Soils Laboratory

- General Information -

The Laboratory has the objective of determining physical and chemical parameters of different types of soil using watery, alkaline, or acid digestion extracts, thus achieving a classification of soils, defining optimum levels or lack of nutrients in macro elements for an excellent fertilization or correction.

Due to the nature of research and support services that the lab offers to the institutional community and to external users, several chemical analysis procedures based on traditional techniques were implemented in 1998 to determine elements and nutrients contained in soil, for example, determination of total phosphorous and soluble phosphorous in watery, acid, or alkaline extracts through Meta-vanadium-molybdate blue-phosphoric method (these techniques have been adapted to micro scale). Techniques have also been established for nitrogen determination in its presentations as nitrites, nitrates and ammonium, and determination of organic matter percentage by applying Walkley and Black 1934 method modified by Jackson 1956.