I am looking for a good soil PH meter. I know there are plenty that test the runoff but are there any that do a good job of testing the soil itself? I tried one a while ago but it was complete crap. I am willing to pay a decent amount for a good one but don't want to go way overboard. Anyway all of your recommendations are appreciated.
Just buy a good ph pen....you just water your soil with RO water, let it sit for a bit, and then squeeze out the water. Measuring the water will give you the soils ph.
pH is the concentration of hydrogen ions in solution, ie aqueous, water-based. so there is no such thing as the pH of the "soil itself" other than the pH of the moisture within the soil, whose pH you measure by getting runoff, squeeze out, etc. meters that you stick in the soil just do a much more inefficient job of collecting this data.