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DIY grass health and soil testing at home in USA

Lawn grass does not grow like that you can depend only on fertilizers and weed killers and the grass will grow better and better. 

Every grass health checkup is different from using direct lawn feed and removing weeds just by common sense. The thing that is parallelly important as feeding and weeding is soil and grass health resting manually. 

For that, you need to take samples from the various uneven-looking sections of the lawn and examine them properly. Apart from that, you also need to test soil nature so that you can make it comfortable and use right fertilizers to improve its health. 

Sounds a bit complicated for beginners but don't worry. You don't need to worry about that because here, I'm going to share DIY methods to solve all these things. 

DIY grass health and soil testing

DIY grass health checkup and soil testing are not 100% accurate but its far better than using direct fertilizers in the lawn without testing it. 

DIy soil testing and grass health checkup in USA

Let's see some other aspects of lawn grass health and soil testing and then I'll guide you to do it at home DIY. 

DIY lawn grass health testing

To know the grass's actual health at that time, you need to check the root conditions. The roots will tell you that is it growing better or losing its life. Those grasses which grow with rhizomes, don't need such tests because they can grow naturally but not too deep. 

Here are some helpful steps for you to make a grass health test DIY- 

Step 1- Mark different sections in lawn 

Examine your lawn grass from a suitable corner of your lawn landscape. Mark all the distinct sections in the lawn including all the healthy and unwell sections. 

Step 2- Cut out small turf sections for examine

Use a sharp small cutting tool to pick up a deep section of lawn turf from various marked sections in the lawn. 

For more comfort, you can take one piece, examine it, note it down, and then go on to the next one. 

Step 3- Examine the grassroots

Use a magnifying glass to examine the grassroots in depth. Go to a clean surface and examine the upper section of the turf and the bottom roots. If the roots are too short, then your grass is unwell. Even if some roots are bigger than 3 inches and the rest are too short(less than 2 inches) then it may be a sign that your grass is unwell and a few roots left healthy. 

Again, if roots are longer and deeper then you don't need to worry much but if an upper section of turf is yellowish or brownish, that may be because of drought or dormancy. 

Step 4- Note down all the data of various turf pieces

Take a notepad and note all the data from each section of your lawn grass. On one side you can note what is the condition of the upper section and roots and another side its roots' depth. 

This will give you a close picture of overall lawn grass health. 

This also will help you to take soil samples to check the nature of soil so that you can troubleshoot that easily. 

Step 5- Start troubleshooting after soil testing

Finally, you will have done the grass health checkup and now it leads to soil testing which will help you to treat your lawn grass precisely. 

Work on the same lawn sections and pick up the soil with a tool to examine its acidity and alkaline nature. 

Soil testing DIY

It's not common that every grass likes the same soil nature to grow but in different climates and varieties of grass, it depends. Too alkaline or too acidic soil is bad for lawn grass, so let's see how to test soil at home DIY- 

DIY Soil acidic testing

Step 1- Take 100-gram soil and mix it with water

Take a transparent cup for soil testing. Add 50 grams of soil in that and add one inch above water in that cup over the soil layer. 

Give it a good mix with water. 

Step 2- Add baking soda and mix it

Add a tablespoon of baking soda to this soil water mixture and mix it well. Wait for a few seconds. 

Step 3- Note the appearance on the liquid surface

Soil is acidic if the bubbles come up after adding baking soda. The more bubbles come up indicates that soil is strongly acidic. If no bubbles show on the mixture then the soil is not acidic but may be alkaline or neutral.  

DIY soil alkaline testing

Step 1- Take 50 grams of soil in a transparent cup

Take the same sized cup as you have taken above but transparent material is most important. Add 50 grams of lawn soil in it from the areas you want to test the soil. 

Step 2- Mix it in vinegar

Remember, you need to mix it with vinegar here so don't use water at all. Take half an inch of vinegar in the soil cup and mix it with the soil. 

Step 3- Note the appearance on the liquid surface

Look closely and note the appearance on the liquid surface. If bubbles come up in a certain amount then your soil is alkaline but if it doesn't then it may be acidic or neutral. 

If too many bubbles are appearing then the soil is strongly alkaline. 

How accurate are DIY lawn and soil testing?

Well, both are different methods of testing grass health and soil testing from professional testing. 

Professional methods are quite accurate and more precise than these methods. But still, DIY methods are not that bad at all. If you are living in a too far area from testing labs then it is good to have such tests DIY. DIY testing of grass and soil is far better than using so-called market lawn feed and growth boosters.

These methods can give you a close picture of the possibilities of weeds' appearance, pests attack, grubs, and a few other lawn-related queries like moss and algae. 

I can say with experience because I've done that many times on my lawn. I've taken both professional services and adopted DIY methods and both times, I found the results are almost similar. 

In number, I can say that these tests don't give you the exact pH of the soil but are an indication of strong or weak nature. 

I'm not claiming that these results are 100% accurate though but still, they can give you close results to the actual conditions of the soil. 

But grass health testing DIY method is more precise than DIY soil testing that I can say with comfort. 

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