News

It's Time To Start Thinking About Fall Soil Sampling Supplies

As the hot, humid days of summer begin to shorten, it is a reminder that fall is not too far away we will soon be into harvest and soil sampling seasons. One way to help prepare for the busy season is to have your sampling supplies ordered in advance.

Customers who are accustomed to ordering sampling supplies from the store on our website may have recently noticed that the store feature is no longer available. However, supplies can still be ordered online in the ALGL Client Portal and can only be accessed by existing ALGL account holders who have created a portal login. If you have not done so yet, please visit our article for First Time Login Instructions. In order to create a portal login, you must use an email address that is associated with your ALGL business account. Any credentials associated with the former online store are no longer valid.

When using your portal store access there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure you are getting the supplies that you expect. First, the quantities of both sample bags and shipping boxes are for individual items, not cases or bundles. For example, if you are accustomed to ordering 3 cases of soil bags, you will need to enter 3,000 sample bags since they come 1,000 to the case. The same applies to shipping boxes. Depending on size, our boxes come pre-bundled in quantities of 15 or 25. So, if you would like to order 3 bundles of large boxes, you will need to enter 75 as your quantity.

When ordering UPS return service labels, be sure to select the appropriate label for the boxes that you will be shipping. There are 2 components to selecting the labels, the size or dimensions of the box and will it be used for plant or soil samples to determine the approximate weight. You will also have the option to print your own UPS shipping labels in the ALGL Client Portal. Click here for directions.

If you are not a fan of ordering online or do not have internet access when you remember to order supplies, you are still welcome to call or email lab. You can call, text, or email your ALGL Sales Agronomist as well. We will be glad to get those orders placed for you.

Printing UPS Labels from the ALGL Client Portal

UPS labels for use with the ALGL UPS Shipping Program have historically only been printed at the lab and shipped to you. With the new ALGL Client Portal you can print these labels directly from the portal. This is not designed to replace the pre-printed labels from the lab, rather a tool to access labels for printing in the event you do not have the label you need when it is time to ship samples.

After logging into the ALGL Client Portal, select “UPS Portal Access” from the menu. Click here if you need help logging in for the first time. Only those emails associated with an ALGL business account on file are active within the portal.

Drying Soil Samples - Still a Standard?

Wet soil sampling is not a new concept.  No, this does not mean sampling a wet field or placing mud into a sampling bag.  This is in reference to analyzing nutrient values from a certain amount of soil to represent a much larger area.  A well-known fact about soil is the variability it can hold.  Whether this be different types of clay, topographies, climates or soil moisture.  One way to eliminate some variability, and inconsistencies, is to eliminate one variable in the sample.

Once a sample is received at the lab, it must go through a preparation period before analysis.  In short, for a standard soil sample analysis, the soil sample bag is referenced and logged in then transferred to a breathable container on drying racks.  At A&L Great Lakes Laboratories, these racks are placed in a custom drying room.  These drying conditions never exceed 104 degrees Fahrenheit.  This ensures certain extractable figures such as potassium and pH are not affected.

The sample is cross referenced for sample ID etc. then ready for the grinder.  To get a homogenized sample after the grinder, it must be uniformly dried.  Then it is processed through a sieve to remove larger materials such as rocks or other debris.  The result before analysis is a representative soil sample with no physical inconsistencies.  This is paramount to the next step of “scooping”.  By taking a volumetric scoop of the soil, consistency is needed.

This seems like a lot of work for the lab when some new technologies are providing nutrient analysis with wet soil samples.  There are several key factors that warrant a dry sample before the extractions can be conducted.  A standard moisture content creates a repeatable process for samples.  Wet soil sampling can be done for certain extractions, but without a standard moisture content, it can be inconsistent depending on environmental conditions, soil types and sampling depths. 

Drying creates a stable sample.  With a wet sample some biological and chemical reactions are still occurring.  Soil is alive, and this does not change once it is cored from the field and is placed in a bag.  Soil microbial processes require moisture to continue.  By drying the sample, these natural conversions are halted especially for nitrogen analysis. 

A solid foundation of agronomy is understanding patterns.  Patterns require consistency, and sound agronomic advice starts at the beginning, with the soil.  To better understand soils and application techniques, an average is calculated.  Then a trend can be set from a larger data set to make the best economic and environmental fertility decisions.

Don’t Chase Impossible Plant Tissue Levels

Plant tissue testing is helpful for monitoring fertilizer inputs and diagnosing visual deficiency symptoms. However, tissue test reports should not be treated as a report card. It is not possible to get straight A’s or high ratings on every nutrient. Depending on the uptake mechanism and role of the nutrient in the plant, it is not possible for plants to accumulate excesses of most essential nutrients. The sufficiency ranges, or normal ranges, that the ratings are based on are determined from levels observed in average, healthy-looking plants.

In a high fertility soil under good growing conditions, the most likely nutrients to be rated high are nitrogen and potassium. These nutrients can be taken up through mass flow, which means the plant can accumulate the nutrients dissolved in the soil solution. A high rating for these nutrients is generally an indicator of adequate fertility and good growing conditions.

The primary role of phosphorus in a plant is energy transfer for converting primary photosynthates into structural components of the plant. Phosphorus exists in relatively low concentrations in the soil solution and is taken up through root interception and diffusion. These uptake mechanisms require more energy than mass flow, so there is no benefit for the plant to take up more phosphorus than necessary. A high or very high rating is not commonly seen for phosphorus.

The primary role of magnesium is building chlorophyl molecules and calcium is for building structural components of cell walls. Both nutrients are taken up through root interception. Plants generally have access to much more of these elements than they need, but do not take up more in normal growing conditions. The exception is during drought stressed conditions. Plants will accumulate excess magnesium to help fill the role of potassium when potassium uptake is hindered.

In general, micronutrients will not accumulate in excess in healthy plants. High level ratings of micronutrients often indicate a stunted or stressed plant. Most micronutrients such as iron, manganese, zinc, are immobile in plant tissue. So, as a stressed plant begins to cannibalize itself, the immobile nutrients are left in the necrotic tissues in higher concentrations.

High yielding environments can result in very unusual tissue test results. Often, most of the nutrients in these situations are rated as low. This is a result of the nutrients essentially being diluted throughout the massive amount of biomass being produced but does not necessarily indicate a deficiency.

A plant tissue test report on its own is of little value without additional observation and information. However, when used as part of a complete scouting and nutrient management program, it can help provide insight into factors that we cannot visually diagnose.

ALGL Client Portal - Editing Users

Within the ALGL Client Portal those users with administrative rights can add/remove/edit right for users within the client portal. You must be the Account Admin to edit a User within your company. If you need help determining or editing which email is the Account Admin, please call A & L Great Lakes, 260-483-4759.

Once you have logged into the customer portal, you will click on the “Admin Tools” bar on the left side of the screen. 

Then select “Users” as seen below.

The screen will show a list of any Users that have been set up on this account. The list will also show what each User has been granted access to in the portal, under “Roles”. If you wish to change what a User has access to, click the green ( + ) button beside the User’s email address.

To edit a User’s account Roles, click the emblem to the left of the trash can. A dialogue box will appear where you can select/unselect the User’s Account Roles (eDocs, Ordering Supplies, Accounting, Etc.)

In order to add a new User, follow the same steps from the beginning. Click “Admin Tools” and then click “Users”. On the far right of the screen, select the button that says, “Create User”.

Enter the new User’s Name, Email, Acct Number, and what Account Roles you would like them to have access to.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Blossom End Rot

These are some of the longest, hottest days of summer for many in the Midwest.  This can indicate longs days scouting and spraying crops, at the lake or family vacations.  As a delicious bonus it could mean maturing produce in the garden or harvest being sent to farmers’ markets/consumers.  As tomatoes, peppers, squash and melons are being harvested an annual recurrence of blossom end rot seems to still trouble some producers.

The first observation of this phenomenon is a soft, bruised spot on the bottom parts of the fruits.  Although it may seem like a disease, blossom end rot is a physiological disorder.  The bottom part of the fruit may start to look watery, soft and then turn dark brown to black.  It often creates the perfect environment to host bacterial and fungal diseases depending on temperature, humidity etc. leading to continued decay potentially consuming most of the fruit.

This type of rot is caused by lack of calcium in the fruit itself.  The first step is to make sure there is adequate calcium in the soil.  A simple soil test will be able to determine what the soil needs prior to the growing season, or even in-season depending on the grower’s preference of application practices and products.  Then the plants used need to be planted, or sowed, at the correct location, depth and spacing depending on the cultivar’s needs.  Low calcium levels in the fruit are often caused by inconsistent watering practices or lack thereof.  This nutrient is taken up by the plant by roots through the soil solution. 

If there is inconsistent moisture, poor root development or inadequate calcium in the soil solution blossom end rot is bound to happen.  Another consideration for this occurrence is how calcium is distributed through the plant.  Calcium is not a mobile nutrient in plants.  Once it is taken into plant tissues, it is not redistributed to other parts of the plant.  Its initial uptake is due to transpiration which leaves evaporate more water making them a large pool for calcium compared to fruit.  Too much vegetation, possibly from over fertilization of nitrogen, can also cause these large pools of calcium in the leaves rather than the fruit. 

If soil calcium is low, and this is the cause of blossom end rot, there are a few practices to consider going forward.  When the first fruit set is occurring, and rot is just showing, a liquid calcium product may be the answer for a quicker response time.  The finer the calcium product, the quicker it will become part of the soil solution. 

The long-term solution is adjusting the soil pH, and calcium levels based on a soil test recommendation.  Contradictory to quick uptake, the larger the particle size will result in long term adjustments. Timely, consistent watering and mulching the crops can keep the soil solution available to the plant roots and allow reliable uptake of calcium. 

Who Pays for Free Shipping?

Across all markets, amazon to soil samples, free shipping has been a big market driver for the past 10 or so years. When something is shipped, the shipping company still charges, so who pays the bill?

The real cost of free shipping is either estimated per package or averaged over all the items if the products are uniform, either way that amount is added to the selling price of the product. This can bring up a variety of scenarios for both the customer and the seller. The seller can often account for many of these, often to the benefit of the seller.

With the inflation of goods and services along with increases in actual shipping costs, the prices of shipped goods with free shipping have increased significantly due to these synergistic costs.

ALGL made the decision not to offer free shipping several years ago and the reasons supporting that decision have remained valid. ALGL does offer a discounted UPS ground shipping rate to our customers. All our volume of inbound and outbound UPS freight leads to a significant volume discount. The actual cost to ship the samples is transferred to your account. Not free shipping, but as cost effective as can be provided.

No free shipping allows ALGL customers to make the best possible decisions for their business. Clients can directly compare shipping samples through our UPS program to other shipping options such as in-person delivery.  Clients closer to the lab can deliver samples directly to the lab in leu of shipping without being subject to shipping costs included in the sample price. When clients collect soil samples in a season in advance, they can deliver/ship samples after the collection seasons, maybe utilizing RTL freight carriers at a much lower price point.

Free shipping seems like a good deal, but is it? Contact your ALGL Sales Agronomist to help work through the best shipping options for your business.

The Cost of Baling Straw

We have been working with one of our clients to get a better understanding of how much nutrient is leaving the field when baling wheat straw. There is a wide range of book values, often with a 3-4x range within each nutrient. When trying to budget for straw nutrient removal in the budget for pricing the straw, that left a big question.

One of the often overlooked aspects of soil and tissue testing is using these tools to answer questions, not just to make recommendations. So why not collect some wheat samples and see what the tissue test results look like?

Samples were collected from various regions of the client’s trade area following straw harvest in 2023 and 2024. The dry weather during grain fill reduced nutrient availability and plant uptake in 3 of 4 locations in 2023. Even with this variability the data range was about half that of the book values.

Figure 1. 2023 Straw Tissue Test Results (Utilizing Spring 2024 Fertilizer Prices)

In 2024 there was more available moisture during grain fill, and this is reflected in the data. N, P, and K levels were higher and more consistent in 2024. This data is similar to the 2023 location that did have adequate moisture during grain fill.

Figure 2. 2024 Straw Tissue Test Results (Utilizing Spring 2025 Fertilizer Prices)

The field data, while admittedly a small sample set, it looking to be trending towards to lower end of the crop removal book values for wheat straw.

Figure 3. Book Value Vs. Data Comparison

Whether it is straw or grain, tissue testing can aid in narrowing down actual crop removal levels. Contact your ALGL sales agronomist to learn more.

ALGL Client Portal - How to Access and Download Reports and Data

Log in with your email address and password. You will access all of your past and current reports through “eDocs” listed on the left side of the screen. Click here for instructions for logging into the ALGL Client Portal. 

Properties and Basic Management of Zinc

Zinc has become one of the most commonly applied micronutrients in the Midwest, at least in corn production. Yet over 50% of the soils tested at ALGL are rated as low which is below 3 ppm. Most crops do better with a soil test level around 5 ppm. But as with all micronutrients, adding zinc to your soil is not a replacement for good overall management of your pH and macronutrients.

The role of zinc in plants is to aid protein synthesis, energy production, and growth regulation. As a result, visual symptomology in crop vegetation is not common in most situations. The most common result is a stunted growth which is very difficult visually diagnose, especially when the same symptoms can be caused by a deficiency of several other nutrients. Grass species such as corn and wheat are more likely to show chlorotic deficiency symptoms but can be nearly impossible to discern from other nutrient deficiencies such as manganese and iron. Tissue testing can be a great tool to help determine the culprit.

Zinc deficiencies are common on certain soil types and during certain weather conditions. Soils with high pH, low organic matter, and sandy textures are most prone to low zinc availability. Cold and wet weather conditions lead to zinc deficiencies due to reduced uptake. While there is little to be done about weather conditions, managing zinc inputs on challenging soil types can have a significant impact on overall production. For high pH soils utilize banding placement (2x2), foliar applications, and choose chelated forms of fertilizer. For low organic matter/sandy soils, try to incorporate manure or compost. Adding organic matter to the soil not only brings some zinc with it but also helps maintain the availability of other zinc sources.

Common application rates for zinc are between 2 and 5 pounds per acre in a broadcast application and less than one pound per acre in a foliar application. Fortunately, zinc does not reach toxic levels easily. Elevated zinc levels are common on soil with a long history of manure applications. Especially if the manure comes from older livestock facilities with galvanized floors and pens. Zinc is also very high in manure from hog nursery barns because of the feed supplements used. While there is no definitive soil test level at which zinc becomes toxic, applications should be stopped if the average soil test from a field approaches 10 ppm.