The determination of total sulfur (S) in soils and plant tissue samples can be accomplished using a combination of sodium bicarbonate/silver oxide, dry ashing and ion chromatography(IC). The proposed method offers high precision and acceptable accuracy for samples with more than 0.02% S. At the same time this procedure makes use of standard analytical equipment used in other phases of soil, water and plant tissue analysis. Soil sample sizes larger than 0.1g or high total S or barite (BaSO4) may not have acceptable S recoveries due to incomplete S oxidation or dissolution of BaSO4. In order to optimize recoveries of total S in these special soil samples, varying (decreasing) sample sizes is required.