Thanks James, I will work with the lab mgr and dig a bit deeper....
On day four now of cell operating as designed.
Matt, Ag labs focus on soil, water, plant tissue and fertilizer tests typically. They should have the equipment to get a more detailed analysis.
When I was a working man, one aspect of my engineering job was to do some reverse-engineering and forensic chemistry & materials analysis work. We had access to some of the most sophisticated scientific equipment on the planet - optical microscopy with fluorescent analysis, electron microscopes, transmission electron microscopes, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy tools, Auger electron anlyzers, X-ray diffractometers, mass spectrometers, inductively coupled plasma chromatography, NMR equipment, aqueous chemistry tools, etc, etc, etc. Heck, there was even a time when I could send samples to Brookhaven National Labs to be analyzed using their high-energy beam lines or do neutron diffraction experiments. It was lots of fun to be handed a completed puzzle and slowly take it apart piece by piece.
But there was one thing that every analysis job required and it was absolutely essential to a successful outcome - team meetings. Before any job was ever started, there had to be multiple meetings upfront to discuss what it was we were being handed and to brainstorm ideas for analysis and what we thought we would need to do to complete the job. If anyone blindly handed me a sample and said, "
tell me what this is!" I would hand it back to them and say, "
No." ... So, definitely get back together with the Ag Lab folks and let them know exactly what you have given them and what you want to get out of the analysis. Knowing what the customer is looking for narrows the potential avenues of investigation and can make the analysis job a lot more thorough and precise.