Paul Tech’s innovative soil station has been installed at the Cereals Show, enabling farmers to see the equipment in action themselves.
The soil station has been installed in a winter wheat plot and has been capturing data for the past three months, offering unrivalled insights into the nutrients available to the crop in the soil.
Following its launch in the UK earlier this year, more than 30 farms have installed the technology. In Europe, farmers have been using the soil station for several years to increase profitability by cutting fertiliser use.
This live demonstration will help show how growers can gather the most detailed picture of the health of UK soils ever created. The soil station accurately measures nutrient movement through the soil to help growers make better decisions about when to apply fertiliser to optimise Nutrient Uptake Efficiency (NUE).
The data captured over the past three months has tracked the initial fertiliser application and two subsequent sprayings of the crop, clearly showing nutrients have remained available to the plant and that growth has been optimised.
With each rainfall, the soil station tracks nutrients dissolving and becoming available to the plant. The data will be able to be viewed at Cereals.
Mikk Plakk, Chief Executive of Paul-Tech, said: “The technology has already proven its value across Europe, enabling farmers to get a much richer picture of how nitrogen and other nutrients move through the soil.
“Initial trials in the UK are going well and the soil station at Cereals will help to show farmers how they can not only get unparalleled insights into what is going on under the surface of their fields, but can also get clear evidence about when fertiliser applications are actually needed.
“This level of information gives farmers the power to make far better decisions and this is reflected in yields when it comes to harvest.”
