Experiments were conducted to seek a better basis for soil testing of rice paddy soils. Soils were incubated under variable conditions of simulated flooding, and then extracted with DTPA5. The amounts of Cu, Zn, Mn and Fe extracted were sensitive to the imposed soil conditions. Good correlations between Zn extracted from simulated flooded soils and Zn uptakes by rice from flooded soils in pots, suggest that this approach to soil testing may be more useful for paddy soils than existing tests on air dried soils.