By Brian Hefty

Soil testing may be more important than ever on your farm!  Now that margins are squeezed, you can’t afford to put the wrong fertilizer on, and you really need to maximize yield by getting the right fertility program on your fields.  Here are 3 ways we can help.

  1. The FREE Ag PhD Soil Test app for your smartphone or tablet.  We’ve made soil testing easy with this app and with our agphdsoiltest.com website.  Log on to the website to quickly and easily set up your fields, set your options, and even do things like order soil sample bags or print labels for those bags.  Using the app or the website, you can set your grid size and grid points.  You can then use your smartphone’s GPS in the field to go to the grid points and sample.  We already have reports of farmers using our app to sample up to 1000 acres in a day!  Once the test results are in, select either Midwest Lab’s recommendations or ours.  You can also set up controller files to variable-rate your fertilizer!
  2. The “Ag PhD Complete Soil Test”.  Using the app, you will automatically get this soil test package at Midwest Labs.  If you want our help (or anyone else’s) giving you FREE fertility advice, a complete test done at a lab we can trust is essential.  The problem with testing at other labs is the methods are different, the tests are often incomplete, and no one else’s data can sync up with the Ag PhD Soil Test app.  This is not a financial thing for us, as we receive nothing from Midwest Labs by referring customers to them.  This is strictly an agronomic issue.  We feel using Midwest Labs and the “Ag PhD Complete Soil Test” will give you the information you need to make the best fertility decisions for your farm.
  3. FREE Ag PhD Soils Clinics.  In January and February, we will host free, full day training seminars for you on how to pull soil samples, how to read soil tests, and how to make your own fertilizer recommendations.  Please go to www.agphd.com for the complete schedule and to register so we have enough books and food for everyone.

You will notice that each of these 3 points says, “FREE”.  I get asked all the time how we can offer things free, why we offer them free, and my favorite is, “What’s the catch?”  We have been incredibly blessed to be able to host Ag PhD TV for almost 17 years now, as well as Ag PhD Radio.  This is our way to say thank you for making our programs a couple of the highest-rated in the U.S.  Selfishly, the main thing in it for us is if you have a great experience at one of our events, using one of our apps, or reading our newsletter, we hope you will be more likely to watch or listen to one of our programs so we stay on the air.  Thank you.  We appreciate you, and we will continue to try to provide you with more great agronomy service…for free.