Across All The Acres: How to Maximize Your Time Soil Testing

Soil sample crews spend long hours when conditions are right to pull the foundational level of agronomic decisions—the soil core. Here are some insights from crews across the country into how they’ve refined their processes, taken new tools to the field and found a little fun along the way.

Consistency is Key

Each team has the same goal—consistent cores pulled from consistent depths by GPS coordinates—and each team has a different way to reaching that goal. It takes consistency to ensure overall quality, and it sometimes takes some creativity to make the task less laborious.

For example, at ForeFront Ag Solutions in Huntington, Indiana, Erich Eller explains the team welds a washer on the probe to show the exact depth to which the probe should be inserted.

Trevor Brown explains the team at KSI Labs—based in Louisville, Illinois—custom-orders probes from Oakfield Apparatus 100 at a time. The custom probes have the foot step at a depth so when inserted, it’s ground level for a 7" deep core sample.

At Ceres Solutions, now known as Keystone Cooperative, the team mounts Amity soil probes near the front wheel well of a utility vehicle, so the operator can pull an 8" core from the cab. 

Robotic Sampling

For four years, the team at Ceres Solutions in Indiana has been incorporating Rogo Ag robotic soil sampling, and today, about two-thirds of the co-op’s total soil samples are done by the Rogo team.

“It’s almost 100% of our spring acres,” says Matt Clark, ag data manager. He says the Rogo Ag technology is dovetailed into the workflow, and Ceres Solutions doesn’t charge a differentiated rate.

“We use it as an efficiency tool. We do not hire part-time soil samplers any more. Today, if our crew is pulling a soil sample, it’s being pulled by a full-time employee,” Clark says.

See The Forest For the Trees

Each bag of soil is the springboard for a season’s worth of agronomic decisions.

“When we bring on a new team member, we show them in the field exactly what to do, and then, we explain what’s at stake if we don’t do a good job,” Eller says.

While monotonous, crews find the fun.

At B&M Crop Consulting, there’s always an unofficial deer shed competition.

“We also have a client who runs their own ice cream shop, so it’s a treat for who goes to sample at their farm,” says Amanda Batchelder with B&M.

Catered lunches and grilling out when the weather keeps them out of the field are also said to be great in-season reprieves and rewards.

 Nice to Have in The Field

All KSI Lab ATVs have a toolbox, which houses a  circular brush with a 28" handle stored in water. Brown says the tool is a quick fix for cleaning probes between fields and soil types, even gumbo soils. 

Kam Barrow at B&M says he always heads to the field with his Bluetooth headphones.

ForeFront Ag Solutions’ ATVs each have a box updated every season with fresh sunscreen, chapstick, wet wipes and other items. And employees are given new stainless water bottles each season. And Eller says the “Find My” app has helped to locate iPhones and iPads left in the field.

Efficient Workflow

The team at B&M says two technology tools help manage the entire process. First, connecting with customers via FieldView or MyJohnDeere allows the team to see when fields are harvested and schedule those samplings in the most timely manner behind the combine. Also, B&M uses Google Docs to monitor where, what, and by who has been sampled.