that will feed the world’s ever-growing population. Improved soil health implies more crops and brings a better life to millions of people across the world.

Due to many benefits of soil testing to allow comprehensive approaches to fertilizing the piece of farm, you can buy a soil test kit.