Agronomy Rant - Reading Lab Reports

Editorial Note – This editorial is an overgeneralization of common terms that are often misused in soil fertility. It is not directed at any one entity. It is intended to be informative and mildly entertaining. Please keep in mind that the agronomists at ALGL spend a considerable amount of time with soil and are often isolated from human interaction with the outside world. Therefore, the phrase "mildly entertaining" is highly subjective.

We have all heard the phrase "reading a soil test report" or "reading a tissue test report." Although the apparent task may be readily inferred through superficial observation, such a characterization is wholly inconsistent with the actual procedural and operational semantics of the process. Or, to put it more simply, that may appear to be what is being done with laboratory results, but it is not how the process actually works.

We read text and interpret data. Read means to look at written words and understand their basic meaning. Interpret means to explain or determine what something means, often going beyond the literal words or data.

Like all agricultural laboratory reports, soil and tissue test reports contain data. The data itself has little, if any, meaning without additional interpretive information derived from university- or industry-based research. Once that interpretive information is applied, informed and prescriptive decisions can be made based on the data.

A good example of data interpretation can be found in our blog post, Lab Tests and Fuel Gauges. We can observe data values, but without interpretation we cannot make prescriptive decisions or take meaningful action to influence future outcomes. Without interpretive information, we can only track changes in the data and that is how researchers build the interpretative data.

One does not simply “read a soil test report”, one “interprets a soil test report!”

This concludes the Rant