Farming Video | The Next Step in Soil Analysis: Biology, Pathogens, and Better Prescriptions

00:00:00 Talk about the next step in soil analysis. You know, you came up in the 1950s with soil testing, things like NP and K we're a long way removed from that. 00:00:09 I'm joined by Mike Evans with Calibrated Agronomy and Austin Cook here of Earth Optics. We're in front of the ground owl. I'm holding my soil probe. 00:00:16 We're in your booth of Commodity Classic. And you said, I want to talk about where this thing's going. Evans Soil biology. Go there. 00:00:23 Yeah. You know, you let it off grades, you know, we started soil sampling back in forties, thirties, and putting that probe in the ground, sending it off 00:00:31 to a lab and getting chemical, you know, your NP and K analysis. We've been doing that for Yeah. 00:00:37 50, 78 years, whatever. And we do it well. And by the this nothing's really evolved about that. No, it hasn't. And you know, we're really good at it 00:00:47 as retail agronomists across the country. They know how to read a soil sample and give recommendations. 00:00:51 Well, a lot of our growers have, have gotten to a point where that soil analysis looks great on paper and their yields have gotten to a point 00:00:59 where they're not moving as much as they used to. 'cause we've gotten a fertility there and they're like, what do I do next? 00:01:04 And what we've partnered with Earth Optics, um, a couple years ago. Yeah. And what they do is bring the next piece in it, 00:01:11 the biology of the soil, which is the next iteration Yep. Of what we need to look at. 00:01:16 'cause there's a lot going on there Generally, Austin. I, I've said that, um, I think that we know less about the soil than we maybe know about Mars 00:01:25 because we are, we're still out here tripping over ourselves. We're mishandling our soil. 00:01:30 We put a lot of, uh, amendments out there to it. And now the biology of it. Finally, I just started hearing about soil health 00:01:37 and soil biology a few years ago. It was never a thing. Here we are. Yeah. No, we identify thousands of pest pathogens, 00:01:45 bio fertility markers, um, really cool what we can figure out underneath the soil. Um, and how we can relate that to crop input selections 00:01:54 and purchases. We never did this even just a decade ago. No, that's never what we're talking about. 00:01:59 So what are we finding? What, how does it make you better as a consulting agronomist? 00:02:04 Well, like Austin said, like you do the, your bio Yeah. Ask from them. And you can look at the pathogen loading your soil. 00:02:09 So all the, all your problems. Yep. As far as like disease, um, corn root worm, nematodes. So that's a big one that's starting to show up. Right? Yep. 00:02:18 And, and then you look at your boy we call bio fertility. So the, the microbial communities that solubilize all 00:02:23 that fertility you've put on for the, their last 30 years, how are they functioning to get 00:02:27 that expensive fertilizer into the plane? Right. So the, the analysis is 10 times better, more in depth, more, uh, inclusive than it used to be. 00:02:36 And we're talking about finding new stuff, looking at new stuff that we never looked at. Correct. So what's your, 00:02:40 what's your proposition To me, the farmer? I'm the farmer. So when you come to me and I say, what do I need? 00:02:44 What you have? So what I Really like about what we do is we can really understand what we need on the farm rather than just trying 00:02:51 to shoot something out there and hope it hits. We can really diagnose what we need and why we need it. So, um, you know, we talk about bio fertility. 00:02:59 One of the things we can understand is, you know, what type of biology do we need or if we need it at all. 00:03:04 Yep. And then we can say, Hey, this is where we need that particular biology, that particular strain. Um, and another thing 00:03:10 that I really like is just like the nutrient, um, digestibility of what we have out there. So different fertilizer sources. 00:03:18 Do I need a sulfate form or a sulfur? Um, looking at stuff like sulfur ization and other types of, uh, different mineralizations 00:03:25 of nutrients within our platform. So you tell your customers, you tell your clients, you tell anybody working with Kelly Garrett, 00:03:31 whatever you say, we're gonna, we're gonna know so much better about what's happening here. And then also this goes across the field. 00:03:37 This isn't just that field, it means, 'cause it's that whole thing about variable rates and all that kind of stuff. 00:03:42 Yeah. I mean they do 20 acre blocks is probably the minimum. Okay. Across the field. So we're not just taking one soil 00:03:47 sample on 80 acres. Okay. We're, we're broing it out to get, get some variability in the soil. So we have, 00:03:52 Have you seen the economic return of this kind of testing to where you're like, uh, you know what, 00:03:57 we were putting a bunch of stuff out there that wasn't the right thing and now we're doing a better prescription and here's the money. 00:04:02 Yeah. I got a lot of examples really. Um, you know, go back two, two years ago Kelly had beans, uh, on a field and they look great all year 00:04:12 and they were potted up Nice. We thought we had probably close to 70 bushel beads on this far and, and come to harvest time 00:04:21 and to get the calls from the Richie and the guys at the combine. And there's, I asked him like how good he goes, 00:04:25 so this ain't going, it's very good old. Yeah. Right. And so I'm like, okay, I better go look out there. 00:04:30 I drove out there and we had sampled with earth optics the prior spring. Yep. So I had the data behind me and I looked at it 00:04:38 and I went to a region. It was this disease, high disease risk. And their metrics walked out there where, 00:04:45 where they had combine and that plants were loaded with stem rods. I mean pods aborted everything. 00:04:50 And it was like a light bulb moment. It's like, huh, this is important because like what the paper said 00:04:55 and what the field said matched to me and now I can manage it differently. Got it. So the example was one where it wasn't a, 00:05:03 it wasn't a, oh my gosh, we we ring the bell on yield. It was, we got this wrong. Correct. You have that sometimes Austin. 00:05:10 Absolutely. All the time. So It's a good story. I appreciate it. So moving forward, whatcha gonna do 00:05:16 For us, what I like when Austin and I were talking kind of before we got on on camera was it's like farmers 00:05:22 and we've, even me, myself as a person will try like one field Yep. The risk mitigation rate. Yep. 00:05:27 And really the power of the system is getting multiple fields in it. 'cause like we've got all of solar, 00:05:32 our customers, we've got all their fields. Yep. We can look at the disease loads Yep. And manage where we're gonna go based on the disease loads. 00:05:39 'cause there's like, if we don't plant beans early 50 in our iza are a big concern. 00:05:43 Yep. I'm gonna go to the fields that have a lower pressure levels. You set myself up for sus. 00:05:48 Right. So it's the big thing is here about the biology, but also about the predictive on the pathogens and the diseases and whatnot. 00:05:54 And then you can manage accordingly. Yep. He's Mike Evans with Calibrated Agronomy joined by Austin Cook with Earth Optics. 00:05:59 And if I wanna learn more about this or the person watching this video wants to learn more about it, where do they go? Austin. So they 00:06:04 Would go to our website, earth optics.com, um, or they would reach out to one of our dealers, reach out to Mike or anybody at the calibrated agronomy 00:06:11 staff. Um, and Where do I go to find you? Our website Calibrate your agronomy.com. Got it. He's Mike, he's Austin. I'm Damian Mason coming at you from 175 00:06:19.685 --> 00:06:21.645