A method of indicating a characteristic of a soil sample of a field includes measuring a co-factor in the soil sample and using the co-factor to place the soil sample in a soil sample group. The characteristic of the soil sample is measured and then is scaled based on the soil sample group. The scaled measure is displayed to better represent the characteristic of the soil sample relative to soil samples of the sample group.

An analytics system uses soil health indicators to determine metrics for soil samples. In an embodiment, the analytics system receives metadata describing a soil sample, where the metadata indicates one or more types of crops grown in a geographical location having the soil sample. The analytics system determines nucleic acid sequence reads of the soil sample. The analytics system determines taxonomic information of the nucleic acid sequence reads. The analytics system determines microbial composition of the soil sample using the taxonomic information. The analytics system determines reference metrics of soil samples from geographical locations in which the one or more types of crop were grown. The analytics system determines a metric of the soil sample using the microbial composition and the reference metrics. The analytics system transmits the metric to a client device.