Testing For Soil: Here's Why You Need Soil Testing Services For Your Garden Soil
As an environment enthusiast, you must be careful with whatever you do to ensure you don't hurt the environment. If you are not keen on your landscaping and gardening practices, you might harm the soil and environment without knowing. Taking care of the environment involves simple things such as maintaining healthy garden soil. Unfortunately, you can't understand your soil's nutrient profile if you don't test it. Carrying out soil tests is critical because you easily determine its contamination levels, nutrient profiles, soil composition, and microbial efficiency, among other characteristics. Here are three other reasons why you need to test your garden soil.
You Understand Its pH Levels
You need to know the pH levels of your garden soil because soil pH changes from time to time due to various factors. If you don't test it, you may not maintain the normal or recommended pH levels—something that might affect the quality of your plants or crops. Usually, soils with increased pH levels lack nutrients like iron and phosphorus that some shrubs, plants, or crops need to grow. When the pH level decreases, the garden soil becomes a bit toxic and unsuitable for other plants. Soil testing helps you know whether the soil is highly acidic, alkaline, or even slightly acidic, so you can decide the vegetables, flowers, and grass to plant in your garden.
It Helps You Boost Soil Fertility
As a farmer or garden owner, you need a good soil fertility management plan to successfully carry out your farming practices. Carrying out soil tests is the best way to help you create an efficient fertility management plan for your garden soil. When assessing soil fertility, you determine the nutrients in the soil and how efficiently the plants can utilize them. The results help you know what's ailing your soil's health and how you can improve its fertility to support your agricultural activities.
It Helps You Avoid Fertilizer Wastage
Some people assume that the more fertilizer they apply, the more fertile their garden soil becomes. However, the opposite is true. When you over-fertilize your garden, you ruin the soil's health and also hurt the environment. Moreover, you also end up using more money on fertilizers that just go to waste. When you test the soil, the results help you know the specific fertilizers the soil requires at that time. If you don't test it first, you will apply a lot of inorganic fertilizers and other nutrients like potassium and phosphorus that your garden soil doesn't require.
If it's long since you tested your garden soil, you should consider getting soil testing services. They will help you maintain healthy soil and, at the same time, conserve the environment.
Share