Top-Dressing Wheat

Our Latest Sensing & Application Features

Soil Doctor Real-Time applicators, since 1990, have been distributed largely in the midwest. Now that experience base is being offered by CTI not only for its real-time success, but also for the "mapping emulation" endorsement of the USDA and the fertilizer industry. Yes, after a decade of missing the boat, USDA, along with Veris Technologies, Inc., has determined that copying Soil Doctor technology ( while keeping one's hand on the analysis throttle of a mapping PC) is the way to feel best using Soil Doctor technology. USDA fully endorses the method patented by Crop Technology, Inc. under U.S. Patent 6,484,652. Since 2002, CTI offers you a single software package that provides both choices for achieving precision goals: Real-time or Step-wise analysis and Map-based application.

Systems are available not only for use by grower-owners, but also by the crop consultant, fertilizer dealership, and commercial application market. For those considering Soil Doctor technology services to multiple clients, please download Comparison Points.pdf

This description page links to New pages for 2001 and beyond

Since 1987, growers have relied on Soil Doctor systems to Effectively Manage:

• Nitrogen,
• Seeding Rates for both corn and soybeans, and even
• Chemical Application, and
• Soil Data Collection

They can depend on us, because "Soil Doctor applicators Deliver^TM". They don't just promise. Today, more than ever before, you too need Soil Doctor technology to keep your operation healthy and in the black. We are here today and will be here tomorrow, because Soil Doctor technology WORKS, automatically delivering more product to the areas that need more and less to the areas that need less, as verified by the crop itself at harvest.

To your neighbors, this latest Soil Doctor system, will not look any different from its predecessors. Your neighbors might not even know you own one at 30 feet. Take a look, see if you can spot the technology components on these Deere-mounted systems.

Probably not. It takes a closer look. So look closely and examine the details. It's the details that make all the difference between "Precision Farming" philosophies and economic performance reality. The secret to success is described in the three major patents referenced on this website and in the superb engineering of the Soil Doctor product line. With Soil Doctor systems, you get award-winning results WITHOUT burning the midnight oil and waiting to get going.

Because our customers keep telling us that we have a winning product, we only tweak it every now and then, based on customer requests for added enhancements. The 2003 Soil Doctor System, our 14th production year, includes these enhancements and our intrinsic field-proven design, validated by customers since 1990.

As the above diagram shows, with a Soil Doctor system you DO NOT need GPS. You are not forced to map grid samples and spin your wheels.

With the Soil Doctor system you get economic benefits all along the way, and you can add a GPS receiver, obtain and keep your data records to prove to everyone how well you did. Moreover, you can mine your data for additional information, such as lime requirements, so after nitrogen application is done, you know where you stand and what you need to do for the next cropping program.

Or, perhaps you just can't get over the fact that there are so many promoting starting with GPS-based data and constructing maps to guide field treatment. Perhaps, no matter how many people have success with real-time systems, you just can't go that way to begin with. No problem, use the Soil Doctor system in another way.

But, don't forget the basic concern about your crop. You have been told that you need to yield map, TRUE? You've even been told that you need to soil survey (with an imitation of Soil Doctor technology, TRUE?). But have you been told that despite these recommendations that those folks can never put the data together accurately for you?

Unless you have data on precisely the same, MATCHED samples (yield and soil) in the field, things just don't add up correctly. But if you have the experience base of CTI, and CTI customers, things do add up. Yield and soil data (and water availability explain over 70% of your yield variation). This is not a mystery, but it is a mystery to those using maps to fudge their data analysis. Depending strictly on their experience, and history (ask for it), they may have accidentally obtained good results. Your luck with a mapping approach is unlikely to pay off without many, many trials.

But, hey, don't take our word for it. Prove it to yourself. You can rent Soil Doctor technology for data collection and Map-Based application. Get data in hand and compare. Illustrted below are many ways you can use the components of Soil Doctor technology in your operation.

Choose the way you wish to start with Soil Data. Combine it logically with synchronized yield data and learn that all of the "mysteries" of crop production are really not mysteries at all, but confusion promoted by those who want to promote confusion and long research trials, not results. Put components together any way that you wish and combine with "ground truth" lab data. When you are through we will even offer you a free real-time applicator for comparison trials with the very best map-based application you can create using all the data you can muster in a GIS..

The 2003 System uses the same coulter-sensing technology we pioneered in 1992. Since then, some have imitated us, but do not be fooled by imitations. (***Refer to footnote.)

More importantly however, not only are "imitations" not legal (see footnote and patents) they aren't reliable either. To this day none have fulfilled their promises or proven trustworthy in the effective management of nitrogen, seed, or chemicals distribution. Much more telling, those who fervently push the imitation onto a trusting public happen to be the very same characters who have also been assuring a trusting public that Soil Doctor technology ". . . cannot possibly work. Don't believe farmers who own Soil Doctor Systems believe me instead!" How they can rationalize peddling a clear imitation of something they swear "cannot work" is a mystery to every thinking human being.

In contrast, we have satisfied customers, more than a dozen years of them, and we back their satisfaction with our written performance guarantee. So, get the authorized technology, not because its the legal one, but because it is the one that WORKS and has been delivering economic benefits since 1987. Your family will thank you for your investment in their future.

Standard Agriculural Coulters Serve as Sensing Electrodes

We've been around a long time, long enough for us to have seen the big guys scramble and spend gobs of money and we've seen the small companies come and go as well. There have been a lot of fly-by-night "Precision Ag" concepts, and lots of pontification by academics as to what is the right thing to do. The truth is that there has not been any "Precision Ag" performance ANYWHERE, that is not overwhelmingly surpassed by the Soil Doctor system. The Soil Doctor system is not a "some-day" concept, but a working reality that makes money for growers.

Some fertilizer dealers likely won't like it --- losing fertilizer sales is a tough thing to face. He generally prefers Mapping because the typical mapping solution can normally be predetermined to put more pounds on the ground. More pounds, but they never are in the right place to help your profitability.

All of these folks miss the important details because they "ASSUME" application is not critically important. They really have never seen the high foot-to-foot variability in a typical farm field. They "ASSUME" that a computer program can really predict how soil varies from sparse samples. NOT SO. Soil Doctor systems produce because they measure and deliver at the same time. Separating the steps and limiting samples decreases accuracy and limits profits. With real-time Soil Doctor technology, soil testing and treatment occur without errors.

Soil Doctor System High-Speed Application Equipment

For 2001 and beyond, CTI introduced the latest Soil Doctor system using the Windows 98 + operating system on any full-color notebook. This agressive new approach is complemented with an operator's seat-mounted, finger tip operated track pad allowing simple, effortless commands without troublesome keyboard interruptions.

This state-of-the-art computer system is still teamed with the renowned, Classic Row Manager implement unit, which delivers lightning fast on-the-go soil analyses and precise, real-time application.

***Footnote: Do not be fooled by claims that other techniques that map soil data and require a second trip for application do not violate CTI patents. Even a sequential step process is a violation of U.S. Law, unless it is performed with the authorized ownership of a Soil Doctor system. No, only CTI technology is legally permitted to obtain ground-engaging sensor soil data and provide and deliver prescriptions from that data. When confronted with these facts, some will claim that they are not basing their prescription recommendations only on sensed soil data, that they are using "more" information to arrive at their prescription decisions. Such arguments, however, do not hold water because adding more information (whether real or imagined) to "sensed soil data" does not stand up to the legal tests of patent law in federal courts. If it did, then you and anyone you know could also hold patents on virtually any technology imaginable. Just glom something onto it and Voila! you too hold the patent to "Chiagra", --a delicious and chewy chocolate covered Viagra treat. Beware of imitations and the liability they bring to your table.