TESTING NURSERY MEDIA

FROM THE AUGUST 2024 ISSUE OF GROWERTALKS MAGAZINE

WRITTEN BY LYNN GRIFFITH

NARRATED BY BILL CALKINS

EXCERPT: Don’t just grab a containerized plant and call that a sample. We like to think of our potting media and fertilizers being perfectly uniform. The truth is they are not. Take about eight to 10 subsamples for each media sample you wish to collect, whether testing in house or at an outside lab. Insert the soil probe from top to bottom of the soil profile. Give the soil probe a twist with your wrist in order to bite into the soil a little bit, sort of a figure 8. This gives you a nice full profile of soil in the probe. If you just stick the soil into the media and pull it out, you won’t get a full tube of soil, especially if the media is dry. Tap each subsample into the bucket.

Read the digital edition of GrowerTalks Magazine—August 2024: https://www.ballpublishing.com/magazine/gt_24_08/index.aspx