Testing your soil well in advance of planting can greatly increase the effectiveness of your fertilization approach, and therefore can help increase the quantity and quality of your final harvest. Knowing the specific composition of your soil allows you to carefully amend the soil with just the right types and amounts of fertilizer. Visit our Sampling Instructions page for information regarding how to take representative soil samples.

List of Analyses

Organic Matter

Organic matter is the organic fraction of the soil, exclusive of all undecayed plant and animal residues.

Nitrogen, Total

Whatever it’s source, nitrogen is essential for achieving optimum yields of grain, forage, and nearly all other crops. Applying too much nitrogen to cropland however, can adversely affect the environment. Achieving optimum yields without applying excessive nutrients should therefore be a goal of all farmers.

The total nitrogen in cultivated soils should remain relatively constant over a period of years. Most of the nitrogen is present in organic matter, which varies among soils and among cropping systems on the same soil, but is relatively constant for a particular soil on which a given crop is used. Thus, regardless of how much nitrogen from fertilizers, legumes, or animal wastes is used on a particular soil, nitrogen does not normally accumulate in the soil. Nitrogen may carry over from one crop to another, but the nitrogen content of a selected cultivated soil does not increase greatly over a period of years. Thus, most nitrogen is lost from the soil in one way or another. Regardless of whether nitrogen is in the organic or inorganic form when applied to crop soils, it undergoes transformation to yield nitrate as an end product.