ASHS 2025 Conference

There has been a long tradition of Cooperative Extension as a "go-to" source for soil testing in the popular media and research literature. However, soil and media testing within the unique growing systems of urban agriculture has not been extensively explored. In 2021, Cook County Extension began directly subsidizing and conducting multiple soil, compost, media, and tissue tests for a cohort of urban farms in the greater Chicagoland area. Using the data collected, we began building a baseline soil test database to help growers make specific nutrient and media management decisions. Through soil data collection and interpretation, we hoped to begin reducing the guesswork and decision-making of which tests to take, when, and how to interpret them. The standard soil, media, and tissue testing results reveal important soil, media, and uptake trends but are not always straightforward to interpret. Continued work with testing protocols, media incubation studies, and field trials could reveal more predictable trends in the future to better guide urban farmers' nutrient management planning. This poster presents the initial soil database results and interpretation to begin to understand and help explain the unique growing conditions of urban agriculture.