Overview

As our project centers around nutrients that farmers would need to grow the most bountiful and quality crops, it made sense to interview several Wisconsin farms to seek their opinion on at-home testing. The first person we sought out was Janet Gamble, the farm manager at Turtle Creek Gardens where QuintaMKE sources a majority of their produce from. After discussing her current protocols for soil testing, we had a starting point for how practical and accurate our lab would have to be. Gamble told us that their current protocol involves “A step-on soil probe makes cores that we mix all together for one soil sample from each Zone sampling. It’s a big box of soil we take out to Madison for them to test.” From there, UW-Madison soil lab does a full analysis on how acidic the soil is, and amounts of potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen. They however do all their own water saturation testing. Furthermore, if an at-home alternative was a possibility, she cited that the biggest factor would be cost and accuracy, citing that all their fertilizer ordering is done using the information which is important for regenerative planting. She ended the interview by stating that she encouraged studies such as these as soil is an underrated topic that has major influences on everyday life.

The next farmer we reached out to was Steven Voight, a generational dairy farmer who now owns Voight Farms in Shiocton, WI. Steven utilizes AgSource soil testing lab every year to test his feed crop fields for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK). Steven emphasized how important accuracy is with soil testing since for him and many other dairy farmers, nutrient levels affect everything from crop health to fertilizer runoff amounts. Steven also emphasized to us the importance of creating a kit with thorough, easy-to-understand instructions. He encouraged us to make a test procedure that is foolproof and simple. Another dairy farmer, Ryan Schmidt from Schmidt Dairy Farm in Shiocton, WI, similarly advised that our kit come with full instructions.

Eric Rose was the next farmer we sought out to hear advice on how to maintain familiar aspects of soil testing that has already been established within farming communities. He is the head farmer at River Valley Ranch, a small organic farm in Burlington, WI, that produces vegetables and mushrooms to sell wholesale and at local farmer’s markets. Eric went in depth to teach us about the process of how he divides up his fields into different testing areas that he then collects various soil samples from. Eric also encouraged us to think about what materials and amounts of them would need to be included in our kit so that it could be used for the various sample numbers and sizes that farmers may decide to test.