Integrated Ag Services’ APSS (Automated Precision Soil Sampler) is celebrating 10 years of success. The patented automated soil sampling system started with an idea in 2005 and after much testing, revising and redeveloping the soil sampler was fully operational in 2011.
“The idea started with the thought that there has to be a better way to provide farmers with accurate and timely information so they could make important decisions that impact their crops,” said Dave Scheiderer, owner of Integrated Ag Services. “When I started the business in 1990, conducting 2.5-acre grid testing was industry standard, the process was inconsistent and time-consuming, we knew we needed to find a way to take more samples. What started as an idea took several years to create the ultimate solution with our automated precision soil sampler.”
Scheiderer had the idea and brought Mike Grand and Dwayne Maddux into the process. Grand understood what could and would not work and Maddux was able to build the vision. The soil sampler system started with a manual process. Three people were involved – one drove and two rode along to flip switches, fix jams and monitor the process. In the early testing years, the failure rate was incredibly high. Over the years, they adjusted and revised the process and the failure rate continued to decrease.
In the summer/fall of 2011, the soil sampler was ready for action. The 2011 version was the first fully automated machine to include the knife and elevator with a chamber that would automatically cleanout the collected soil. This was the exciting moment we had been waiting for, pulling soil samples on the go every 15 seconds. This technology allowed us to do exactly what we wanted to do, which was to take a lot of quality soil samples really fast with high accuracy.
“Over the past 10 years, we’ve conducted about 600,000 acres with the APSS,” said Evan Delk, vice president of sales and marketing for Integrated Ag Services.
“This has been an incredible adventure,” said Scheiderer. “Since I had already been in business before we started the soil sampler, our customers trusted our experience and what we were trying to accomplish. Once the automated soil sampler was ready for more use, we could verify. Growers were able to see how it works and its added benefits.”
The APSS helps give farmers the highest resolution of information of their soils in the industry. Once the grower sees this level of data for the first time, they say it just simply makes sense. More times than not, the grower has that “ah-ha moment.” They quickly understand why certain areas of their fields perform the way they do.
“More data is better. The soil sampler leverages precision agriculture so farmers can make better decisions,” said Scheiderer.
Integrated Ag Services (www.integratedag.net) is a trusted leader in providing reliable, unbiased, customized agronomic information to allow farmers to make the best possible decisions on their farms. Their services include one-on-one consulting, precision ag services, soil sampling services, high definition (HD) soil sampling services and agronomic scouting services.
