Is there a machine/equipment which can identify the nutrients of soil and fertilizer?

Question

i would like to know the percentage of nutrients that exists in a sample of soil and fertilizer. Is it also possible to do it manually ?

Answer 1

Yes, and Yes, if you have the equipment, and knowledge to do it.Take it to you local County Agricultural Office. There is a way to field test hay, for protein, But it has been years, and I have forgotten, what you have to do. There are PH test kits you can buy, at garden centers. They could tell you who to see for what kinds of tests you want run.

Answer 2

I work in a lab and we do these tests, but they require a great deal of equipment, knowledge and experience.

Answer 3

At this point in time, not really.  Most of the soil analysis/plant nutrition techniques can be found in the three pack set of "Methods of Soil Analysis"

https://portal.sciencesocieties.org/Purc...

But this is not a simple process, nor is interpretation of the data.

Soil samples are sent to a soil test lab, nutrients washed off the exchange site, then concentrations measured and plant available nutrient level (usually in lbs/acre or kg/ha) is estimated.   Several other items that affect soil fertility and plant nutrition (soil pH, organic matter content, EC, etc) are often determined from the same sample.  None of these are one step estimates, meaning you do not use just one extraction to determine these measurements.

Finally, most of these are estimates of available nutrient levels.  Consequently nothing is truly written in stone and the interpretation of the data is from past experience with that particular soil and the cropping system utilized at that spot.

This leads to the other issue.  How do you interpret soil analysis and plant nutrition data, which is based primarily on one crop (corn, soybeans etc) and the plant you will be using (peach trees for example) has never been grown in that soil.

As far as fertilizer analysis, use the label, but save a sample.  I have only had one incidence in which the analysis of a sample from a bagged fertilizer product did not match the label.  However, I have seen multiple samples from bulk applied fertilizer (mixed at the plant and applied locally) did not match the label.