Luster Leaf Rapitest Soil Tester 1609CS

I was amazed to find out that my soil is neutral and has zero nitrogen, potassium or potash. I knew it was poor soil since it is old yellow hard as rock clay soil. Helped my buy lots of soil amendments for my garden.

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.

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.

Very small collection tubes. I’m not even sure I could figure out what the reading meant.

Seems to work good. We just moved to a new house. When we looked at the house with the realtor, the yard looked great. But after only 30 days, we returned for our final pre-closing walk through and about 1/3 of the front yard was dead. The remainder was yellowing. After moving in, my new next-door neighbor came over to introduce himself and said don't bother trying to save the grass, it doesn't grow here. He said that the seller re-sodded just before selling, and he had sodded his yard 3 times without success. He said he thought that the trees in our yards were responsible for killing the grass.I bought this kit to check the soil. It took a long time for my soil to settle after mixing it with the water per the instructions, but after it settled, it seems to have given me good results. It said that my soil was deficient in Potassium, and extremely deficient in Nitrogen (off the scale low). I have been putting down a 29-0-10 fertilizer every other month, and after only two applications, I have gotten compliments on how nice my grass is growing! After 7 months of living there, the yard is now nice and green, and the 1/3rd of it that was dead when we moved in has almost filled in (there are still a few small spots where you can see soil peeking through). So far, I am very happy with the results!

Wasn't what I expected. Was hard to verify the colors matching to the guide. Wouldn't repurchase.