The soil and plant analyst of today has a wide variety of analytical tools to choose from compared to the analyst of just a few years ago. The development of new instrumentation and equipment that applies to soil testing and plant analysis, and their application to both the small and large laboratory will be discussed. Areas covered will include equipment for sample preparation using automated and microwave digestion, measurement techniques to include colorimetry, potentiometry, plasma atomic emission and atomic absorption spectrometry, ion chromatography, nitrogen and sulfur analyzers, robotics, instrument control and data handling.