Soil/substrate analysis always provides a snapshot in time. This is advantageous for substrate analyses (short cultivation period, shipping plants out of the operation).

For determining nitrogen fertilizer requirements, this method works well because nitrogen is highly mobile in the root zone and thus readily available for uptake.

It can be used for a rough estimation of phosphate and potassium trends in the soil. However, a complicating factor is that only a small spatial fraction of the nutrient stored in the soil actually contributes to nourishing a root segment. This dynamic cannot be accurately simulated by an extraction method.