This year has been a great fall for harvest. The weather has been fantastic, the field conditions have been great and big yields of high quality crops.

Now that the field work is getting wrapped up we need to turn our attention to next year. Ugh! Early purchase, early take and prepay programs are in full swing. Let’s think about something that is just as important. Soil sampling!

Soil sampling is not only environmentally responsible but it can have a significant return back on fertilizer savings and increased yields. Every year growers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on fertilizer sometimes not knowing what they really need.

The few hours it takes to pull samples from 10 or 20 fields is probably one of the least time coming jobs to cover the same amount of acres in a crop production program. The cost of testing these samples is a minimal expense when compared to the total fertilizer expense. What can you do for $500 to a $1000 in this day and age?

For those of you that have manure, don’t forget to pull a manure sample when spreading. You will be the surprised at the value of the nutrients you have; and how much you are wasting by over applying manure to just get rid of it!

In closing I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday season.

Brad.