When soil scientists started miniaturizing and making small soil monitoring devices more rugged 10 years ago, the farming world mostly ignored it.
There were calls for something more practical.
Fast forward a decade and soil scientists around the world now offer in-field, real-time, hand-held soil testing laboratories.
Simranjit Singh is product manager at ATP Nutrition at Oak Bluff, Man. He was at Manitoba’s Ag Days event held in January in Brandon, Man., to demonstrate how his hand-held diagnostic device called the NutriScan can give farmers and agrologists access to real-time, in-field monitoring of soil nutrient status. It happens in minutes and requires no samples being sent to a lab. The technology was developed in the Netherlands.
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“We brought it to North America. Our farming is totally different from European farming, so we started over from the beginning to develop and calibrate for North America. We did 1,400 calibrations just for Western Canada, to make it accurate for our farmers. NutriScan now has prairie algorithms for 20 different crops,” said Singh.
The NutriScan is an NIR soil scanner. You mix the sample like you would for a normal soil test and then scan it with the NIR NutriScan. Just put it firmly on the soil. It connects to your smartphone and walks you through the procedure. You scan the sample three times and get results on your phone within a minute.
“It tells you soil properties, micronutrients, texture, macronutrients, pH, organic matter, organic carbon. You punch in the crop you plan to grow on that field and it gives you the nutrient data of that crop on that specific soil.
“For example, if you enter a crop that needs boron, it will tell you how much boron. But if your crop doesn’t need boron, that’s the answer it will give you. You need to enter your GPS location and save it. You can enter up to five possible crops for each sample, and your target for each one. All the data gets saved to the cloud.
“With 18 essential nutrients it’s integral that they’re all in the proper balance and form to reach the crop’s yield potential. With our proactive nutrient management, 60 percent of the genetic yield potential can be achieved.”
The transportable NutriScan can be carried in the truck field scouting or cab at seeding, spraying and harvest. It’s a practical way to ground truth your prescription maps and keep a close eye on your soil nutrients.
A one-year subscription is $7,200 and you buy the NutriScan for $4,950.
There is a three year plan can also opt for a three-year plan, which costs $7,250 at the end of which the contract the user gets the NutriScan at no cost.
