Phone: (308) 345-3670 | Fax: (308) 345-7880

Soil Testing

Several changes are being made to our soil testing program for the coming year. These changes are outlined
below and became effective on September 1, 2016

1. Soil test report: The lime recommendation column(s) have been combined into one column and have been moved to the Suggested Fertilizer Recommendation section at the bottom of the report. The lime recommendation column appears at the far right-hand column. This change allows the laboratory to make a lime recommendation for the specific crop for which fertilizer recommendations have been requested. Currently, the lime recommendation column was located between the pH and EL (excess lime) columns and were made for both legume and non-legume crops. In addition, lime recommendations can easily be made when fertilizer recommendations are requested for multiple crops including legumes and non-legumes. If fertilizer recommendations are not requested, no lime recommendations will be made.

2. Fertilizer recommendations: All of our recommendations have been reviewed and updated. University and industry sources of information have been used for our revisions. Some of the major changes that have been made include the following:

  • Nitrogen credits based on soil organic matter concentrations are given when calculating N recommendations for all crops. For surface soil samples were a nitrate-N test only is requested, soil organic matter must also be tested to correctly calculate the N recommendations. The organic matter test along with the nitrate-N test must be included in the “lab test code” column on our submittal form in this situation.
  • N, P, K, S, and Zn recommendations are based on yield goals for the major crops grown in our service area.
  • N, P, K, S and Zn recommendations are extended to higher soil test results for crops that have high yield goals.
  • Currently, the lab can provide fertilizer recommendation to 151 crops and will continue to add additional crops to our database as the need arises.
  • The lab continues to provide phosphate fertilizer recommendations for crops based on the Bray P1, sodium bicarbonate, Mehlich 2, and Mehlich 3 soils tests.