Luster Leaf Rapitest Soil Tester 1609CS

Based on my location and my own perception of my soil, I was expecting High Alkaline PH and low Nitrogen based on my grass(Bermuda) growth/health. I had no idea what to expect on Phosphorous and Potash. Overall this test confirmed what I thought, and I’m glad I did it. As for ease of use, it’s not super easy but I didn’t find it as difficult as other users. I was able to dig up my yard, 4” deep. I put a sample in a paper bowl and broke it down as small as possible. For the PH it specifically states in the instructions it’s best to use distilled water. I would highly recommend this. I do PH on my tap water for my fish tank And I know my tap water is also highly alkaline so to keep water quality out of the test use distilled water. As for the other 3 tests you have to make a 5:1 mixture water to soil and shake it up real good, then let the particulates settle out. I let mine settle for 2 hours. It says 30 mins-24 hours in the instructions. As far as the complaints about the capsules, I will confirm they aren’t super easy to open. I used a non-serated steak knife to slit open the outer side and it opened right up and I was able to pour it pretty easy. All said and done my kitchen counter looks like a lab experiment was going on. Bottomline: fast results, not too hard, very happy I did it. I’ll make some soil amendments and check again with the other pills.

A friend of the family, after hearing of our gardening troubles, suggested we try a soil test kit to see if our garden patch was deficient in any plant nutrients. This kit was inexpensive so I decided to give it a shot. It's reasonably easy to use. You open the package (which is easy, unlike some of those sharp, hard to open electronics bubble packs) and remove the tubes, then remove the capsules inside. Go out to your garden patch, dig a 4-inch deep hole, then fill each tube to the first line marked in it. Bring the tubes back in, empty a matching-color capsule's contents into each, fill with distilled water to the fourth line on the tube, shake, and wait. Getting soil into the tubes is pretty easy. Emptying the capsules was more difficult. We ended up cutting off the top of them with scissors very, very carefully, and dumping the contents inside. Filling with water to the fourth line is also difficult because the tubes are pretty narrow (around the size of a AA battery). If I had it to do over again, I'd get an eye dropper to add the water and find a better way to open the capsules. The two halves seemed glued together well. The results were easy enough to read. Our soil is pretty alkaline, has virtually no nitrogen in it, a good amount of phosphorous (maybe even a lot), and a lot of potash. Determining how to correct this, using the info in the instruction card, is a bit more of a challenge. It's all presented as a series of tables showing various plants and their desired pH levels, a few different fertilizer/supplement types, and how they affect the soil. It's clear we'll need to add something with a lot of nitrogen and probably something acidic to lower the pH a little. I'm certainly no agriculture expert. :) For the price, the convenience of Prime shipping, and the ease of use, I'm happy with the kit. With the inclusion of an eye dropper and a better way to get the test chemicals into the tube than the capsules, this would be a fantastic little kit.

it's not that this soil test kit is any worse than any other similar kit in regards to ph testing it's that the whole philosophy behind it is flawed. On receiving my kit yesterday and showing it to my neighbor she brought up a very good point. Since you mix the soil with water to do the test how do you mitigate the ph of the water. I hadn't thought about that when I purchased the kit. As she predicted the test was indeed affected by the water. The kit recommends using distilled water so that's what I used. I tested well rotted compost that had been sifted; I wanted to check it before I mixed it in my beds. The sample came out highly alkaline. I tested soil from our yard and got the same result which is odd since we are surrounded by pines and oaks both of which run acidic. This struck me as odd so I used the last two ph testing capsules to test the same two soils but with tap water. This time both samples came up ph neutral. So I think that to test the ph I will have to go another route since the test is obviously affected by the water used. On the other hand the tests for nitrogen, phosphorus and potash seemed to work quite well. So it wasn't a total loss but I wouldn't order this for ph testing, I think it's best to another route.

Last year we removed sod on the east side of the house, a small 6' x 20' section to plant a small veggie garden. Tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers, pumpkin, watermelon, and some carrots. We fertilized, watered, and weeded, but nothing really grew. Not a tomato was harvested, a couple of small green peppers, underdeveloped carrots, and vines from the pumpkins and melon, but no fruit. Wanting to see what the reason might be we took some soil samples and were about to mail them into Purdue University for analysis when a friend suggested this Luster Leaf Tester. It was fast and easy to use and told us we were very low in nitrogen and too high in ph values. We added urea which corrected the nitrogen shortfall, and a little amount of aluminum sulfate to lower the ph. The ph dropped very slightly, but we will have to work on that over a period of years. Adding more sulfate is not the answer, and the best ways to lower ph are to do it gradually...using compost and other ways. The idea of having a garden full of sulphuric acid is not appealing. The ph now is right around 7.0 so it should be at least okay for some of what we plant. Good product to give you an idea of your soil contents.

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Worked very well!

The test is quite accurate but expensive. Capsules dont last much (disintegrates if not used for couple of months) in Indian hot climatic conditions.

Results appear to be accurate and easy to follow, clear instructions.

Instructions are easy to use. However it is had to interpret results if you have no background knowledge especially for the P, N, K values. Good product and exercise to use if you want to teach your kids chemistry (grades 5+). Also a great exercise to get your kids outdoors and involved in the gardening process.