XLUX Soil Moisture Meter, Plant Water Monitor, Soil Hygrometer Sensor for Gardening, Farming, Indoor and Outdoor Plants, No Batteries Required
- Reliable and accurate: Sensing probe ensures accurate and instant testing results, matching for both indoor or outdoor use.
- Easy to read: Large and clear dial, including ten scales, plug and read.
- How to use: Simply insert the moisture meter into soil and you'll get the test result instantly. Help your plants grow healthy and strong.
- Less hurts: Single probe, less hurts to the roots, doesn't dig up too much soil after test.
- Important tips: 1. Do not use it to test very hard soil 2. Never use it to test water or other liquid. Designed for testing soil only. 3. After use, please wipe clean the probe.
QUICK SOIL TEST AIMS TO DETERMINE THE NEED FOR NITROGEN
Healthy soil contributes to healthy crops. Farmers know this, so they do what they can to ensure their soil is in good shape. They send samples of their soil for laboratory testing to find out if they are low on important nutrients. If it is, you can take steps to improve the health of your soil. These could include adding fertilizers or growing cover crops that feed the soil.
One of the essential nutrients for vigorous crop production is nitrogen. However, most routine tests performed in commercial soil testing laboratories do not measure available nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen tests do exist, but for a variety of reasons they cannot be done quickly and cost-effectively. As a result, farmers can stop guessing about the health of their soil. They can apply more or less nitrogen fertilizer than is actually needed.
There are a couple of reasons why this is not good practice. One is the cost. Nitrogen fertilizer is one of the most expensive inputs in the soil, so farmers can spend money they don't need to spend. Another reason is the environment. When more nitrogen is added than plants can use, it can run out of the ground and cause problems for bodies of water downstream.
The lack of a quick and cost-effective test for soil nitrogen is clearly a problem. Soil scientists at Ohio State University and Cornell University believe they have found a solution. They have shown that a test originally developed to extract a particular protein in soil is actually a good test for a variety of proteins. Proteins are by far the largest group of organic nitrogen available in the soil. A good rapid soil protein test could also be used as a test for available nitrogen.
The process measures a protein known as glomalin. Glomalin is generally believed to be produced by a common soil microorganism that has a beneficial relationship with plant roots. The tongue-twisting name for this organism is arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
An earlier study suggested that the glomalin extraction method could extract proteins from other sources. Steve Culman and his research colleagues decided to test that idea. They added a variety of protein sources to the soil samples. They used corn husks, beans and common weeds (vegetable sources), chicken and beef (animal sources), and white mushrooms and oyster mushrooms (mushrooms).
They applied the so-called glomalin protocol to these soil samples and found that proteins from all sources were extracted through this method. In fact, the procedure was not limited to extracting proteins produced by mycorrhizal fungi.
The researchers therefore recommend the adoption of new terms such as soil protein, rather than glomalin, to more precisely describe the proteins extracted through this method.
This soil protein extraction procedure is a quick and cost-effective method that commercial soil testing laboratories could easily adopt. However, some specific protein types may not be recoverable with this method. More research on that point would be helpful.
"We don't have many quick ways to determine how much nitrogen a soil can provide and store during a growing season," Culman said. “This test is one way that could help us quickly measure a significant nitrogen pool in the soil. More work is needed to understand soil protein, but we believe it has the potential to be used with other rapid measurements to assess soil health in a farmer's field. '
