Know Your Feed & Forage...Your Livestock Nutrition Matters.
The AgTest, LLC Forage Lab
AgTest, LLC is committed to providing accurate and precise results in our feed analysis and hay testing.
Feed testing provides a number of in-depth testing solutions that help ensure that your livestock are consuming the adequate nutrients they need in their diet. Feed and forage sampling is essential to determining your animal feed quality. Every day, samples arrive at the lab from around the Kittitas Valley (Ellensburg, Kittitas) and beyond. Individual producers, agriservice personnel and consultants are among the many types of people and organizations satisfying their analytical needs at AgTest, LLC. Our goal is to provide you with analytical services designed to meet the expanding demands of modern agriculture. New technology and traditional methods are combined to deliver fast, accurate results.
To assure this we maintain a strict daily quality assurance/quality control program, AgTest, LLC is certified for both NIR and wet chemistry feed and forage analysis by the National Forage Testing Association. To obtain this certification, our laboratory analyzes reference samples from the National Forage Testing Association (NFTA) throughout the year.
Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy
Near Infrared Reflectance spectroscopy (NIR) is a sophisticated technique for rapidly analyzing common forages and grains and is recognized by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) as an official method of analysis. AgTest, LLC offers offers a comprehensive NIR analysis available making it our most popular service and the choice of feed industry professionals. Because NIR is calibration dependent, NIR service packages are limited to certain feed types. Traditionally, calibrations were developed for common feed types by analyzing several hundred to several thousand samples. The chemical information contained in these samples is correlated to spectral properties and a calibration is born.
Traditional Chemistry
Traditional wet chemistry procedures can be applied to any sample type. Time proven methods are used to determine nutrient composition. Traditional wet chemistry methods must be used for samples where no NIR calibrations exist. Time can be a limiting factor as most analyses take 2 – 3 days to complete.