Comparative Evaluation of Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry and Colorimetry for Determining Phosphorus in Grain Samples

The inductively coupled plasma (ICP)-based method provides the opportunity to determine phosphorus (P) along with other major, secondary, micro and trace elements in plant materials. This study was conducted to compare and evaluate the relative efficacy of the inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) method with that of the colorimetric method using Skalar autoanalyzer, for determining P in 428 grain samples of eight diverse crops. The results on grain P analysis by the two methods, for individual as well as for all crop samples combined, showed that they were highly positively correlated (r varied from 0.84 to 0.98, p