BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — A conversation about modern soil testing methods that use advanced lab techniques to glean data from high-tech field and on-site methods of data collection was held during the Illinois Soybean Association’s (ISA) recent “Talk Dirt to Me: Soil Test Interpretation for Profitable Management” seminar. Held at the ISA office in Bloomington, the morning-long conference attracted dozens of central Illinois farmers concerned about rising input prices, especially for fertilizers. 

“We’ve been testing soils the same way for quite a while, but there are some new things on the horizon,” said Tim Smith of Cropsmith, Inc. of Farmer City, Illinois. His company’s laboratory provides soil testing for farmers throughout Ford and McLean counties.   

Modern soil testing relies on advanced lab analysis techniques, including spectroscopy (which uses light wavelengths to quickly assess organic matter) and atomic absorption, to produce precise, real-time information on soil nutrient levels. Smith noted that the rapid acquisition of results provided by modern soil testing techniques can offer farmers rapidly usable data on nutrient levels, salinity, organic matter and more to enable smarter, scientific nutrient management decisions. Flow injection analysis can also be used to measure specific nutrient levels like nitrate and phosphate.

High-tech data collection tools include GPS-guided sampling, drones and remote sensing, and embedded sensors that continuously monitor fields for pH levels and more. One company that offers high-tech soil sampling is Radicle Agronomics, a central Illinois-based offshoot of Precision Planting that provides farmers with simplified, streamlined soil analysis using automation. The company’s soil sampling and analysis process, first developed in 2015, provides near-instant analyses that historically take hours or days to complete. 

“We’ve been working with Precision Planting who have developed their own soil testing laboratory, and it’s really a pretty cool piece of equipment. It’s all automated, so you take a lot of the human element out of doing the soil testing,” said Smith. “When the collecting is done, you just go back to your computer to see what’s going on. I think this is where soil testing is going.”

Precision Planting’s Radicle Agronomics offers the world’s first fully automated soil laboratory, according to the company’s website, with accompanying tools that make soil nutrient management more precise and efficient. 

“The (Geopress) measures very precisely how much soil is going into the analysis, and that is a huge improvement in where soil tests have been going. It’s all very temperature-controlled, Smith said. “I think we are going to see more automated processes in soil testing in order to take the human element out of it.”

Removing the “human element” from the soil collection process would reduce the number of common mistakes made by farmers in what Smith termed the most crucial of steps in soil testing. GPS-driven automation handles everything from staking out recurrent site testing locations to recording which samples were taken from each drilling location. 

“You don’t have to write anything on the (collection) tube or anything, because it uses GPS to write electronically to the tube. When you slide it in the machine it reads exactly where that (sample) came from and shows you on a map on your computer,” Smith said. 

Precision Planting is far from the only crop service company to embrace advanced soil testing technology; others include Biome Makers (BeCrop), Stenon (FarmLab), EarthOptics, and Chrissa Labs which offers an AI probe. Deveron and Midwest Labs are also moving beyond traditional lab tests for precision agriculture, according to a web search.

Precision Planting’s Radicle Lab suite, which was brought to market in 2022, is so far recommended as a lease model rather than a farmer-owned unit. However, Smith told Farm World that it is not out of the realm of financial reason for a farmer to purchase the product suite.