Does anyone know what chemicals come in soil test kits that are found everywhere? I want to buy the dry chemicals only.
For anyone that has not seen soil testing done, you use a soil tube probe to collect a soil sample across the whole root depth. Then you mix water with the soil to make a muddy solution. You place a little solution in 3 different clear tubes. Then you add the magic chemical for the Nitrogen Test to the first tube, the magic chemical for Phosphorus to the second tube, and the magic chemical for Potassium to the third tube. These magic chemicals cause the solutions to change color. How much it changes color tells you how much of each nutrient was available.
So does anyone know what these magic chemicals are named? Google has failed me.
My estimate is that they are special chemicals made for the soil tests and they will be hard to get elsewhere. The test kits come with enough to test a few times though. You can also test pH/Alkalinity at home, which in my opinion is all that really matters. I worked at a lawn treatment company for a while and we never saw results out of potassium or special treatments.
I doubt there is anything special about them except the packaging they come in. While I agree K is a boring fertilizer, N and P need to be carefully monitored. N is especially mobile. Meaning it washes deeper with each rain and quickly out of reach of a lawn. Lawns only have roots reaching 6”. Trees of course can reach far deeper. But I am wanting to monitor the lawn. The trees will benefit from my lawn management automatically.