I tend to agree with the previous statement regarding acidic soil. It seems to me that the majority of people use some form of peat based soil mix. Most peat moss is innately acidic especially as it decomposes releasing all of the delicious nutrients our bananas love
. Also through my personal experience I have discovered that peat has a very interesting characteristic of changing its pH depending on how wet or dry it is. (This also appears to be true of most soils however the pH swings do not seem to be a drastic as they are in peat moss). Ultimately this serves to seriously complicate the problem because when one attempt to pH the soil are the looking for the pH when it is dry or when it is wet. At this point most will say well get a pH meter or test kit and then suggest to follow some protocol involving digging up a soil sample and then testing a soil water dilution. However this tells you nothing as well because there are so many confounding factors it is impossible to differentiate what is the soil pH and what is the effect of the water dilution. Recall that pH is a measure of the concentration of free hydrogen Ions in solution however this is not always the case depending on how you define an acid or base, Arrhenius (concentration of free H+, Brønsted-Lowry (acids are proton donors and bases are proton acceptors), or Lewis (acids are electron pair acceptors and bases are electron pair donors). This confounds soil analysis results because each type of tester is based on a different Acid-Base Definition color kits are usually based on the Arrhenius definition while electric/analog meters are based on the Lewis definition. Therefore unless you know how they analyzed the soil when they made the claim bananas like acidic soil you really don't know if you are assessing the free Hydrogen Ion concentration (Arrhenius) or the Ionic Composition of the soil (Lewis).
Either way the point I was trying to make was that when I first began Gardening I attempted to optimize everything I could based on the best scientific information I could find and spent way too much time trying to adjust the pH to exactly 6.8 because that was what the literature said and I usually ended up killing my plants in the process. Eventually I realized that Gardening like everything else is both an art and a science. Thus, one must learn to read the plants and interpret what they are telling you and use the science to confirm it. For example if your plants are showing weird "nutrient deficiencies" (which personally I believe are to an extent acid base issues but that is a discussion for another time) and the leaves look deformed you probably have some form of an acid base problem and it would be large enough to detect on any type of meter. Or if you are growing in dirt or beds use a meter initially to get in the general pH range. But after that let the plants do their thing.
In summary learning to read your plants through experimentation is way more reliable than the most expensive and well thought out pH/Nutrient/Light/ Moisture test anyone could ever preform. So don't stress the pH and try to learn from the people who have been doing it forever and having success such as my new friend Abnshrek who saved my nanners. Huge Props I look forward to learning as much as I can from you and the rest of the experienced Gardeners on this website. You contributions are invaluable to us noobs. I’ll post some pics soon when I have a chance.
Hope this Helps,
Bryan
P.S. I apologize for any spelling/grammer areas as you have probably deduced I am a scientist not a writer.