colweather.org.uk

I found my 30cm bent stem soil thermometer, that I have had since 2002, had cracked at the bend when I went to read it one morning in late December last. As one can no longer purchase mercury-in-glass thermometers nowadays, have any members got any suggestions on what I can buy to use in its place?

You could try one of Gemini Data Loggers TinyTag Plus loggers with an external sensor.
http://www.geminidataloggers.com
As long as you can house the datalogger in some form of shelter to protect it from the weather you could then log earth temperatures hourly.

Regards
Richard Griffith
Horsham AWS

I have used a straight thermometer encased ina metal sheath. A suitable length of plastic water pipe into the ground, and a plastic bottle top cap. Insert the thermometer into the ground, cap it off. job done. Lots of these thermometer appear on ebay so oyu should be able to get one quickly.

Mike

I've used a "normal" thermometer with the bulb encased in wax to retain the temperature as its read, and (like Michael has done) used a plastic piece of pipe hammered into the ground.

The thermometer is attached to a length of string and capped off with a old bottle top.