Continued Challenges and Solutions in 2025

Editorial by Agronomist Jamie Bultemeier

Looking back on the past few years, a common trend is the challenges that arise within a growing season. One unique aspect to the challenges of 2025 has been that many of the challenges are continuations from 2024 while other challenges will linger beyond 2025.

Much of our service area was experiencing low level drought in 2024 that did not fully resolve through the winter leading into 2025. While rainfall may have been similar in 2025 as 2024, the lack of subsurface moisture added to the moisture stress in 2025. Dry weather can reduce nutrient loss and leaching. Dry weather also reduces nutrient uptake by plants. Low tissue test levels of potassium were a common sight at the lab though the summer months.

Our position on soil sampling in abnormally dry soil has been to first ensure that you are able to sample to correct depth. Incorrect sampling depth can bias data regardless of the chemistry impact of dry soil on lab methods. Dry soil normally leads to shallow samples with an increase in soil test data values. If correct depth can be achieved, chemical impact of the soil test results from the lab appear when a prolonged drought reaches the late D2 to early D3 status. There were indications of samples exhibiting significant soil pH and potassium level reductions in areas of extended D2 to D3 drought. Fortunately, this was again limited to a small portion of our service area again this year and the severity of the drought did not build until the later part of the fall soil sampling season.  One concern for 2026 will be the continuation of the drought. Near term precipitation forecasts indicate that drought conditions will persist in the coming winter.

The dry fall weather drove a near record harvest pace again this fall that tied 2024. Most sampling seasons have a weather event or multiple events that slows soil sampling in a significant portion of the ALGL service area. This reduces inbound soil sample volume overall and provides periods of time to catch up. There was no such event during the fall of 2024 or 2025. This in combination with record fall soil sample volumes led to increased inbound soil samples above our daily capacity without an opportunity to catch up. Our dedicated staff worked repeated Saturdays, which led to a record number of samples processed in one month, almost 10% more samples in a single month than the previous record.

2025 also marks the second year of high phosphorus fertilizer prices and elevated nitrogen prices. Many conversions between lab agronomists and clients have focused on effective ways to reduce phosphorus and nitrogen rates. Trends in the fertilizer supply indicate that nitrogen prices will remain elevated into 2026 and high phosphorus prices could endure until 2028. Some of the short-term reduction strategies for phosphorus may need to be rethought as it is likely that phosphorus prices to remain high longer than many have anticipated.