§ 14647 Fertilizer Guarantee Compliance

• •The secretary must analyze fertilizer samples and issue a report.
• •The report must say whether the product meets the label guarantee or is deficient.
• •The secretary can create tolerance rules that allow for normal testing variations.

A farmer buys a bag of fertilizer that says it contains 20% nitrogen. The secretary’s lab tests a sample and finds it has 19.5% nitrogen.

Because the secretary can set a tolerance (for example, allowing a 0.5% drop), the lab says the product meets the guarantee and the report says it’s okay. If the test had shown 18% nitrogen, which is outside the allowed tolerance, the report would say the product is deficient.