Agriculture
Food

Soil Fertility and Plant Nutrition

The IPNA Soil Fertility and Plant Nutrition Laboratory provides specialist analytical services for agricultural and livestock activities and enterprises of all types. Its function is to respond to requests for soil fertility analysis, nutritional analysis of plant material, irrigation water or biofertilizers. This laboratory offers advisory services to the sector, related to soil quality and its relationship with crops. It focuses its services on the identification of the characteristics and properties of agricultural soils and the detection of factors that limit their productivity.

To this end, we use the methodologies most recognized at the national and international level, and those which are the most specifically applied to nutritional availability.

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Fertilidad de suelos

Type of Analysis

Our mineral detection methods of essential and non-essential nutrients are accurate and reliable, providing results with concentration values of ppm and ppb. Using an inductively coupled plasma spectrometer (ICP), we can identify 16 minerals and chemical elements. All this parameters helps to determine quantitatively and qualitatively  the quality of the soil (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, etc.):

  • Fertility of agricultural soils.
  • Quality of irrigation water for agricultural use.
  • Quality of nutritional content of leaves, roots, fruit, stems, also of ornamental plants.
  • Chemical and nutritional composition of compost of animal and vegetable origin.
  • Chemical and nutritional analysis of biofertilizers: biols, compost tea, nutritive solutions, slurry.
  • Environmental contamination of agricultural soils.

Measurement parameters

The parameters to be measured will depend on the type of analysis required, among which we highlight:

  • pH
  • Electrical conductivity
  • Organic matter
  • Phosphorus (Olsen or Bray)Interchangeable bases (Ca, Mg, Na and K)
  • Cation exchange capacityMicronutrients and contaminants (Fe, Zn, Mn, Zn, B, Pb, Ni, Cd, Hg, Mo, Pd, Al, Se, Co)
  • Nitrogen

Equipment

  • ICP-OES AVIO500, Perkin Elmer
  • Ion chromatograph
  • UV-Visible Spectrophotometer
  • pH-meters
  • Conductivity meters

 

Our laboratory operates under strict standards and we have a quality policy based on compliance with Good Laboratory Practice (GLP). The laboratory is composed of scientists and technicians with many years of experience in agrobiology. The analyses performed and their interpretation are issued in a precise report containing all the measured parameters, together with detailed advice from the scientific staff for the subsequent improvement of agricultural productivity and production of fertilizers of animal/vegetable origin. 

How can I request a service?

Contact us!

info [at] ipna.csic.es (Contact us!)