• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.32-37
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• 2005

The procedure of soil sampling for on-farm quick test of soil nitrate is very important to improve practical application without weighing or drying soil. To improve application of test strip reflectometer as a quick on-farm analytical procedure for the estimation of soil nitrate concentration, three sampling methods such as gravimetric sampling (GS), particle density sampling (PDS) and bulk density sampling (BDS) for on-farm analytical procedure were investigated with twelve soils of 45 to $281mg\;kg^{-1}$ nitrate nitrogen concentration. The nitrate nitrogen concentrations measured from different soils were compared with two analytical methods, ion electrode method as a standard laboratory analysis (SLA) and test strip reflectometer at three moisture conditions, viz. air dried soil, 20 and 40% of maximum water holding capacity (MWHC). Nitrate nitrogen concentration measured by test strip reflectometer was significantly correlated with that of SLA, and the coefficients of variation (CV) were in the range of 3.5 to 10.9%. These CV values less than 10.9% were thought to be acceptable for the measurement of soil nitrate as an on-farm real time analytical procedure. The nitrate nitrogen concentration by BDS for test strip reflectometer as well as ion electrode method was more similar to that of SLA compared with those by GS and PDS especially in case of moist soils. This result suggests that the BDS is more useful than GS and PDS in case of on-farm analytical procedure of soil nitrate for moist soils. Further the practical measurement by BDS could be improved by substituting the bottle cap with a larger container.