A standard soil test is a good place to start, however it is not sufficient in itself to provide the basis for your fertiliser programme. Regrettably, a standard soil test only tell part of the story. For a crop as demanding and sensitive to soil conditions as potatoes this isn’t enough.
Standard soil analysis reports on pH and the extractant levels of a few key nutrients (P, K, Mg). However, it doesn’t account for how nutrients interact, whether or at what rate they’re accessible to the plant, or how the crop’s root system will respond throughout the season. For example, the magnesium levels on a report might look fine – until you realise that high levels of potassium is blocking uptake, limiting the crop’s actual access. Standard tests don’t catch those nuances.
Potatoes go through five distinct stages: sprout and early root development, early vegetative growth, tuber initiation, tuber bulking, maturation— each with changing nutritional demands. Again, standard recommendations are not tuned to these, mainly favouring application of all nutrients as soil-applied fertilisers at, or soon after, planting.
OptiYield® changes this. Instead of considering nutrients in isolation, the system produces a full nutrient availability profile, modelling how P, K, Mg, Ca, S and micronutrients will behave for each crop and field, it incorporates 18+ soil health indicators along with crop nutrient demand curves and varietal responses. This broader picture is essential for potatoes, where imbalance of any nutrient at critical growth stages can limit both yield and quality.
Beyond interpreting soil data, OptiYield uses software algorithms to create a full lifecycle plan. It outlines tailored nutrient applications and timings that sync with the crop’s needs, integrates biostimulants to improve stress tolerance and reduces fertiliser waste.
Put simply, standard tests tell you what nutrients are there, but not their availability or speed of release, whereas OptiYield identifies the gap between what your soil can provide and what the crop requires at each growth stage and then provides a product application plan that ensures your potatoes always have access to the nutrients they need in a timely and efficiently way. This is the difference between average and exceptional crop and profitable performance in potato farming.
Take a look at an OptiYield Soil analysis report here https://emeraldresearchltd.com/optiyield-soil-analysis-results-document/?et_fb=1&PageSpeed=off and a crop recomendation report here https://emeraldresearchltd.com/full-lifecycle-nutrient-management-plan/
Order an OptiYield soil sampling kit here https://emeraldresearchltd.com/soil-sampling-analysis/