Soil sample being re-hydrated. Image: Bradley White

Environmental chemistry laboratory (EC Lab)

The EC Lab offers a range of analytical services for soil, plant, and water samples.

EC Lab is an International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) accredited laboratory. EC Lab staff are involved in commercial analytical projects as well as providing field and laboratory support for research teams within Manaaki Whenua.

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Services offered   

An archived soil sample from the Central Otago soil survey (1959).

National Soils Archive (NSA)

The long-term vision is to form a true 'National Archive', including soil samples from other institutions across New Zealand.

NSA holds the physical soil samples ‘archived’ once laboratory and other analysis has been completed, and data added to the National Soils Data Repository (NSDR). It underpins the data within the National Soils Database (NSD) as well as the data from Topoclimate South and MfE-funded Land Use and Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS) Programme.

Learn more about National Soil Archive

SCANS multi-sensing platform.

Proximal sensing laboratory (PS lab)

The PS lab offers new and cost-effective methodologies for the analysis of specific chemical and physical soil properties.

The PS lab is exploring and implementng new techniques that trade off an extremely high degree of accuracy (typical of laboratory methods) for the potential of analysing a greater dataset, rapidly and at the same cost.

Learn more about our Proximal Sensing lab

Soil Physics Laboratory

Soil physics laboratory (SP lab)

The SP lab offers a range of tests covering laboratory and field physical analyses of soils.

Clients include regional and district councils, environmental consultants, other Crown Research Institutes, Universities and businesses needing to comply with land resource consents.

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Services offered