By Brian Hefty

I had a question come in from a farmer the other day asking why he would use the Ag PhD Soil Test app for $5.20 per acre (that’s the cost of the samples figured on a 5-acre grid) instead of just having his local co-op soil sample for $8 per acre.  He didn’t say how many acres he had, but let’s just say he had 2000.

  1. On 2000 acres, a savings of $2.80 per acre is $5600!
  2. To sample 2000 acres on 5-acre grids, that should only take 2 days, but if you’ve never sampled before and your fields are spread out, let’s say it takes an extra day.  Even with 3 days, that’s a job that pays you almost $1900 per day!!  Plus, ANYONE can do this – it could be your son or daughter, your grandson or granddaughter, or even anyone off the street, as this is about as simple a job as you’ll find on the farm.
  3. Perhaps the best part about the Ag PhD Soil Test app is YOU are in control.  You know exactly where and how your fields were sampled.  You know the samples are good.  You know the data is good.  Plus, you set the parameters.  On our farm, for example, we sampled most of our fields on 5-acre grids, but we did a few highly variable fields on 2.5-acre grids.
  4. When you get your results back, you can view those results in several different ways, and you can get both Midwest Labs recommendations and the Ag PhD recommendations.  You can also easily create controller files to plug right into your equipment to run variable rate programs.  We set our spinner spreader up this fall to go variable rate, and we already had our strip-till and anhydrous set up that way.

“But I’ve never done my own soil sampling.”   This is one of the easiest jobs you can possibly do, and sampling 1000 acres per day is common.

“But I don’t know how to read a soil test.”   You don’t need to.  Between Midwest Labs recommendations and the Ag PhD recommendations, we make it simple.  If you want to learn how to read a soil test, join us for a free Ag PhD Soils Clinic this winter.  In one day, we will teach you everything you need to know.

“But soil testing sounds expensive.  Why should I spend $5.20 per acre?”   Every operation is different, but chances are you will invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on fertilizer this year and millions of dollars over the next few years.  Are you investing those dollars correctly?  If you had better information about your soils, don’t you think you could either save money on fertilizer or get higher yields?  $5.20 per acre is an investment, and you don’t have to test your soils every year.  Without good information, the odds are very high you are not getting the right amount or balance of nutrients on your soil.  I know that commodity prices are down and margins are tight, but that’s all the more reason to figure out a better plan for fertility going into next year.

The easiest way to get started is at www.agphdsoiltest.com.  Set up a free account.  Set up your fields, and order your sample bags and a soil probe.  Once you get the bags and the probe, start sampling using your smartphone.  It will tell you exactly where you need to go in each field.  Pull your cores at each spot, put them in the bag, send all the bags in, sync your phone, and wait for the results that you’ll receive in less than a week.

Soil fertility is the most misunderstood area in agriculture today, in our opinion.  We developed the Ag PhD Soil Test app in conjunction with TapLogic and Midwest Labs to help you keep it simple and easy.  Once you experience this whole process, you will see that it will allow you to better invest your fertilizer dollars and earn more money.