Probe stuck in the ground? Don’t let it wreck your day.

If you have ever had a soil probe come off while in the ground, you have experienced a rare but stressful event!

A customer recently called with this situation and a success story about how he recovered the soil probe “MacGyver” style.  I think his solution involved barb wire, duct tape and some chewing gum.  While a soil probe with quicktatch collar can come off the roll pin on the cylinder shaft, it is very rare.  If you have had that happen to you, you may have used a shovel to dig the probe out or pulled it out with some other MacGyver device you created.  In the winter with frozen soil, your options are more limited.  We wanted to give others who may experience this rare event an idea to create your own “probe puller” if this happens to you.  The materials you need are an extra quicktatch collar, snap pin or small bolt, short chunk of light chain, and another bolt with two nuts.   Here are some pictures to show you the probe puller we “MacGyvered” with stuff laying around the shop (sorry no duct tape or chewing gum involved).  I am sure several of you may have come up with even simpler/better designs for this life-saving device.  We would love to see other designs to share with customers who need to create a device that will save the day for poor samplers who find themselves in this situation!