Why Are There So Many Different Soil Testing Procedures?
Over the years, many different soil testing procedures and extracting solutions have been evaluated in an effort to identify the method that provides the most reliable prediction of crop yield response to nutrient application. It has been determined that some soil testing procedures are best suited for particular soil types and climatic regions while other soil testing procedures are better suited for different soil types and climates. Also, we have learned that there are often several alternative soil testing methodologies that generate equally useful predictions of expected crop response for a given region. There are several different soil testing procedures that work well for Maryland soils. Why Are There So Many Different Ways to Express Soil Test Results? The actual numerical soil test values are products of laboratory procedures that determine the concentrations of extractable plant nutrients in the soil. Thus, soil-test values are merely arbitrary index numbers and not measures
