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| As a starting place, I recommend that you purchase some nitrate test strips.
According to the article at the following link some nitrate test strips are better than others:
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=13140
excerpt from the article:
"Some brands of test strips appeared to be accurate at specific ranges of NO3 concentration. The Merckoquant NO3/NO2 brand was the most accurate for the full range of NO3 concentrations (Table 1). The next most accurate brand over the entire range of NO3 concentrations evaluated was the LaMotte Instatest NO3/NO2. The Hach Aquacheck was accurate for the range of 10 to 90 ppm NO3 but measured NO3 lower than the standard solutions at concentrations above 100 ppm NO3. The remaining brands of test strips, LaMotte Instatest 5-way, API 5 in 1, Tetra 6 in 1 Easystrips, all measured less NO3 than the standard solutions over the range of 20 to 200 ppm NO3. These strip brands should probably not be used for the soil nitrate quick test and for assessing nitrate concentration in irrigation water."
here are links to sources for 2 of the 3 brands that performed the best:
https://www.amazon.com/LaMotte-Insta-Test-2996-Nitrate-Multi-Factor/...
https://www.poolsupplyunlimited.com/AquaChek641426ENitrateNitriteTes...
I recommend that you try monitoring once a week and if possible, estimate flow (e.g., time how long it takes to fill a bucket of known volume) at the same time as you use the strips.
If you know flow you can calculate lbs of N lost from the tile and if you know the area of the tile system you can calculate lbs of N lost per acre.
Joel
WIU Agriculture
PS Here is a link to a good article on how to interpret tile nitrate levels: https://ag.purdue.edu/soilandwater/nutrient-management/interpreting-...
Edited by jbgruver 3/12/2019 15:05
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Water sampling
