Precision Agriculture 101 – Soil Sampling Overview

 

Video Transcript

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hello everyone its Aaron breimer with

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Veritas farm business management if

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you’ve watched some of our other videos

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or presentations you may recognize this

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slide I’ve used it before to talk about

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how good decisions can be made in

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agriculture a combination of gut

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instinct past experience and more

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recently precision AG data when you’re

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able to balance all three better

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decisions can be made I share this with

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you today because we’ve developed a new

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tool here at Veritas that takes gut

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instinct past experience data and allows

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you to get better insights from your

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soil test data yes soil test data so

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there’s some basic methodology in soil

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testing you can have your bulk samples

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one sample every 25 acres in Ontario one

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sample may be all the way up to one

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sample every 160 acres in Western Canada

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in the 1990s grid sampling was all the

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rage you took a whole bunch of samples

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you fed it into a computer it created

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the map that was supposed to reflect

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what was going on in your field farmers

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said it’s not always as accurate as we

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would like so we started to get into

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zone sampling drawing predetermine tones

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sampling those and creating maps from

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them so you can see we’ve got the two

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cases we’ve got the smaller feel up

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above which in this case is 40 acres and

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below it’s our hypothetical field now

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the latest thing that we’re starting to

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see in the soil testing world it’s what

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we call soil sensing equipment there’s a

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lot of different systems on the market

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not going to talk about each one

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actually not going to talk about any of

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them they all have one thing in common

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they collect a massive amount of data

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and it allows you to get very good

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resolution of your field in fact I

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suspect with that kind of resolution

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you’re starting to see the pattern now

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there’s the actual field and the work of

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art okay you might be asking well which

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one’s right for you that’s not what the

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point of this video is we do have

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another video around capturing

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variability I encourage you to have a

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look at it if you’re curious as to which

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system is right for you

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we’ve been able to figure out how to

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quantify capturing for

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a really cool video check them now you

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get your soil test back so what how much

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fertilizer do you actually need well

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there’s a pile of different ways a pile

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of different opinions on how to read a

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soil test but it all comes down to is

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this idea of what is the limiting factor

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this goes all the way back to 1873 we

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call it lie Biggs a lot of the minima

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you guys have seen this before it is the

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barrel the staves are different heights

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the water pours out whichever Steve is

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the lowest okay we get it

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the challenges which is that lowest

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state the example I like to use and I’ll

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challenge agronomists with this if you

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got a soil test back and the pH was 5.9

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the phosphorus is 11 parts per million

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and the potash is 76 parts per million

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and you’re going to be allowed to fix

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one which one do you want to fix first

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a lot of agronomists right now are

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saying it’s pH really you didn’t even

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ask what crop it was you didn’t ask if

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it was a clay or a sand and a great away

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you jump to pH I’m thinking that if I

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had a clay ground and I had corn going

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into that field and I only had 11 parts

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per million of phosphorous that would be

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the one I’d be fixing first so this

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comes back to that gut instinct past

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experience right

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wouldn’t it be a cool idea if we could

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combine data with those first two that

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gut instinct that past experience to

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make better recommendations that’s what

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this tool is designed to do so what

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we’ve done is we’ve taken soil test data

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it can be bulk not ideal but both will

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work on our tool it can be grid it can

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be zone it can be that intensive soil

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sensing technology that collects a pile

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of data and what we do is we take your

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yield data yes the yield data that comes

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out of your combine that yield data that

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draws really pretty maps but what else

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do you really get to do with it no maybe

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you get to look

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how different varieties perform but what

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we do is we overlay those two and we

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start looking for the what we call the

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response curves so here you can see how

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the potash is changing based off of this

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CC and what we’re actually looking at is

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the effect of the potash on yield by CEC

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those of you not familiar with CEC

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that’s cation exchange capacity it’s a

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okay way I guess of being able to see if

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you’ve got a really heavy soil or really

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sandy soil the lower the number and the

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CEC the sandier soil so there’s the

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example of potash here is the example of

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phosphorus so bicarb and how that has

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different impact now what we are able to

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do with their tool and some people would

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call it an algorithm now quick note

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about algorithms algorithms are a great

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way to confuse people if you say

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algorithms everybody gets scared and

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says oh I don’t know if I want to ask

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any deep questions so we’re not going to

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really use the term algorithm this is a

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tool for it for you and this tool we

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actually call it soil statistically

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obtained ideal levels it uses your soil

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test data your yield data and what we

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create is we create these soil limiting

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maps so in any part of your field you

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know what is the number one soil

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limiting factor this is the factor that

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is limiting your yield

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maybe it’s pH maybe I’m wrong maybe it’s

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phosphorus maybe it’s potash depending

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on which crop now so ulema d1 pretty

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cool but we’re also able to create soil

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limiting to and soil limiting three I

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thought these maps were awesome when I

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first seen them however a lot of people

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have said there’s a lot of color there

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and they’re very confusing all right

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let’s see if we can find an easier way

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to do it so what we did was we combined

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all three so here’s the second set of

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soil Maps remember statistically

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obtained ideal levels

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this map shows where bicarb phosphorous

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is limiting on that field in one of the

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top three either SAR limiting one two or

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three where it’s green phosphorus is not

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a limiting factor where it’s red it is

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this tool goes one step further and if

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it’s excessive

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another color will pop up and say you’ve

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got too much phosphorus in that area

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here’s the example of potash once again

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where it’s green it is not limiting

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where it is red it is now these are just

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two we give you a full set if you’re

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testing for phosphorus potash boron

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magnesium copper whatever you’re testing

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we will put it into this tool we will

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use your deal deal like I said your soil

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data and it’s gonna come back with a set

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of these maps in order for you to be

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able to understand what is limiting your

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yields yes mother nature always wins

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but fertility as is described as the

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next best thing to rain so this is a

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great tool we really encourage you to

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get in touch with us if you want to test

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this out for yourself you’d love to

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challenge this tool I know I’ve been

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wrong a couple times with it I used to

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always say phosphorus is the number one

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thing that do you have to fix well no

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it’s not sometimes it is pH sometimes it

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is potash it’s sometimes boron what a

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cool tool give us a show let us show you

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how it works thanks very much