The TerraMap Gold will be launched at the Groundswell Event in June. This new soil nutrition and management service from Hutchinsons combines comprehensive soil analysis with accurate soil mapping, to provide a premium TerraMap service for growers.
Ian Robertson, Hutchinsons head of soils, said: “TerraMap Gold will interest growers who want an even better understanding of why soil behaves like it does and its influence on crop performance; for the most informed soil management decisions to maximise farm profitability.”
TerraMap uses gamma-radiation detection technology to deliver soil mapping resolutions of over 800 points/ha, providing high definition mapping of all common nutrient properties, pH, soil texture, organic matter and CEC – plus elevation and plant available water.
The TerraMap collects data by scanning with a lightweight all-terrain vehicle fitted with the sensor over a field; then, it takes soil samples to allow for each scan to be used to create the individual map layers.
“The difference with TerraMap Gold is that once the mapping is done, the system collects much more detailed soil samples, analysed through the Hutchinsons Healthy Soils Gold soils analysis, rather than the standard soil sample analysis,” said Mr Robertson.
The Gold level soil test offers in-depth soil analysis of all the key macro and micro soil properties. “31 different elements are analysed by the Gold soil test, which makes it an ideal partner for the high-resolution data of TerraMap,” he added.
“The benefit of this increased level of data collection is the ability to make much more highly informed decisions about managing the soils more effectively.”
The TerraMap Gold test includes:
- Active (water) pH
- Buffer pH
- Soil texture
- Organic matter
- Organic carbon
- Phosphorous, potassium and magnesium indices
- Boron, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, molybdenum (total), cobalt, chloride and sulphur
- Total reserves of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, sodium, molybdenum
- Exchangeable cations (calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, hydrogen)
- Cation exchange capacity