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Precision Planting’s latest invention is a suite of tools for automating soil sampling and testing. On Aug. 3, the company announced 3 new tools for agronomists under the name Radicle Agronomics.

In this episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, Precision Planting’s Dale Koch and Doug Wright discuss the components of Radicle Agronomics, the new parallel sales network Precision Planting is developing to sell the solution, what the new sales strategy means for Precision Planting’s traditional dealer network, how Radicle Agronomics will work with the company’s existing offerings and much more.

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[Technology Corner] New ‘Branch’ of Precision Planting Automates Soil Testing

Precision Planting Launches Radicle Agronomics Automated Tools for Agronomists

Full Transcript

Michaela Paukner:
Welcome to the Precision Farming Dealer Podcast. I'm Michaela Paukner, technology editor at Precision Farming Dealer. In today's episode, Precision Planting's Dale Cook and Doug Wright join me to discuss Radicle Agronomics. The company's recently announced suite of tools for automating soil sampling and testing.

Dale Cook:
So my name's Dale Cook. I am a product lead here at Precision Planting. I lead teams from the research phase all the way to the productionization of new technology products here at Precision Planning. So my team, in this case for the Radicle Agronomics suite of tools consists of engineers, scientists, agronomists, all working together to bring technology to market.

Michaela Paukner:
Precision Planting just announced Radicle Agronomics in early August for professional agronomists. Can you explain what it is?

Dale Cook:
Yeah. Radicle Agronomics is a completely new branch let's say, of Precision Planting. It's a ecosystem, a suite of tools designed specifically for professional agronomists it's tools that make their lives easier. That give them a chance to focus more on the issues that really matter to their farmer customers, gives them more time to be out in the field, looking for problems, talking to their customers, diagnosing those problems, making recommendations and eliminating some of the busy work that could suck their time otherwise. The mission with those tools is to help provide better data. So more accurate, more precise data, such that they're equipped to make better decisions and recommendations with their farmer customers.

Michaela Paukner:
Can you walk me through the different tools that fall under the Radicle Agronomics branch?

Dale Cook:
Radicle Agronomics is launching three new tools as part of this ecosystem. The first and the cornerstone is the Radicle Lab. So Radicle Lab is the world's first, fully automated soil laboratory. So today you have a soil laboratory that might take tens of thousands of square feet. It takes dozens of trained technicians, and chemists, and soil scientists. We've condensed that all down into a 10 foot by 10 foot footprint. And the team required to run that is a team of one, and it doesn't need to be a chemist, doesn't need to be a soil scientist, doesn't need to be a trained technician, but really anybody can run this soil lab. So as simple as loading the samples onto a rack and pressing a green button, the idea is that this soil lab is as easy to use and as reliable as a dishwasher or a microwave, and really puts the agronomist in control of the workflow and at the center of the workflow, giving them the ability to increase efficiency when it comes to the handling of samples.

Dale Cook:
So the day an agronomist is going to be spending quite a bit of time in the record, keeping and handling the samples as he or she takes those samples in the field and brings them back to the shop. And does the paperwork, the record keeping to make sure all that data, all those samples end up associated with the right place in the field. And so all of that is eliminated with the Radicle Lab. And so that's the concept is that it takes something that is robbing their time today to spend on matters that really make a difference for their customers, put the control in their hands.

Dale Cook:
And then last, but certainly not least is the automation of processes that happen in the lab today, where you have a lot of human hands touching those aspects of the soil analysis process. So because of fully automating that we are reducing the errors that can happen because of someone having a bad day and that affecting some part of the lab process, whether that's the tracking of data within the lab, the tracking of that sample within the lab, whether that's the drying process, the grinding process, the mixing of chemical reagents, all of that requires human hands and we've taken all of those pieces and fully automated that.

Dale Cook:
Part of the Radicle Agronomics ecosystem, one of the three parts is the software suite that is purpose built for nutrient management, nutrient visualization, as well as the tools to make calculations and recommendations. The great thing about this is it allows the farmer to be more in the loop in those conversations, to have clear access to their soil test results, because it's just a button click away for the agronomist to send that to them. As soon as those results are in. Really the third piece is a partner to Radicle Lab that goes with the agronomist to the field and that's called GeoPress. So GeoPress is like a set of helping hands for the agronomist. It's mounted on an ATV or a UTB or whatever vehicle you're taking to the field with you. And the goal is again, to eliminate the tedious and manual and error prone steps that an agronomist takes in the field as part of the sampling process.

Dale Cook:
So it does a few things. Number one, after the agronomist takes the sample. So pulls the cores, whether that's with the hydraulic probe or manually, after the agronomist takes the cores. You first drop those cores through a grinder on GeoPress to make sure they're perfectly and homogenized together. At that point, you dump that mix in, and this is just in a matter of seconds, that's through, you dump that mixed and homogenized soil into a funnel. You press the start button, at that point that soil drops into our purpose built [inaudible 00:07:09]. Container. So this is replacing the traditional sample bag and what it is. It's a geo tagged container that holds that soil sample. So the GeoPress takes that it uses RFID technology and essentially stores the location that sample was taken, stores that location on the geo tube, the GeoPress takes and takes a cap and caps off that too, and then drops it and gets it ready for you to put it in a box or whatever container you have on your UTV to store your full samples in.

Dale Cook:
Now, the majority of those steps all happen while they're driving from one point to the next. So again, this is about saving time, making the field experience for an agronomist as efficient as possible, so that they can focus on getting good samples, so that they can focus on looking at things in the field like they do, to look for issues and concerns that they might talk to their customers about whether it's washouts or hard pans, [inaudible 00:08:19].

Dale Cook:
And really to give them a helping hand and to ease that part of the sampling process at that point when you leave the field, you've got to box full of full geo tubes. And so you take those full geo tubes back to your shop and you very simply just load them on a rack on the Radicle Lab. You don't have put them in any special order because once they go into Radicle Lab, that RFID tag is going to be read. And reassociate it with that point in the field that you collected that sample at, and the data's going to flow from one spot to the next, from the field to the lab, and then ultimately back on the office for you to make your recommendation. But GeoPress is your partner in the field that goes with Radicle Lab.

Michaela Paukner:
So when somebody's signing up for this, who's an agronomist, they're going to get GeoPress, the Radicle Lab, and the software all together all of the time?

Dale Cook:
Exactly.

Michaela Paukner:
Okay.

Dale Cook:
Exactly.

Michaela Paukner:
Have you guys released a cost for the package yet?

Dale Cook:
Sure. Our introductory pricing for this fall is planned to be... Is a lease arrangement. So the Radicle Lab combined with GeoPress is an annual lease at $750 a month. We then have a per sample cost as well, which is planned to be $5.50 per sample. So that is an introductory cost, but that's where we're at.

Michaela Paukner:
And then does that include the servicing that may need to happen and the training in that?

Dale Cook:
Yes.

Michaela Paukner:
Okay.

Dale Cook:
All of that is built into that cost.

Michaela Paukner:
Okay. And then why did you guys decide to go with the lease arrangement versus having the agronomist purchase everything outright?

Dale Cook:
That was really based on feedback that we got from agronomists. What they said was... As we showed agronomists, who we had confidential agreements in place with, we showed some early prototypes of it and they said, "Look, we didn't get this business to own a lab." And frankly, they were intimidated by the technology in some ways, that's the sophistication that's inside of this lab. And so they said, "We want you to own this and service it and ensure that it's getting good results. We like what you're doing. We like the efficiency gains. We like the simplicity. We like to control. We like the workflow improvements, but I don't want to own this."

Dale Cook:
And so we said, "Okay, well I think how it work if we would own it. And it's a lease to you, we provide the service, we provide the training, we're in charge of making sure that this thing is getting good results in and day out." So as we talked to them, that seemed like a much more natural arrangement for our agronomists customers to really be able to focus on the things that matter to them. And that is spending time in the field, spending time with their customers, spending time doing the value added activities, like making recommendations and that.

Michaela Paukner:
Exactly because like you said, owning it comes with a whole new set of responsibilities that aren't necessarily a benefit to helping them do their job or helping farmers.

Dale Cook:
Exactly.

Michaela Paukner:
So what does it take to set up the Radicle Lab in the agronomist place of business? And then is there specific training that they'll need?

Dale Cook:
Yeah, so Radicle Lab, it is a scientific instrument in a lot of ways and needs to be treated as such. So it does require air conditioning. So it requires an air conditioned space maintained at about 70 degrees. But then beyond that, it simply needs a source of compressed air. It needs a garden hose hookup. We're doing all the filtration within the Radicle Lab and then just a regular wall outlet plug in for power. And at that point it is ready to go. There would be some small amount of training, but it's certainly not days let alone weeks of training that are required to run this. In really an hour's time an agronomist could be set up and ready to run with Radicle Lab.

Michaela Paukner:
So when will Radicle Lab be available to agronomists? And is it available to any agronomist?

Dale Cook:
We are, this fall going to be doing a commercial beta. So we're in the very final stage of testing with just a handful of units we plan to have out this fall of 2022. Next year is really our first production release. And we will start selling units in late spring, early summer for the fall sampling and analysis season.

Michaela Paukner:
And then will it be limited to any certain geography or is it open to anybody?

Dale Cook:
Geography wise, we're going to start in the Midwest part of the unique nature of this product and this new ecosystem is that we've packed all the sophistication of a world class lab into Radicle Lab. And so the agronomists that we've talked to have said, "Hey, love the idea, but I sure don't want to service that sophisticated instrument." And so Precision Planting under the banner of Radicle Agronomics is going to be providing the service of these units or anything beyond just regular consumable replacement, let's say. And so in the early days we'll focus on geographies closer to us as we continue to develop out that service strategy. But certainly we feel like there is a worldwide market for this type of device, especially in places outside of the US where access to world class laboratories is actually much more challenging. So certainly our reach is beyond the local vicinity and even beyond the country borders.

Michaela Paukner:
Yeah. I imagine having such a small footprint and then relatively minimal requirements to operate, it would make it really attractive for some of those areas. Like you said, that don't have access to a big lab.

Dale Cook:
Yeah certainly. It's nutrient management in general is a really big challenge. As we talk to farmers as we have for decades now, the conversation that keeps coming up is, "Look just below my land cost on total cost of farm and acre is my nutrient bill, is my fertilizer bill." And so what they then go on to say is that I don't understand completely where all those dollars go. and that is just as true in the United States or in other countries where farming has gotten very sophisticated as it is in countries where farming is less sophisticated.

Dale Cook:
So there's a huge opportunity, both for farmers to help them identify areas in their fields that are lower producing because of lack of nutrients and also areas where there are over applications because of lack of good measurement processes. And the great thing about nutrient management is not only is it good for the farmer's pocketbook, but it's also good for the land. Environmental pressures and let's say a raising awareness of the effects of things like fertilizer on the environment. It is something that we continue to, just as an industry, need to grow in our stewardship. And Radicle Lab and its small footprint, its versatility and its it ability to scale across geographies. We believe can be at the center of helping both farmers achieve greater profitability as well as holding a critical role in supporting the environment.

Michaela Paukner:
How do you envision Radicle Labs fitting in with Precision Planting's other offerings?

Dale Cook:
It's different, that the customer is different in a lot of ways here we sell through our independent distribution network, our premier debt dealer network, all of the Precision Planting technology up to this point, but this is a different customer. This is professional agronomists. So how does it tie together? Well, the reality is that we have been deeply invested in nutrient management tools for a number of years. And so as you look at our first product in the space, FurrowJet, which is a near furrow starter application tool to conceal, which is a two by two nitrogen application tool and then [inaudible 00:18:51]. Which is a rate control system for planners.

Dale Cook:
We have been investing in research and nutrient management space for quite some time. And honestly that's part of what birthed this initiative. But as I look at that, I certainly see tie-ins between our dealers that are selling those pieces of equipment and the agronomists now that will be giving nutrient recommendations. And I do see a synergy there. And whether that's the agronomist pointing to opportunities to take applications to the next level, whether that's going from a broadcast to a band situation, or whether that's going from a very simple liquid control strategy to a more sophisticated one like you would get with the [inaudible 00:19:56]. System, I certainly see a tie-in there, but suffice to say, nutrition management has important to us and focus to us for a quite a number of years now.

Michaela Paukner:
Now is the time to nominate a dealer for Precision Farming dealer's 2023 most valuable dealership, dealers, manufacturers and others are invited to participate by nominating top Precision Farming Dealers from across North America, go to PrecisionFarmingDealer.com/mvd to nominate a dealer for our 2023 MVD award and help us recognize North America's premier Precision Farming operation. Now let's get back to the episode as Doug Wright discusses the strategic significance of Radicle Agronomics.

Doug Wright:
My name's Doug Wright. I have the privilege of leading our commercial team globally at Precision Planting. So all of our sales, and marketing, and product support, sales support personnel around the globe, part of the team that I lead and with that comes both the practical, the day in and day out of running a sales organization, but also longer term strategy. What do we need to be thinking about three or five years down the road and taking steps to be sure that we're developing markets that we think we can serve well, but we haven't really moved into yet or still in their infancy like internationals, for example, we are a global company, probably 20% of our business comes from international today. It's growing faster than our company overall will continue to. So there's still a lot we need to do and to learn to really serve growers around the world more effectively than we are today.

Michaela Paukner:
So when you look three to five years down the road, how does Radicle Agronomics fit into your strategy for that time period?

Doug Wright:
So Radicle Agronomics is quite a reach for us. As our name suggests we've been living on the planter when it comes to new ideas and equipment development for some time and we're not done with the planter yet. We still have some pretty interesting ideas in our R&D pipeline that we think will continue to improve growers experience and outcomes with new technology. But our whole company in a way that we think is all about finding ways to serve the grower better. And by serving, we mean helping them do what they do more effectively, more profitably, more sustainably. And as we look at all the variables in the environment which growers operate in, we find a lot of opportunities for improvement that aren't specifically planter related.

Doug Wright:
To that end we recently announced some of our new initiatives and products that will be coming to market over the next few years in the sprayer market. For example, we think there are opportunities to improve the way that sprayers operate from an efficiency and an effectiveness standpoint. So we're moving into that arena. We have our own vision initiative, have our own on staff data scientists. We've developed our own proprietary camera system that has application on sprayers for example, and what's commonly known as see and spray. So being able to identify plants and applying fungicide or herbicides only to the plants that you want to affect saving a lot of cost and affecting sustainability as well, Radicle Agronomics fits into more of that space.

Doug Wright:
There's a group of agronomists that do what we do in that they exist to serve the grower and help them operate more effectively and efficiently. As we looked at opportunities through the eyes of a grower, one of the largest expenses that a grower typically incurs after land is their fertility applications, fertilizer. We think that there's a big opportunity for us to bring our innovation and precision, orientation towards the whole range of soil, fertility, functions, and tools, starting with soil sampling and very labor intensive, very costly and to some degrees is a limiting factor in our ability to efficiently, cost effectively represent the nutrient requirements of growers fields because we can't take soil samples as densely as we would like a lot of soil sampling protocols today, I call for one sample, which is a couple of cores, but one sample for every two and a half acre grid in the field that is one couple millionths of the actual soil that's being pulled and reusing that as a proxy for two and half acre grid.

Doug Wright:
We think there's an opportunity if we can figure out how to do that more cost effectively through mechanization or otherwise to do a better job or more dense job of pulling samples and representing the field. We've learned that there are lots of variability and error that can get introduced into the typical soil lab process, whether that is at a university or a commercial lab setting, we have our own chemists. We have our own chemist chemistry lab. We recently had someone join us that's considered to be one of the preeminent soil scientists in the country, comes out of academia and commercial as well is working to help us figure out how we can make adjustments to that as well.

Doug Wright:
And we've introduced our automation and mechanization into that space with the Radicle Lab that we just announced. And as it turns out, we think we have a lot to offer in this soil fertility space. So we've developed some mechanical tools that'll help in the field. We've developed this automated lab, we've built a software package that ties it all together that's really purposed built for what agronomist crop consultants do. And this we think will be right in the mainstream of what we do at trying to help growers operate more effectively, more cost efficiently, and more sustainably.

Michaela Paukner:
How do you envision Radicle Agronomics working with Precision Planting's other offerings like the see and spray, and the planter, and technology and whatnot.

Doug Wright:
We've spent a lot of time thinking about that over the last couple of years, as these products entered into their final development phase and we have a very effective, very robust equipment dealer, Precision equipment dealer network, to do a great job with all of the products that we've introduced up till now, this particular initiative, Radicle Agronomics, hinges on the product and services, the output of these products being in the hands of those, that growers trust for fertility recommendations and that isn't our dealer network.

Doug Wright:
A limited number of our dealers actually have robust agronomic services. They're doing soil sampling, they're doing crop consulting, they're doing recommendations and scouting. They would be candidates for this initiative. The vast majority are not. And a lab doesn't automatically make someone or trusted advisor for a grower. What comes to this very large expense that they have in fertility every year. So we will be bringing this to market and selling these products under the Radicle Agronomics umbrella to crop consultants. And they are the most natural business partner to be able to use these tools and roll that into their existing business to provide better recommendations to growers. So it'll be a parallel channel if you will, going to market and not going through our traditional dealer network.

Michaela Paukner:
Okay. And what should dealers know about this parallel channel?

Doug Wright:
We tried to be very thoughtful in how we have let the world at large know what this initiative is all about. So start in the last several weeks, we have been progressively informing more and more of our organization starting internally. This has been a top secret if you will, project for a number of the years it's been in place. And just recently we have began informing all of our internal employees.

Doug Wright:
So our sales force is well aware of it globally at this point, we've we have had some communication, some webinars, if you will, with our dealer network that, so they know what this initiative is at a high level, what the products are that are involved with it, how we're planning to take it to market. Why we don't think that they are the natural channel to take this to market. And the reasons why, and the feedback we've gotten this far is that the vast majority of them understand that. It is different for some, it probably came a bit as of a surprise, but again, the thought that's gone into it, the way that this can really serve the grower, the vast majority of them understand that and applaud it.

Michaela Paukner:
And then earlier you had mentioned that you're not done with the planter yet. You still have products in R&D, in the pipe so why is now the time to expand away from the planter and focus on something like Radicle Agronomics?

Doug Wright:
So we don't look at it as expanding away from the planter quite honestly. As Precision Planting has continued to grow as a company, we grow as an employee base as well. So for example, for Radicle Agronomics specifically, we will actually be building a parallel sales organization in addition to a parallel distribution channel. So we're not diverting resources that would otherwise go to supporting the planter market, planter products that we've got, or our existing Precision Planting dealers by going down this path. So we've added chemists, we've added data scientists, soil scientists, other agronomists to support this initiative, but it doesn't really detract from our focus on planters. We think what we've announced is really just is an initial announcement of some well-tailored products we think, to begin delivering some of the benefits that we foresee this space could really, really benefit from, but we have many more ideas and products in the pipeline.

Doug Wright:
So this will be a significant initiative. It may initially feel a little odd or sort of one off. This will be a major part of our business going forward. One of the things that we've learned in the last few years is that not unlike other aspects of the agricultural space, the United States has some of the most developed and mature soil sampling and soil analysis capabilities on the globe. And as we look at some of the markets that we are already in, the opportunity to bring Precision soil sampling and soil analysis to bear for greater agricultural outcomes is huge for this particular space. Radicle Agronomics might be as big or bigger globally, internationally, that would be in the state. So we have a long runway here. We're very excited about what we announced and I would just suggest people they're interested, stay close. There'll be refinements to what we announced, improvements, and whole new avenues that will be going down in the coming years.

Michaela Paukner:
It sounds like a really exciting future ahead. And quite the cliff hanger there was saying it sounds like it's almost a building block of some things that are to come.

Doug Wright:
I would say that's true. Yes. It's consistent with who we are, how we view the world, how we try to serve the agricultural space, but what we introduce is foundational. And we think it's got several more stories to build out over the coming years.

Michaela Paukner:
Thanks to Doug Wright and Dale Cook for joining me for today's conversation. The full transcript of this episode is available at Precisionfarmingdealer.com/podcasts. You'll also find a video that shows what the components of Radicle Labs look like in the web story for this episode, from all of us here at Precision Farming Dealer, I'm Michaela Paukner, thanks for listening.