Phosphorus uptake by maize from 18 soils in a pot trial, was correlated with P extracted by chemical solutions. The coefficients of determination were 0.740 for 0.05N H2SO4 0.752 for 0.5N NaHCO3 at pH 8.5, 0.772 for 0.03N NH1F in 0.025N HCl and 0.773 for extraction with anion exchange resin. It was concluded that for the conditions of this work the different methods for P were equally efficient.