Soil and seed testing are important as we head into spring, considering the challenges with excess moisture last year, and the likelihood of flooding this spring.

Craig Davidson of Taurus Technology says testing helps producers know what they're working with or without this spring.

"You know there are guys that fertilized last year but didn't grow a crop and now they're wondering what they have there," says Davidson. "Doing a soil test is a good management practice to say yes it denitrified or leached or hey it's still there and we don't need to put as much on."

"The other area would be phosphorous. If the soils were saturated and there's no oxygen, maybe there wasn't as much conversion of phosphorous to an available form, so those numbers could be lower," he says.

He says there are a number variables that can be determined through a soil test.

"It may be soil pH, soil type, salinity, sodium levels, or even water holding capacity - all those things can be derived from a soil report. The better job you do in defining all those variables, the better your recommendation will be for nitrogen, phosphorous, sulphur and even micronutrients."

Davidson recommends producers consider carrying out tissue tests during the growing season.

"A tissue test is like a fuel gauge. How is our program looking? Did we hit the mark? Was there some environmental stresses that caused our crop not to access fertility that may be causing shortfalls? And maybe there's an opportunity to shore that up. It' like blood work. Maybe we think we're healthy, but we're actually lacking magnesium," he says.

Davidson is taking part in the AgriTrend's "Wanted" Tour, which includes several stops in southern Manitoba.

~ Tuesday, February 8, 2011 ~