Advantages and Benefits of Discrete Instrumentation for Agricultural Analysis.

Discrete analysis has impacted the wastewater treatment and drinking water industries by providing a simple, straightforward way of analyzing water samples.  Discrete technology allows a user to analyze multiple analytes from a single sample. For years extraction-based soil testing methods have been performed manually. Using a discrete analyzer, laboratories in the agricultural industry can obtain results for the following analytes: (1) Total Available Nitrogen (NH3-N by salicylate and NO3+NO2-N by reductase) (2) Urea Nitrogen  (3)  P2O5 (Bray, Mehlich III, and Olsen extracts)  (4)K2O (phenyl tetraborate turbidimetric) (5)Available Sulfur (turbidimetric sulfate).  We will demonstrate that by adjusting the current methods such as converting sample:reagent ratios, soil extracts can be analyzed for these analytes in a cost-effective manner using a discrete analyzer.