A good soil test costs less than one bag of the wrong fertiliser. Here is where to send it, what to ask for, and how to get the results back into a plan.
Before you post anything
The lab only tells you what was in the bag. Sample properly: 15 cores to 150 mm in a zigzag across the block, mixed in a clean bucket, about 500 g bagged and labelled. Skip gateways, fence lines, troughs and the spot where the last fertiliser heap sat. For pots and beds of living soil, take 10 cores at mid-depth across the whole area.
Full sampling instructions Watch the 15-second sampling clip
Option 1: Hill Laboratories, Hamilton (New Zealand)
The quickest route for New Zealand growers. Results in about a week, no customs, and our Market garden soil planner reads the Hill PDF directly and turns it into an amendment plan.
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What to order: the Basic Soil profile (pH, Olsen P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, CEC and base saturation). For vegetables and market gardens add the Sulphur profile and Potentially Available Nitrogen. Ask for Mehlich 3 if you want trace elements on the same report.
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Form: Hill Labs soil and plant analysis request form (PDF). One line per sample; the sample name on the bag must match the form.
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Post to: Hill Laboratories, Sample Reception, 28 Duke Street, Frankton, Hamilton 3204. Courier is best; samples can go wet or dry.
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Contact: 0508 HILL LAB (0508 44 555 22), mail@hill-labs.co.nz, hill-labs.co.nz.
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Compost or growing media rather than soil? Use the compost and media request form instead; the planner reads those certificates too.
Option 2: Logan Labs, Ohio (through Seacliff)
Logan Labs is the test we build our own recipes on: the Standard Soil Test with Mehlich 3 extraction, base saturation and the full trace element panel in one report. Soil cannot be posted to the United States without an import permit, so we batch customer samples and send them under ours.
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How it works: order the test below, post your bagged sample to us, and we ship it with the next batch. Results come back by email, with an amendment prescription if you choose that option.
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Order: Soil and modified medium testing services
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Post to: Seacliff Organics, soil test, with your order number on the bag. The address is on your order confirmation.
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Sending direct? Logan Labs, Lakeview, Ohio 43331, USA, with their submission worksheet. Contact them first for the USDA soil import permit label; a parcel without it is destroyed at the border.
What to do with the result
- Hill Labs report: upload the PDF to the Market garden soil planner and it fills itself in.
- Logan Labs report: use the fertiliser calculator with the Mehlich 3 numbers, or choose the prescription option and we do it for you.
- Not sure what you are looking at? Send it to us; reading reports is most of what we do.
Test at the same depth, in the same month, every year. The trend is worth more than any single number.
