Rumors

Soil Doctor® System

Rumors

If the reader has been the recipient of the same negative anecdotes about Soil Doctor® technology as has CTI; they either stem from the following rumors, the "Fair" Test list, from those referenced at "Scientists", or are wholly-contrived.

And what is the Reason that the following Rumors so easily fall apart?

CTI's Money-Back Performance Guarantee effectively deters CTI dealers from selling to Growers unlikely to benefit from Soil Doctor technology.

Rumor: Of course Soil Doctor® data is great. Every manufacturer always reports that HIS DATA is GREAT.
Truth: Contrary to "The Way 'Things' are Done in U.S. Agriculture", All the data CTI reports has been recorded by independent parties: Soil Doctor® customers, and university and USDA Soil & Water Conservation District researchers --NONE of whom have been compensated by CTI or by agents of CTI; again, contrary to "The Way 'Things' are Done.

Rumor: It's not fair! Growers have to wait until after harvest to see if their Soil Doctor® System worked for them.
Truth: Before one drop of fertilizer is applied, growers drive their Soil Doctor® units through fields they know and watch the sensor display. It knows the difference between corn following corn soil and corn following alfalfa soil. It knows the section of the field where the cows were kept over fifteen years ago. It knows where last year's beans yielded impressively high. And it knows the pattern the grower uses to spread manure, often triggering him to use a different pattern. Before the crop is harvested, growers walk their fields, do yield checks, conduct Minolta Meter tests, etc. to satisfy themselves that their crop is not nitrate deficient.

Rumor: Of course Soil Doctor® owners record impressive net profit increases on Soil Doctor® plots, compared to non-Soil Doctor® plots; those growers put the Soil Doctor® plots in the better fields and put the control plots in the poorer fields.
Truth: To qualify for CTI's Money-back Performance Guarantee, growers MUST conduct Side-by-Side (serpentine) comparisons, within the SAME FIELD, to make every attempt possible to have the SAME field conditions applicable from plot to plot. The assertion that growers would pick "the better fields" for Soil Doctor® plots (thus overstating the benefits actually provided, as they also disqualify themselves from the guarantee) is not only baseless, it is illogical and expresses the true regard/respect that the speaker has for growers.

Rumor: Anybody can occassionally record impressive net profit increases if they do only one, or maybe two, "replicates".
Truth: CTI urges customers to conduct NO LESS THAN FIVE replicates, preferably seven or more, particularly since Mother Nature has been coming in and wiping them out. (One or two tests do not constitute "replicates".)

Rumor: Because Nobody else in Precision Agriculture offers growers a Money-back Performance Guarantee, CTI's cannot be real.
Truth: CTI offers a Money-back Performance Guarantee for two primary reasons: 1) CTI can (while nobody else can) and 2) The CTI Guarantee guarantees to CTI that --each and every year-- impecably unbiased, independent sources will go through all the trouble/hassle to conduct Side-by-Side comparisons designed explicitly to get at the No-Spin TRUTH of Field Performance. To 1996 Field Performance.

Rumor: They won't tell anybody anything about "how" it works.
Truth: CTI has patents both issued and pending. Issued patents are publicly available documents. CTI often volunteers the number of its issued patents to polite inquirers.

Questions about or beyond patent details are typically asked and answered during the programs of technical conferences. ONLY ONCE, however, has anyone ever been asked to present a paper on CTI technology (Dr. Lloyd Murdock, University of Kentucky, in 1991). Although not invited, CTI representatives were on-hand to take technology questions from the audience. Dr. Murdock reported significant fertilizer savings WITH AN ASSOCIATED YIELD INCREASE, fertilizer industry representatives whined about the results, NOBODY ASKED FOR ANY TECHNOLOGY CLARIFICATIONS, and Soil Doctor® technology was never to be a topic at a Fertilizer industry-sponsored conference again (in spite of CTI requesting an invitation for such).

As such, CTI representatives have never actually been asked for any clarifications about the technology, NEVER. Those whining "They won't tell anybody anything" are the same ones making sure that the opportunity (to answer such questions) will NEVER arise. For More about that same conference.

Rumor: CTI sells its Soil Doctor® to be a perfectly pure nitrate sensor.
Truth: CTI's System is not a "soil sensor", and certainly not just a "nitrate" sensor. As stated in CTI color brochures since 1990, the nitrate sensor that is integrated into CTI's Flagship Soil Doctor® Nitrogen Applicator is designed to "examine soil type, organic matter, cation exchange capacity, soil moisture, and nitrate nitrogen".

Rumor: Dr. Bob Hoeft (University of Illinois, Urbana) made numerous calls to CTI, but they were never returned.
Truth: Bob Hoeft has never called CTI, never. All Communiqués, including the initial introduction, between Dr. Hoeft and CTI have been initiated by CTI representatives (primarily by Sylvia Colburn).

Rumor: Dr. Lloyd Murdock (University of Kentucky, Princeton) and others were paid to validate Soil Doctor® technology.
Truth: Nobody has been paid to validate Soil Doctor® technology. In 1990, at the request of Kentucky grower Don Halcomb (Franklin, KY), Dr. Murdock made the decision to evaluate Soil Doctor® technology through the University of Kentucky funding system, determined to uncover the truth, whatever that might be. The three year study was cut short after year two by a newly-acquired anhydrous implement which would not seal the anhydrous knife slots, allowing continuous escape of the otherwise carefully-metered fertilizer. While "scientists" like those featured in "Fair" Tests would have used the nitrogen-escape to unfairly discredit the Soil Doctor® System and brag about it to their colleagues for years, Dr. Murdock made the painful decision to cancel that year's testing, tossing-out the many hours of field preparation his staff had dedicated to that year's study. Beginning 1997, Dr. Murdock will expand his study to include the farm of Kenneth Hayden in Elizabethtown, KY --weather permitting.

Rumor: CTI does not permit sensor data recording because it does not want anyone to see its sensor data.
Truth: Stated in CTI's brochure since 1994, the AXT option is available for recording and CTI's Cation Exchange Capacity maps (CEC) can even be used by fertilizer dealers to guide them into varying fertilizer and other input rates according to the most detailed soil data currently available.

Rumor: CTI will not let anyone evaluate its technology.
Truth: CTI invites all objective parties (those without agendas, hidden or otherwise) to evaluate its technology --based on the purpose for which CTI sells its technology and any other representation that CTI, not others, makes.

Rumor: CTI will not let any one work with its customers.
Truth: Those with separate agendas do not want to work with CTI customers and --have themselves turned down opportunities to work with customers --, because CTI customers care only about real results: fertilizer usage and yield production. Although CTI has no control, legal or otherwise, over its customers; CTI constantly encourages its growers to work with extension and other objective parties.

Rumor: Performance Guarantees are "Bad" or "Counter-Productive".
Truth: CTI's constant polling of midwest growers has revealed no problem with guaranteeing them that they WILL increase their net profit --through properly using their Soil Doctor® nitrogen applicator--, or their money-back. If the reader can offer some insight as to why some Precision Ag "chatters" believe that money-back Performance Guarantees are bad for Agriculture (aside from the fact that CTI customers demand tangible benefits from Precision Ag far more than do average growers), kindly advise CTI of such at colburn@soildoctor.com.

Rumor: Three growers from Kentucky bought Soil Doctors, but didn't use them.
Truth: Although almost true, the typical interpretation is completely false. Three brothers bought one unit. One brother is in charge of all the State's experimental farms, the others in charge of the family dairy operation. 1996 was to be a tremendous year for change. Crops were to be variably planted, variably fertilized, both at planting and at sidedress, and NOTHING was to be done WITHOUT FULL DOCUMENTATION of everything through detailed maps. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard Signal was a major disappointment. In the middle of that GPS hassle, the weather crisis hit. All activities were postponed till 1997 --when weather again appears to be an interference.

Rumor: The Soil Doctor® System is like magic. Just put it in a field and it does the rest.
Truth: If the operator is unwilling to enter realistic yield goals, unwilling to follow simple installation directions, unwilling to calibrate a radar gun, unwilling to accept the fact that --in a single afternoon-- a big surprise from Mother Nature can instantly undermine every "perfect" management practice, etc.; then the operator is too irresponsible to be farming. Agriculture, including the Soil Doctor® System, but especially mapping, is not for him. Precision Agriculture is not about turning off your brain or your common sense. It's about getting an economic advantage out of using more of both.

Rumor: Growers should really wait until the big manufacturers offer the innovative technologies of Precision Ag, besides the prices will only come down.
Truth: Growers have already noticed that the precision products currently offered by the big impersonal, manufacturers are significantly more expensive than those offered by the pioneers/originators themselves, but not more accurate. In 1991, right before we rejected a business offer from an Ag giant; we were told that they were planning to sell the Soil Doctor® Nitrogen Applicator (just the Nitrogen applicator) for --over $20,000 in 1991 dollars--. Their Justification? "It doesn't just sit there and continuously spit-out numbers. IT DOES SOMETHING!" At under $11,000, CTI currently sells a multi-purpose application system which varies, foot-to-foot, Plant Population, Starter, P&K Application, Herbicide Application, And Anything Else that any one would want to vary on the basis of giving more of the Ag-input to the better soils, and less to the poorer soils, as well as the better-known nitrogen applicator that has been commercially available since 1990.

The long-time common question: "If Soil Doctor® technology really does as CTI says, then Why doesn't......?" is reasonable, deserving a direct answer. Unfortunately however, it is a question more often hurled in haste at CTI representatives --like a thrown rock--, and only pensively and sincerely asked of CTI critics, like those who conducted the "Fair" Tests. As a result, many, many "If the technology really worked, then" false Rumors have sprung forth.

Rumor: If the CTI technology really worked, then every fertilizer dealer would be interested in handling, or otherwise promoting, it.
Truth: NOBODY wants to make less money, and fertilizer dealers are no exception. From telling growers to call Bob Hoeft, who has never even seen a CTI unit --but officiously proclaims: "It can't work"; to making-up growers and farms don't exist, but which supposedly obtained "bad results"; to turning their back on growers who recorded saving 50% and even 60% of their designated fertilizer budget; most fertilizer dealers, fertilizer coops, and fertilizer manufacturers have used their influence to stop growers, whenever possible, from more efficiently distributing their fertilizer when that means that growers will be using significantly less fertilizer.

Rumor: If the CTI technology really worked, then ag-magazines would constantly write about it.
Truth: Well, that's not what the publishers and editors themselves say. CTI has asked them, in writing, specifically about the "scarcity" of Soil Doctor® articles --compared to the "frequency" of articles covering GPS, not fully-developed on-the-go soil sensors, not fully-developed remote sensing interpretation, Grid Sampling, and other variable-rate approaches. CTI has asked if the scarcity is due to editors believing that CTI technology "does not work". The responses of those editors and publishers steadfastly contradicts the above rumor.

Some feel that it's just not important for growers to learn about a tool that enables them NOW to reduce their fertilizer usage by 20% to 40%, and some even to 60% --while maintaining, or even increasing their yields-- and enables them NOW to substantially protect their groundwater/their environment. They feel that it's more important for growers to learn about what might someday perhaps be available to them for perhaps attaining future similar economic or environmental benefits. Others, for reasons similarly not understood, have decided to ignore the independent results from the university and USDA researchers who have validated CTI technology and from CTI growers. They insist that only CTI-generated data --not independently-recorded, independently-verifiable data-- is worthy of their magazines' consideration, and they have expressed a deliberate boycotting of CTI as long as CTI persists in setting forth the facts as they occurred, rather than as others want them to be perceived. Anyone understanding the rationale of either publisher/editor is encouraged to submit any enlightenment to colburn@soildoctor.com.

Still others, do write about growers relying upon their Soil Doctor® System year after year to more efficiently manage their Ag inputs.

Rumor: If the CTI technology really worked, then ALL universities and government offices would endorse it.
Truth: Some do, while other university and government offices have been funded for many decades to develop technologies which were to provide the kinds of benefits as do those currently being provided by the pioneering Precision manufacturers of Agriculture. Common sense tells most people that competitors do not "endorse" competitors. (Also see "Fair" Tests.) In addition, the federal funding of these offices is always under fire and in danger of reduction, subject to the Successes and Indispensability of these Technical offices. Because few of us have overlooked the fact that the Mars rock from the Antarctic (which evidences "Life on Mars") came conveniently at a time when NASA needed public support for its survival; few of us should ignore the fact that --the strong instinct to survive-- typically supercedes any desire to serve the best interests of the nation --grower, university, and government validations be damned!

Rumor: If the CTI technology really worked, then a "big" company would have bought them out already.
Truth: Who says CTI, and others, didn't receive and reject buy-out offers long ago? The reality is: Few, if any, effective, innovative technologies from the smaller inventors of Ag have ever been offered fair buy-out deals from Ag. See "Due Diligence" to better understand the fact that "Not being bought-out in U.S. Agriculture typically indicates a lack of desperation more than anything else."

Rumor: If the CTI technology really worked, then all of the many Precision Agriculture conferences in the U.S. would always include the CTI technology in its programs, particularly the on-the-go soil sensor programs.
Truth: To understand why CTI representatives and those independent researchers from academia and government who have validated CTI technology are typically excluded from these conferences, and to gain insight into the ethics of the CTI critics who ARE invited, see "Fair" Tests and "Due Diligence". In the spirit of the phrase "I'll be Dining off This for Years"; regardless of the indefensibly unscientific "inquiry", sanitized, White-Washed versions of these unscrupulous "tests" have gained their designers and their conductors many undeserved career perks, like Jobs with CTI Competitors, Appointments to Prestigious Committees, Interviews with Unsuspecting Journalists, and of course --Invitations to present Technical Papers to Conferences--. These invitations include the same on-the-go soil sensing and VRT conferences from which CTI representatives and those independent parties that have validated the Soil Doctor® System are excluded, even though CTI has requested --in writing-- to present technical papers. With unabashed gall, those who reject CTI offers to present papers are typically the ones who complain about "the suspicious lack of papers discussing Soil Doctor® technology". Amazing, isn't it?

Rumor: If the CTI technology really worked, then there would be more publicly available papers on the Soil Doctor® System.
Truth: See the above.

Rumor: The Soil Doctor® can't work because there is never any nitrate in the soil, not in the early spring, not in the late spring. (by Dr. Bob Hoeft to midwest growers.)
Truth: There is so much nitrate in the soil that Nitrate has been found to be the leading groundwater contaminant directly attributable to Agriculture. Illinois, including the Urbana area, has numerous nitrate contaminated lakes serving municipal customers. Nitrate is so prevalent that Dr. Hoeft's pal Dr. John Hummel (Urbana, IL) is working on his own Competing, on-the-go, nitrate soil sensor which Dr. Hoeft often refers to as "our" nitrate sensor.

Rumor: It has recently been found that nitrate stores in the soil easily for up to three years. (by Dr. Bob Hoeft to fertilizer dealers in the fall.)
Truth: Highly soluble nitrate becomes highly mobile with the introduction of precipitation or running water. The likelihood of the same nitrate molecules storing themselves in the same field location --for three consecutive years-- is extremely slim, but a comforting and consoling thought for fertilizer dealers who would like to make heavy fall nitrogen fertilizer recommendations to their customers, but with a clear, not guilty, conscience.

Rumor: The Soil Doctor® is nice and it is the right way to go, but it isn't quite ready yet, isn't quite accurate enough.
Truth: Having reliably attained net profit increases in the hands of real farmers since 1987 when Deere's "Dirt Doctor", Terry Schneider, recorded a $10/acre net profit advantage, and being the Only Company in Agriculture that Guarantees Net Profit Increases starting Year One; the Soil Doctor® system was "ready" and "accurate" well before most people had even thought about "Precision" Agriculture. Sold only in regions where CTI is confident that it will perform (and much criticized for this responsible marketing discretion), the only times it has not performed was under circumstances where even an idealized "perfect" technology could not perform, i.e., when interference from outside factors prevented performance. Outside factors include Mother Nature (unusually heavy rains, drought, pests, etc.) and Man (failure to install, maintain, or operate the system as directed, running over or mowing the down the crop, using concrete driveways as test plots, etc. --See "'Fair' Tests"). Those making the "not ready yet" or "not accurate" assertions typically feign objectivity as they promote their own agendas which are NOT performance guaranteed, just performance implied, assumed, and hoped.

Rumor: It takes five years to begin to see the economic benefits of Precision Agriculture products.
Truth: For products only claiming to be precise, perhaps; but not for the Soil Doctor® System. Starting year one, tangible economic benefits are measured.

Rumor: Don't do anything different. Just study your yield maps for five corn (10 total) years.
Truth: With the large body of known agronomic axioms, that advice is completely irresponsible, both environmentally and economically. We know that too much nitrogen is bad for the environment and not necessary; that better soils deserve higher plant populations, higher fertilizer application, higher herbicide application, etc.; that poor drainage means poor plant stands, etc.; etc.; so why not NOW fix the problems that are fixable? Why wait? And just What/Who are we waiting for? This rumor is typically spread by those who are developing competing technologies of their own, but who --to date-- have no technology which currently can provide a tangible, reliable, year-after-year, benefit to growers. Shamefully, they want growers to wait for them, to continue to farm less efficiently than they have to, even though it means depositing into the ground water far more environment-degrading nitrogen fertilizer and Ag-inputs than they have to and more than they want to.

Rumor: "I've tested it. I say it doesn't work!"
Truth: The people who say this fall neatly into three categories: aspiring competitors, those who refused to install and use the system according to directions (See "'Fair' Tests") and those who have never even touched the system, but nonetheless "authoritatively" describe a technology they have never seen. The truth is that they are lying to you when they tell you they have tested it and found it defective.

Rumor: CTI is impatient with growers and others who do not understand fundamental agronomic principles.
Truth: CTI is impatient only with Liars: those who conduct scientifically indefensible "tests" (See "'Fair' Tests") and represent themselves to be "objective" & "fair" and their "tests" to be "scientifically irrefutable", who think that facts and lies are interchangeable and that lies actually constitute free-thinking, who think that evaluations by competitors are fair & reasonable (as long as they aren't the ones being evaluated), and with those who constantly feed growers false, misleading rumors & myths about agronomics & technology. While it may be "Just a Game" for some, "Just Business" for others, or "Just the Way Things Work in Agriculture"; these lies make it difficult for growers 1) to improve the economics of their operation and 2) to protect the Quality of All Our Ground Water, through technologies which are precise enough to do both --starting year one. CTI did not originate this impatience with liars. Growers --extremely tired of being lied to-- are the ones who brought it to CTI's attention.

AND Finally,

Rumor: If the CTI technology really worked, then Everybody would Already own one.
Truth: In light of the Many False Rumors and the Many Unscrupulously Unfair Tests, --many by Trusted public servants, some of whom Compete against CTI and other Innovative Manufacturers, but who Still have nothing to offer the public--

Open Your Eyes ----.

Anyone's reputation would be marred by a smear campaign of this magnitude, one conducted by those a few of those who are Trusted Public Servants, no less. They have been warned by their superiors of such action. If you hear such disparagement, report the same to CTI or directly to USDA or University officials.

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E-Mail: colburn@soildoctor.com