Nitrogen (N) is one of the most limiting nutrients for global crop production. However, it is becoming increasingly important for farmers to design nutrient management plans that will maximize yield while reducing fertilizer costs and potential groundwater contamination associated with N leaching. We evaluated the use of resin traps for determining N-leaching in vegetable production systems. Resin traps consisted of a 5.2 cm wide and 44 cm tall PVC columns filled with a sandy soil. A layer of 10 g Rexyn 500 resin material was placed in the middle of the soil columns. After application of ammonium nitrate (AN) corresponding to field applications rates of 0, 50, 100 and 200 kg N/ha and an equilibration period of 2 days, residual soil N was leached with 3.3 pore volumes of water. As the N application rate increased, the efficacy of nitrate-N (NO3-N) recovery by the resin material decreased from 98.6 to 61%. Ammonium (NH4-N) recovery from the resin material was relatively low, decreasing from 22.5 to 7.3% with increasing AN rates. The amount of N bypassing the resin trap was on the order of 5.6-12.1% and 1.3-10.0% for ammonium and nitrate, respectively. We concluded that the ion-exchange resin was most efficient in recovering nitrate from the soil column when AN was applied at a low rate. Poor ammonium recovery may be related to ammonium being absorbed by the soil surrounding the resin material which was not included in our N analysis. It is concluded that interaction between soil and ammonium may interfere with the extraction process N for short-term N leaching determination. However, for field studies this may be less of an issue since ammonium converts to nitrate within 1-2 weeks and nitrate thus may be the most prevalent N form under Florida conditions which can be readily leached.