Laboratory Manual on Chemical Analysis of Soil Properties

Analysis of soils for their chemical properties holds great
relevance for identifying soil-related crop production
constraints and for taking timely measures for soil
management. Appropriate estimation of soil nutrients helps
recommend necessary amounts of chemical fertilizers and
manures for meeting crop demands. Besides, an appropriate
application of soil nutrients will also avoid excess or overapplication of chemical fertilizers in soil; thereby farm input
costs can be reduced besides having other environmental
benefits. Nevertheless, precise application of soil nutrients
will only be possible with proper soil testing.
Soil Analysis, important to estimate the nutrient uptake
and to know the nutrient use efficiencies. The accuracy in the
analysis of soil samples depends on how properly the samples
have been collected, handled in the laboratory, and analyzed
using standard protocols. Keeping this in view, the present
manual entitled “Laboratory Manual on Chemical Analysis of
Soil Properties” is being compiled, which can potentially be
used by undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers,
researchers, and lab technicians. We sincerely hope that
readers of this manual will find this useful for routine analysis
of soil.
We are thankful to Dr Antaryami Mishra, Former
Professor cum OIC, AICRP on STCR of the Department of
Soil Science, College of Agriculture, OUAT, Bhubaneswar
for his all-time support and encouragement to bring out this
manual. We are also thankful to Dr Subhashis Saren,
Assistant Professor cum Principal Investigator, LRI,
REWARD for his valuable guidance from time to time.