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Deana Namuth-Covert
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The major emphasis in this lesson is soil testing and understanding the procedures needed to take a representative soil sample. You will understand the term variability, how it affects soil tests, and how a soil test is developed.
[This lesson, as well as the other nine lessons in the Soils series, is taken from the "Soils Home Study Course," published in 1999 by the University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension.]
Soil testing is a practical and common sense means of using reliable chemical analyses to assess soil nutrient levels and determine how fertilizer use can be improved. Note that there are no words like “exact,” “precise,” or “accurate” in this definition. A key word is “assess,” which means “to evaluate,” “to estimate,” or “to set a fixed value.”
From the definition, the purpose of soil testing is:
—to assess nutrient levels, and
—to guide decisions in fertilizer use.
This project was supported in part by the National Research Initiative Competitive Grants CAP project 2011-68002-30029 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, adminstered by the University of California-Davis and by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Undergraduate Education, National SMETE Digital Library Program, Award #0938034, administered by the University of Nebraska. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USDA or NSF.
Copyright Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary 2024. All Rights Reserved.
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