Soil Doctor® System
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"Fair" Tests |
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"It is ironic that would-be scientists insist on seeing new discoveries and work printed in peer-review literature because they really have no understanding what they are asking. Pioneers have no peers and certainly no peer publications to publish their work.
When Bruno suggested that the earth revolved around the sun, he was put to death by his peers. Galileo was threatened with torture by his peers for suggesting the same thing. Simmelweis's peers ran him out of his homeland for suggesting that physicians wash their equipment and hands between patients. Nikola Tesla was laughed at by his peers, including Thomas Edison, for suggesting that alternating-current electricity ought to be the electricity of the day. ..............
Peer review is actually political review, designed to determine whether the work alienates the monopoly."
In 1987 (yes, 19 eighty-seven), after reviewing data recorded
by Mr. J. Terry Schneider of Shirley, IL (Deere's "Dirt Doctor"
in December 1996 "Furrow Magazine") --data which demonstrated
an impressive net profit increase of $10.00/acre-- Department of Energy
Offices proposed the following "definitive" tests of Soil Doctor®
technology, tests which have NOTHING to do with either fertilizer usage
or yield production.
Proposed, not Conducted
Aerial Infra-red field photographs, representing no more than just biomass,
were to be used as the "Standard" to which the Soil Doctor®
Nitrate+ Sensor had to be in complete "agreement" in order to
"pass" as an accurate Nitrate+ Sensor, COMPLETE AGREEMENT with
biomass. Idaho National Engineering Labs, U.S. Department of Energy.
Proposed, not Conducted
Although blind soil sample results typically reveal soil variability
(often in orders of magnitude, not in mere margins) from inch to inch, Sensor
signals from one field pass had to be in exact agreement with signals from
a pass four inches over, EXACT AGREEMENT with different soil. Idaho National
Engineering Labs, U.S. Department of Energy.
Proposed, not Conducted
Fertilizer was to be "perfectly", evenly distributed across
a band in a field. Completely discounting all in situ soil nitrates in that
band, the sensor signal had to register a steady level which was exactly
equal to the level supposedly, "perfectly" evenly applied across
the band, EXACTLY EQUAL to that level APPLIED. Idaho National Engineering
Labs, U.S. Department of Energy.
Proposed, not Conducted
The sensor electrodes were expected to ride loosely in an open slot
(minimal soil contact), and record the same exact value recorded when they
were part of the process that cut the slot open in the first place, when
they had maximum soil contact, EXACT VALUE regardless of the tester-imposed
soil contact. Idaho National Engineering Labs, U.S. Department of Energy.
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Proposed, not Conducted
Plans were made to conduct engineering analyses,
the kind competitors aspire to conduct on their competitors, but CTI suggested
that they Work with CTI customers (real growers), with a real crop, in a
real field, on a real and hectic operation schedule. After only one season,
they decided that they didn't really want to work with real growers, with
a real crop, on a real farm, with a real and hectic schedule.USDA, ARS.
A full forty acres were put into a side-by-side comparison study, but heavy
rains and corn borer infestation devastated the test plot plant population.
The "scientist" selected six acres to harvest and compare, making
no note of the plant population problem, as any real scientists would have
done. The same six acres had an old broken, submerged concrete driveway
in a Soil Doctor® plot, also not noted by the "scientist".
The growers harvested the remaining thirty-four acres. The "scientists"
"Findings" were 30 bushels/acre less than the growers, whose results
were confirmed by the local elevator. Sensing something odd about the "scientist's"
sudden interest in the technology and his reluctance to work with real growers,
CTI sent a crop consultant out to document the field conditions. Ever since
then, that "scientist" (who has already developed his own competing
on-the-go organic matter soil sensor and is developing his own competing
on-the-go nitrate soil sensor) has called CTI officers "paranoid"
for both documenting field conditions (as real scientists are supposed to
do) and for regarding him as the aspiring competitor that he is, rather
than the "trusted, objective, public servant", that others trust
him to be. USDA, ARS.
The sensor is pulled through a lab soil bin and found to be in 90% (out
of a possible 100%) correlation with the known soil nitrates. NO FIELD TESTING
IS DONE. Errors Estimated, from the interference Estimated by possible vibrations
in field usage (also Estimated), are unequivocally determined to make sensor
accuracy unacceptably low. Midwest Land Grant University Ag-Engineers.
The sensor-knife, which has not been part of the Soil Doctor® System
since 1991, was designed and sold to travel-tightly behind a coulter, in
a normal, up-right position, to come into tight contact with freshly cut
soil beneath the ground surface. On a inch-to-inch basis, it was somewhat
more accurate than the present dual rolling coulter method; but the alignment
behind the coulter was too difficult for a few coulter assemblies. For "scientific
testing", that same sensor-knife was tossed loosely on its Side, upon
a nitrate-laden soil surface, and then jumped up and down upon by a grown
man, while the sensor readings --as the knife came into tight contact and
then out of contact altogether-- with the soil surface were recorded. Those
changing readings, consistent with the drastically changing nature of the
soil contact, somehow "proved" the system couldn't work when used
as directed. Texas Land Grant University Ag-Engineers.
The practice of using the same, or nearly same, yield goal from year to
year --on the same plot-- is determined to be arbitrary and unscientific.
It is stated that a yield goal of 50 bushels/acre, followed by a yield goal
of 150 bushels/acre, followed by a yield goal of OVER 300 Bushels/acre --for
three consecutive years, on the same test plot-- would have been a more
scientific approach to farming that field. Texas Land Grant University
Agronomist.
In-field testing is done where the soil sensor reading is compared to soil
not in the vicinity of the soil sensor contacted-soil. Midwest Mapping
Competitor.
In-field testing is done where the soil sensor reading is compared to soil
not in the vicinity of the soil sensor contacted-soil. Fertilizer
Industry Representative
Key operator mistakes are made, for as many as three consecutive years.
The mistakes are identified by a CTI representative, including yield goal
entries which exceed all previous field practices (and therefore order the
system to "pour-on" the fertilizer), improper valve installation,
and a velocity cable that is installed backwards. When advised of the backwards
cable, the operator replied: "The Cable is fine. It's your system that's
broken". The cable is flipped. The radar works fine, but the operator
resists correcting the other identified mistakes for the third and final
year of testing. CTI sincerely hopes that his SWC District will buy him
all the mapping paraphernalia that he really wanted, over the Soil Doctor®
unit, in the first place, particularly the "user-friendly" software
with which even the most dedicated, tenacious, and Direction-Adhering growers
have had time-consuming difficulties. (The operator and his "inconclusive"
results were featured in no less than FOUR ag-magazine articles in 1996.
CTI is amazed only at the fact that that unit did provide some growers with
positive economic benefits.) Someone whose cousin curiously introduced
himself with: "You're not doing anything new. I've been doing the
Same thing in my [nursery] business for ten years!"
A unit is bought for the purpose of nitrogen sidedress. When the operator
realizes that there is still no fall test that can predict the weather (predict
the availability of soil-produced nitrate due to in situ soil moisture,
heat units, and precipitation/leaching); he is disappointed. He runs the
system in its Check (test) mode by pressing "Check" and complains
that the system did not perform as represented. He is reminded that the
system would also not perform as represented by CTI had he pressed the button
to the left of the "Check" button (the "Demo" button),
and that the "Run" button --as clearly indicated in the manual--
is for Running the system as represented by CTI. A "college graduate"
who, accordingly, refused to accept assistance from CTI and chose not to
call CTI for guidance and not to read his CTI manual once he realized that
the System was definitely not performing as represented.
A unit --which was an infringement of CTI's patent-- is assembled and claimed
to be the property of the assemblers, tested, and found to be "very
accurate". (The original, however, had been steadfastly declared to
be "inaccurate" by all the participants (except for those of the
huge Aerospace Company) even though the participants had never even seen
a Soil Doctor® unit in use.) According to attorneys of the aerospace
company; its five infringing scientists were subsequently fired, the unit
was dismantled, and the project was canceled. After the infringement and
the "very accurate" findings, the Iowa participants (who declared
"their" sensor to be "very accurate") resumed their
"inaccurate" assessment of CTI technology even though the participants
had still never seen a CTI-manufactured Soil Doctor® unit in use, just
"theirs".
NOTE: CTI had originally agreed to participate directly in those 1994 tests
in Rheinbeck, Iowa. CTI refused to participate when it learned why the Aerospace
company was so willing to charge its future grower customers so little for
the mapping service it was planning to provide them. The reason? The Aerospace
Company, not the growers, was going to "own the data" in order
to sell it to the government. Midwest Land Grant University Agronomist,
Midwest Mapping Competitor, and Aerospace Company (not Rockwell International).
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Notably, the on-going theme of these so-called "definitive"
tests is that "Yield Production and Fertilizer Usage are Not Important",
that they are "irrelevant" to a technology that is represented
and marketed ONLY to EFFICIENTLY MANAGE AG-INPUTS. But conducting "tests"
which ignore the purpose for which a technology is sold is a Double-Edged
Sword, because "tests" which do not address the actual field
performance of a technology can be used just as easily to falsely-praise
a non-functioning technology, as they can to falsely-disparage one that
reliably works for real growers.
As I have publicly written since 1995 (e.g., "Product Efficacy:
Who Will Conduct the Tests?"), "Tests" which Ignore the
purpose for which a technology is sold and "Tests" which Examine
a technology --from an engineering standpoint, step by step-- benefit only
those doing the examinations and their friends. SOCIETY, charted to pay
for these charades with its precious --very precisous-- tax payer dollars,
loses every time.
Sylvia A. M. Colburn
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Many have asked WHY CTI and its technology:
