The fact that the world's population is so high and the population exponentially grows also carries nutritional problems. This, of course, necessitates production over natural production. With the development of technology, many new and modern methods are used and powerful machines and equipment are used. However, natural resources such as soil, water and air, which are the most important factors in human nutrition, have reached the point of depletion. Today, the issue of soil and soil fertility has become extremely important. Today, the first priority of all public and private organizations is to ensure the viability and sustainability of the land.

Numerous studies have been carried out in this direction recently in order to increase soil fertility and to obtain more and better quality products from the unit area. One of the most important tasks to be done in this field is to encourage the use of fertilizers by conducting soil and plant analyzes. In our country, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock supports farmers in this sense and fertilization application based on soil analysis is becoming widespread.

Soil analysis performed by authorized laboratories is a very important scientific method that demonstrates the fertilizer requirement of the soil. Two main issues arise in these analyzes:

• Understanding the levels of useful plant nutrients in soil
• Deciding on the type and amount of fertilizer required by plants to be grown in soil

Soil analyzes should be carried out in order to obtain higher and higher quality products from the unit area, to ensure the productivity of the soil and to maintain this situation. Otherwise, more or less fertilizer may be used than is required, or an incorrect fertilizer may be selected. In addition, there may be a timing error when using fertilizer.

In short, soil analysis is the task of determining the amount of plant nutrients in the soil and the fertilizer requirement of the plant to be grown in this soil. These analyzes must be performed in authorized laboratories and by chemical methods.

Soil analysis is absolutely necessary for low cost but high quality agriculture. Even in two adjacent fields, the soil has different amounts of plant nutrients. These analyzes reveal which nutrients are missing in the soil and hinder the healthy development of the plant and support the farmer for fertilization in this direction.

In case fertilization is performed without soil analysis, a number of negative situations will arise. Here are a few of them:

• Using more fertilizer than the required amount does not only increase the cost, but more importantly, it disrupts the natural structure of the soil.
• Using less than the amount of fertilizer required to be given, means healthy nutrition of the plant.
• Failure to choose the right fertilizer means that the plant cannot contain the manure.
• Failure to fertilize at the right time means that the desired yield from the plant cannot be obtained and the yield is low.

Scope of Soil Analysis

In order to obtain the expected benefit from the soil analysis, the soil samples to be analyzed depend on the appropriate methods. Otherwise, erroneous data on soil properties will be generated and the farmer will be misled. Soil structure is very variable and there may be differences even in the same field. Therefore, it is important that the soil sample is similar in terms of the following characteristics:

• Regi from organic matter and iron compounds in its content
• Slope and height of the field
• Soil or sandy soil
• Depth of soil
• Soil problems such as fertility, pollution or drainage
• Geological structure and vegetation of soil

Considering these characteristics, the field should be divided into sections and soil samples should be taken from many places. In short, the field should be divided into homogenous sections before the soil sample is taken.

Soil analysis is also performed for other purposes. For example, soil analyzes are also performed to determine soil suitability in buildings, roads, dams or tunnel constructions. In addition to this, it is very important to carry out soil analyzes in mining and oil exploration, drainage and land reclamation studies and environmental pollution studies. However, in recent years, with the depletion of natural resources and increasing nutritional needs, soil analysis in agriculture has become more important. Soils are analyzed more frequently in agricultural areas and scientific agriculture studies are carried out according to the results. The main soil analyzes carried out for this purpose are as follows:

• To determine the amount of nutrients in the soil
• To determine the extent to which nutrients can provide plants
• To determine the type and amount of fertilizer to be given to soil
• To determine the causes of nutritional disorders in soil
• To determine the saline and sodium areas of the soil and to ensure the improvement
• Determine the plant species to be grown
• Identify and solve soil drainage problems

For the health of agricultural activities, it is important to extract the plant nutrients in the soil from the soil correctly and analyze them with the right chemical methods. When producing plants, the quantity and quality of the product depends entirely on the amount of nutrients present in the soil. On the other hand, it is also important how useful these nutrients are to the plant.

The values ​​obtained by soil analysis are compared with the generally accepted limit values. These limit values ​​are largely explained by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The basis of conscious agriculture is balanced fertilization and high quality and abundant product awareness. In order to make balanced fertilization and to grow healthy plants, the soil on which that plant is grown needs to be analyzed. Meanwhile, many standards have been developed by local and foreign organizations to determine soil quality.

When conducting soil analyzes by the authorized laboratories, firstly the legal regulations in force, the relevant standards and generally accepted measurement, test and analysis methods are taken into consideration.

Again, for the healthy growth of plants, not only the presence and quantity of plant nutrients present in the soil is important, but also how much plants can receive and use nutrients. In this respect, soil analysis is the most important production tool that supports the farmer.