Alternatives to soyl

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
I'm looking into alternatives to soyl for my variable everything package I currently have with them.

Who's in the market for variable N,P,K, lime, seed, yield maps?
 
I'm looking into alternatives to soyl for my variable everything package I currently have with them.

Who's in the market for variable N,P,K, lime, seed, yield maps?
I do soil sampling with soyl and imagery with agrii/rhiza. Rhiza are more into zoning than grids I think, which means paying to have it scanned the first time but then less sampling cost going forward. I don't know which is better but I use grids for lime and pk. I do some vari rate N but don't do vari rate seed. The grids work well for me as we can have bits that have had a history of strawed carrots so a lot more K in some areas and zones wouldn't pick that up as well I think.
 

Mounty

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Thanks @Cab-over Pete
A real cross section of sampling jobs on at the moment. We still do a lot of grid sampling but doesn't have to be 1ha, can be less intensive (2ha, 4ha grids, split fields) if VR isn't possible for example.
The trend seems to be, less intensity but more detailed analysis or, pin pointing a few specific areas in a field with GPS and monitoring these areas on rotational sampling. Now starting to do this with carbon too.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I do soil sampling with soyl and imagery with agrii/rhiza. Rhiza are more into zoning than grids I think, which means paying to have it scanned the first time but then less sampling cost going forward. I don't know which is better but I use grids for lime and pk. I do some vari rate N but don't do vari rate seed. The grids work well for me as we can have bits that have had a history of strawed carrots so a lot more K in some areas and zones wouldn't pick that up as well I think.

I haven't used Rhiza, but they don't have to scan the soil unless you ask them to. Their zones are based on soil colour maps from satellite imagery. Of course you can tailor how detailed you want it to be.

I don't know anyone who has used Omnia but it looks good, though I'm a little sceptical as to the capability of their scanner. They wouldn't have it in use without some decent data to back it up - getting the same data from more conventional methods would cost a lot more sampling so you have to weigh up the time & cost benefit against the accuracy.

SOYL are long established and good at what they do.
 
Don't use Rhiza, you're just giving your data away that they then sell. The tools are built by another bit of the group who tell you they sell 'crop inventories' and 'farm trends'. That's your data they're selling.

 

crashbox

Member
Livestock Farmer
I used SOYL, was about £22/ha a year ago.

The subcontractor who turned up to do the sampling was from DMAC, very professional, maybe give them a call and go direct?

 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
DMAC are based near Salisbury and are agents for R&T Liming as well as doing a lot of sampling for SOYL. I dealt with them for all the time I worked locally. A great firm to deal with.

They were considering developing an alternative information based system using existing market software but I don’t know if that was taken forward.

Rhiza have done a lot where I am now. It looks like a good system and their soil zones are very similar to SOYL’s, who also mapped the farm.

If you have Gatekeeper or similar, you can do your own mapping and VR applications. It’s just having the time, IT skills and knowledge of the farm to do it yourself.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Don't use Rhiza, you're just giving your data away that they then sell. The tools are built by another bit of the group who tell you they sell 'crop inventories' and 'farm trends'. That's your data they're selling.

That link is to the same packages as Rhiza.

Frontier, a subsidiary of Cargill, own SOYL. What would the information from their extensive client list be worth? You can upload yield maps into mySOYL and they have crop imagery for the entire country. As market leaders, that would give them a very good sample of how crops were developing across the country.

If you are concerned about giving away information (a very valuable commodity), read the small print of your agreements and don’t upload everything.
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
I was involved with Courtyard when they were starting what is now Rhiza, which was called Rhiza and used them for around 5 years, it was a good system backed by an enthusiastic quality team until it was inevitably sold and the key people left.
I’m aware of several people who say the service has deteriorated and quite a few of the farms in the old Courtyard stronghold in Wilts have moved to Soyl, my Wife has an admin job where Rhiza is used and says the service is now terrible
Soyl are long established and it all works very well, I wouldn’t be jumping ship in a hurry !!
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
is the entire VRA industry based around selling cropping data so traders can make more £’s ? ……… imagine if you had accurate planting areas/ dates / biomass/ yields before harvests happened how much you could make !

just a thought / question ……. what exactly is the product and who really is the customer ? 😜
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
That link is to the same packages as Rhiza.

Frontier, a subsidiary of Cargill, own SOYL. What would the information from their extensive client list be worth? You can upload yield maps into mySOYL and they have crop imagery for the entire country. As market leaders, that would give them a very good sample of how crops were developing across the country.

If you are concerned about giving away information (a very valuable commodity), read the small print of your agreements and don’t upload everything.

who also own Yagro who are ironically (along with others employed by Frontier) are trying to set themselves as some sort of force for good / police agricultural data 🤣


……. if it looks a duck and quacks like a duck it probably is a …..
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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