Progressive Agronomy Consulting Services- PACS LLC

10/21/2026

My prediction: release date 2028, hppd resistance being reported widespread by 2035, farmers scramble to find row crop cultivators because they have ran out of options chemically. Might have to really think about transitioning those marginal acres back to pasture and finding some other crops to diversify the rotation to stay ahead of this w**d resistance game.

With unprecedented herbicide tolerance and flexibility, Vyconic soybeans are set to transform how farmers approach w**d management.

10/13/2026

3”. That’s the depth I could get using the Wintex hydraulic soil probe in these dry soil conditions even when adjusting the sensor depth and adjust the hydraulic pressure on the machine, which ultimately just killed the motor. This is why I am waiting for rains to come in the central part of Illinois before attempting to sample fields this fall. If I were sampling by foot probe, I would struggle to get the probe in more than an inch. So my question to those who are sampling right now, are you measuring your core depths? Are you reporting your core depths at 6” even if you’re only collecting a 2-3” sample and just taking more samples to fill the bag? If so, that data is complete garbage and waste of the farmers money. Maybe I just need to put on more weight, but if a hydraulic probe pushing 800 psi can’t get in the ground, how the heck are you doing it by foot???

10/12/2026

❓ HERE’S WHAT FARMERS SHOULD REALLY BE ASKING:

🌱 CAN MY SOIL SUPPLY ENOUGH POUNDS OF NUTRIENTS PER ACRE, PER DAY, TO KEEP UP WITH MY CROP’S DEMAND?

Think about that!

Your crop doesn’t grow in parts per million (ppm). It accumulates nutrients in POUNDS PER ACRE, and its daily nutrient requirements change dramatically throughout the growing season.

A soil can test HIGH in a nutrient and STILL struggle to supply that nutrient fast enough during periods of rapid crop uptake.

Conversely, a soil testing LOW may supply more nutrients throughout the season than a single chemical extraction suggests.

It’s not just about how much is there.

IT’S ABOUT HOW MUCH CAN BE SUPPLIED, HOW FAST IT CAN BE SUPPLIED, AND WHETHER THAT SUPPLY CAN KEEP UP WITH CROP DEMAND!

✅ Can my soil supply enough nutrients in lb/ac/day during peak crop demand?

✅ How many total pounds of nutrients will my crop need to accumulate to achieve my yield goal?

✅ Can biological activity, mineralization, and nutrient replenishment keep pace with daily plant uptake?

✅ Will additional fertilizer produce an economic return?

✅ How are soil biology and weather influencing nutrient cycling?

✅ Are nutrient interactions, moisture, or root restrictions limiting nutrient availability and uptake?

✅ Is my crop actually taking up and utilizing the nutrients we’re applying?

✅ How much fertility is ACTUALLY leaving the field in harvested grain?

✅ Can we improve nutrient-use efficiency instead of simply increasing fertilizer rates?

STOP THINKING ONLY ABOUT PPM ON A SOIL TEST.

START THINKING ABOUT POUNDS OF NUTRIENTS SUPPLIED PER ACRE, PER DAY, AND WHETHER THAT SUPPLY MATCHES THE CROP’S DEMAND.

Because ultimately, crop nutrition is about nutrient supply, uptake, and utilization over TIME—not just a concentration measured on the day the soil was sampled.

10/09/2026

How Much Fertilizer Do You Really Need? Watch this YouTube video for more context of these trials.

https://youtu.be/SDJgP2xGq90?is=CUoAs5jt5R2xGItM

10/08/2026

🚨 YOUR SOIL TEST DOESN’T TELL YOU HOW MUCH FERTILIZER YOUR CROP NEEDS. IT HELPS PREDICT WHETHER YOUR CROP WILL RESPOND TO MORE.

That’s not my opinion. That’s the science conventional soil testing was built upon!

For decades, universities have taught that traditional soil tests are INDICES of nutrient availability, calibrated against the probability of a crop responding to additional fertilizer.

Yet every year, farmers make thousands of dollars in fertility decisions based on numbers printed on a piece of paper or pretty, color-coded maps.

BUT WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY MEASURING?

🔬 A CHEMICAL EXTRACTANT IS NOT A PLANT ROOT!

Conventional soil tests use chemical solutions such as Bray, Mehlich-3, and ammonium acetate to extract nutrients.

These chemicals can extract some of the same nutrient ions plants absorb, but they do NOT reproduce the biological, chemical, and physical processes through which living roots acquire nutrients.

A plant doesn’t simply extract nutrients once and call it quits!

Throughout the growing season, roots, microorganisms, organic matter, soil minerals, moisture, and temperature continuously influence nutrient availability.

A soil test measures what a particular chemical extractant removes under laboratory conditions. It does NOT directly measure everything a growing crop can access throughout the season.

And that distinction matters!

📉 THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS

Conventional soil fertility recommendations are grounded in decades of crop-response research.

As nutrient availability increases, the additional yield gained from more fertilizer generally decreases.

Eventually, the cost of applying additional fertilizer exceeds the value of the additional production.

University of Missouri Extension publishes these general probabilities of crop response:

🔴 Very Low: 80–100%
🟠 Low: 55–75%
🟡 Medium: 20–30%
🟢 High: 0–10%
🟢 Very High: 0–1%

When soil test values are already HIGH, the likelihood of an economic response to additional fertilizer is generally LOW!

So why are we automatically replacing every pound of estimated crop removal without first evaluating whether the soil and crop actually need that additional fertilizer?

Maintaining fertility and achieving an immediate economic fertilizer response are NOT the same thing.

📊 SOIL TESTS ARE EXCELLENT TRENDING TOOLS.

When sampled consistently over time, conventional soil tests help us understand whether nutrient levels are increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable.

But a trend is not the same thing as understanding nutrient cycling.

And a colorful fertility map is not the same thing as understanding plant nutrition!

🦠 THIS IS WHERE KPI SOIL ANALYSIS TAKES A DIFFERENT APPROACH.

At Progressive Agronomy Consulting, we believe fertility management should go beyond measuring extractable nutrients.

Our KPI Soil Analysis combines conventional soil testing with additional biological and chemical measurements to develop a more complete understanding of the soil–plant system.

🌱 BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION

We evaluate microbial respiration, water-extractable organic carbon (WEOC), water-extractable organic nitrogen (WEON), and other biological indicators.

These measurements provide additional evidence about microbial activity, organic nutrient pools, and the soil’s potential to cycle nutrients.

Because nutrient availability isn’t determined by chemistry alone!

🌦️ WEATHER AND ENVIRONMENT

Soil temperature, rainfall, moisture, oxygen availability, and seasonal weather patterns influence nutrient mineralization, microbial activity, root development, and nutrient movement.

The same soil can behave very differently under different growing conditions.

We incorporate weather and environmental conditions into our interpretation because nutrient availability is a moving target, not a fixed number.

⚗️ NUTRIENT FORMS AND INTERACTIONS

We combine conventional extractions with Haney H3A testing to evaluate additional nutrient pools and relationships.

We examine nutrient ratios, potential chemical antagonisms, and conditions that may influence nutrient release and uptake.

H3A was developed to approximate certain aspects of root-zone chemistry, but it is not a living root and does not directly measure season-long nutrient uptake.

That’s exactly why multiple measurements and agronomic interpretation matter.

📈 NUTRIENT-USE EFFICIENCY

Our objective is to better understand how the soil supplies nutrients, where limitations may exist, and how fertilizer timing, placement, form, and rate can improve crop utilization.

We’re not claiming that one laboratory test can predict every pound of nutrient a crop will acquire.

We’re evaluating more of the processes that determine whether those nutrients become available in the first place.

That’s an important difference.

❓ HERE’S WHAT FARMERS SHOULD BE ASKING:

✅ Will additional fertilizer produce an economic return?

✅ What nutrients can the soil potentially supply throughout the growing season?

✅ How are soil biology and weather influencing nutrient cycling?

✅ Are nutrient interactions restricting availability?

✅ Is the crop actually taking up the nutrients we’re applying?

✅ How much fertility is ACTUALLY leaving the field in harvested grain?

✅ Can we improve nutrient-use efficiency instead of simply increasing fertilizer rates?

A SOIL TEST NUMBER IS INFORMATION.

A FERTILITY MAP IS A VISUALIZATION.

NEITHER ONE, BY ITSELF, IS A COMPLETE FERTILITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY!

Conventional soil testing remains valuable. But understanding soil fertility requires more than looking at individual nutrient concentrations.

We need to understand the relationships between soil chemistry, biological function, environmental conditions, crop nutrient uptake, and economic response.

STOP MANAGING NUMBERS. START MANAGING THE SYSTEM.

🌱 Progressive Agronomy Consulting
Independent Agronomy. Better Understanding. Smarter Fertility Decisions.

📞 217-370-3799

📚 UNIVERSITY RESEARCH & REFERENCES

• University of Minnesota Extension — Understanding the Soil Test Report. Soil test values are indices rather than direct measurements of total crop-available nutrients.

• Cornell University — Northeast Region Certified Crop Adviser Study Resources: Soil Testing. Agronomic soil tests are indices correlated with the likelihood of fertilizer response.

• Iowa State University — Interpretation of Soil Test Results (PM 1310). Soil test interpretations are developed through field calibration and crop-response research.

• University of Missouri Extension — Understanding Your Soil Test Report (G9077). Soil test categories are associated with different probabilities of crop response.

• University of Florida IFAS Extension — Soil Testing for Plant-Available Nutrients—What Is It and Why Do We Use It? Chemical extractions estimate nutrient-supplying capacity but do not replicate the full complexity of plant nutrient acquisition.

THE SCIENCE HAS BEEN THERE FOR DECADES.

IT’S TIME OUR FERTILITY MANAGEMENT STARTED REFLECTING IT.

10/06/2026

The time spent in the office preparing and perfecting field boundaries is a critical part of the job that is extremely time consuming but, it is the most important part of making sure that zone maps are built properly. Even when sent shapfile boundaries, if the vertices are in the middle of a waterway, or road, or timber line, those points can greatly inhibit the accuracy of the zone map creation. This is a job I loathe the most but it is the attention to detail that matters most. This field alone took nearly an hour to clean up the boundary. It’s part of the job that I take pride in, but it’s also the reason I am so adamant about sending field files to me during the summer or winter times to work on them as it takes a lot of time to build the sample maps before sampling can be done.

As farmers, you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on fertilizer every year. And that budget seems to only continue to increase. Why do we constantly complain about fertilizer prices and rates while skimping on the test that your results are based off of? Locally, a $7 test on 2.5 acre grid that provides maybe 9 metrics of your soils tells you absolutely nothing other than you’re probably going to need to spend more money on fertilizer and still not achieve results. There can be as much variability in that 2.5 acre grid as there is in the entire field. And the lab results are based on antiquated technology that only tells you an index’s value of the likeliness of having a yield response to fertilizer. That’s it. Not an economic yield response. Not what might be tying up nutrients in the profile when you apply them. Not how much the soil can truly supply to plants through microbial activity. Just a mor-on approach or needing more fertilizer. We spend thousands of dollars for precision management tools in our equipment every year and it drives me crazy how so many people skimp on the one thing that they base all of their decisions on, soil test. And then they may only do them every 4 years to “baseline” their soils. If the soil conditions at the time of sampling were too dry, too hot, too cold, too wet, the results that you’re basing your fertility decisions off of for the next 4 years could be completely inaccurate and a complete waste of money.

If you want to truly understand your fields true variability and how microbes in the soil can influence the cycling of nutrients to ultimately reduce the amount of fertilizer you have to buy every year, give me a call and let’s chat.

09/24/2026

What’s the best non-selective herbicide on the market today?

Answer: fertilizer! Excess fertilizer that is. This spot is from where I spread fertilizer on hay ground and kicked the fan off but didn’t kick the chain off. The fertilizer that over flowed from the fans onto the ground has kept this area free of alfalfa, grass, and all w**ds all season. I have an identical spot like this in a few other places. Think about that if you’re considering your fertilizer plans for next year. Too much of a “good” thing, could actually be your yield limiting factor.

09/22/2026

09/21/2026

Oh I love this perpetual yo-yo cycle we find ourselves in. Oh no! Nitrogen prices could be higher in the spring. Well, let’s rush out to put all our N on this fall to save a buck, even though data shows we have the potential to lose a tremendous amount of the N applied, even with a stabilizer, and then we have to come back and apply more next growing season because our crops “appear” N deficient. It seems this is becoming the new norm south of 16 in Illinois. One co-op put out a letter this summer telling farmers they will no longer be renting toolbars to apply their anhydrous and could with buy the toolbars from them or use their custom anhydrous service. And oh by the way, since we know we can’t get all the N on in the spring time with everything else we do as a “full service” co-op, we are going to offer you a discount if you choose to fall apply your N rather than wait till spring. And every year that farmers in this area fall for that BS, they have to come back in the spring with more N because their fields “look off.” I don’t know if this is the definition of insanity, or just the mor-on approach but a dollar spent on fertilizer that never gets into your crop is a wasted dollar. Think about it, nitrogen efficiency is only at best 40% efficient at getting in your crop. Phosphorus is at best 20% and potassium about 50%. But hey, let’s go through those dollars out there 7 months before we plant a crop and then complain there’s no money to be made.

There’s a better way to be more efficient with your fertilizer dollars, and it’s not from applying more or doing a controlled sling approach of fertilizing. It all starts with a more in-depth look at your soils ability to function and cycle nutrients instead of applying more or blindly cutting back.

Nitrogen fertilizer prices could rise into the spring application season before easing later in 2027, according to a new forecast from Kansas State University agricultural economist Gregg Ibendahl.

The model projects anhydrous ammonia near $950 per ton in September, rising to about $1,044 in March before falling to $876 by August. Urea is forecast near $661 in September, peaking around $705 in April before easing to $622.

Ibendahl says European natural gas futures are driving much of that pattern. Winter gas prices are expected to strengthen before declining later in 2027, with fertilizer markets responding after a roughly two-month lag.

Current nitrogen prices also remain above levels suggested by gas and corn fundamentals.