The use of microwave radiation for multi-element digestion of soil and plant materials has become a common procedure in many laboratories due primarily to increased efficiency over other conventional digestion methods. Little information is available, however, on the length of time that microwave digests can be stored prior to analysis, and if there is a point at which the digest quality starts to deteriorate. Also in question is if storage conditions are a factor in the longevity of digest quality. The experiment carried out involved the microwave digestion of two Standard Reference Materials (SRMs), one in-house check sample and one blank. Four replicates of the blank, in-house check and SRMs were made and one of each replicate stored under four different conditions. The storage conditions consisted of plastic Nalgene containers at room temperature, glass volumetric flasks at room temperature, plastic Nalgene containers refrigerated, and glass volumetric flasks refrigerated. The digests were analyzed fo...