Article taken from Farmers Guardian
A new machine, the Veris MSP3, is allowing Agrovista to offer soil scanning services, encompassing soil conductivity, pH and organic matter.
Agrovista head of precision technology Lewis Mckerrow said the machine could determine shallow and deep conductivity.
“We can measure top soil and sub soil, which can differ a lot.”
Trialled last year by the company and operated by Keith Mount Liming, the machine towed by a tractor, works at high speed. It has discs which send and receive electrical impulses from the soil to give soil conductivity measurements. Data is collected by GPS, allowing fields to be mapped.
Mr McKerrow said: “On trial sites, we measured fuel use when cultivating and used teens of per cent less fuel in high organic matter areas where soil was more easily worked.
“With pH sampling, normally you take one sample per hectare, but this allows 12-15 measurements per ha.”
In fields with variable organic matter, the machine could give a more accurate picture of levels across the field.
Decisions
Mr Mckerrow said: “The average may be 3 percent organic matter, but could vary from 2 per c3ent to more than 4 per cent. It can help farmers decide where to target compost applications, for example, it can also be used for variable rate seed plans.”
Soil scanning service costs “£25-£30/ha (£10-£12/acre).