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Soil nitrate is an important factor in the farming industry as it influences how well a crop will grow and yield. Nitrate can vary widely spatially and temporally due to weather conditions, soil characteristics and the height of the surrounding water table. Providing an automated process of soil collection along with a real-time nitrate sensor would contribute to the optimization of nitrate fertilizer application. This paper outlines the development of a nitrate sensing process utilizing ion selective electrode technology and an automated soil extraction system. The sample soil requires a simple pretreatment of potassium chloride solution to obtain extractant solution containing the sample soils macronutrient ions. This paper contains the laboratory comparisons of extracting solutions, varying sample soil sizes and methods to quantify amounts of nitrate ions found in soil samples. A range of different nitrate sensing methods are investigated including: colorimetric and ISE technology. The colorimetric method proved to need a very small sample size (magnitude of 50L) as well as having a high repeatability rate but lacked the speed needed for real-time analysis. The ISE analysis method proved to require less pretreatment of sample soil and relatively fast, about 30-60 seconds; however, the electrodes robustness is questionable for field measurement. Data obtained pointed to the nitrate ISE holding an advantage over the colorimetric technique in time, the amount of pretreatment of samples and ease of use. For the purpose of real-time measurement, results indicated using a nitrate ISE to be a feasible method.