MyFarm's MySOYL application makes pH management easier for growers

14th August 2019

A new tool from precision farming leaders, SOYL gives growers more choice than ever when it comes to planning lime expenditure.

Available within SOYL’s web-based precision data management tool, MySOYL, which is part of Frontier Agriculture’s recently upgraded MyFarm platform, the new software enables growers and advisors to create lime maps in just a few seconds. Given the importance of managing soil pH and lime applications for arable success, the new feature is incredibly beneficial and offers users much more control.

Speaking of the development SOYL’s Commercial Director, Simon Parrington explained, “A recent survey of over 32,000 fields showed us that more than 50% of them had areas of acidity. The impact of this is not only a direct yield penalty but also poorer availability of other nutrients.

“As a result and as we approach the time of the year where the majority of lime applications are about to take place, we wanted to make it simple and quick for growers to be able to make lime maps. Now, they have every possible opportunity to apply lime only where it’s needed and avoid the impact of high acidity.”

To create the set of lime applications, growers simply access MySOYL through their MyFarm account, select the fields that have been previously soil-sampled for pH by SOYL and then choose a lime policy and product. This displays a lime map and total tonnage, as well as the option to enter a cost per tonne so that the expense of different policies can be compared.

“We provide recommendations for over 600,000 tonnes of lime per year,” Simon continued.

"Traditionally, these calculations have only been carried out by our advisory team but the new tool now allows our growers and advisors to use the same simple system too, giving increased flexibility to try different policies and products.”

SOYL has received positive feedback on this latest addition to MySOYL, with some growers already seeing the benefits.

Tim Walters of Upton Park Farms said, “We already use MySOYL to make variable seed and fertiliser application maps but the new lime tool now makes it straightforward to manage pH levels too. Our SOYL advisor normally puts together the initial plan and we then tweak it if needed according to budget or cropping changes, thus prioritising our lime applications.”

Southern-based lime specialist, David McLeod of DMac Liming Ltd. also uses the new tool when calculating lime for SOYL customers. “We work hard to support our customers and help them to carefully plan their lime applications. The new lime tool makes it nice and easy to try different combinations of pH target, budget and lime products. Ultimately, we want to get the right pH for both crop and soil health and MySOYL helps us to do this.”

The liming tool is available across all MySOYL subscription tiers, with new users able to set up a demonstration account to explore it and other features of the application in more detail.

Mr Walters concluded, “MySOYL is an incredibly powerful and useful management aid for viewing and acting on our large amount of precision farming data; something that has been difficult to achieve historically. We look forward to each advance and the lime application tool is another step forward.”

MySOYL is SOYL’s web-based precision farm data management tool which allows growers and their advisors to record, view and analyse a wide range of information. Available as a free subscription or through three more advanced packages, MySOYL includes an array of features which include the ability to view nutrient and pH maps, manage files, analyse soil scans, assess biomass imagery and create cropping plans, variable rate seed maps, custom applications and performance maps. 

Access to MySOYL is via Frontier Agriculture’s comprehensive farm management platform, MyFarm. Having just undergone a significant update, MyFarm lets farmers manage all aspects of their farm business in one place with the use of additional applications including MyAccount, MyCropMarketing and SOYL’s iSOYLscout.