How we design a study.
Written down, so a client, a reviewer and a state control official can audit the same work.
Five, every time.
Efficiency
Agronomic efficiency, partial factor productivity and apparent recovery of applied nutrients.
Substitution
How far the fertilizer rate can fall before yield moves.
Soil function
Exchange capacity, water holding, aggregate stability, pH buffering, across site-years.
Fate
Whether nutrients leave in leachate or runoff.
Economics
Partial budget per acre, freight and application included.
Rules we do not bend.
Randomized complete block
Four replications minimum. Buffer rows and alleys. Never a single demonstration strip.
Control, label rate, 2× label rate
Plus a reduced-fertilizer arm where the claim concerns nutrient efficiency.
Fixed before the season
Measures and the analysis plan are written into the protocol and not revised afterwards.
Stated, not selected
Analysis of variance with mean separation, coefficient of variation and significance reported at the level the receiving state accepts.
Site-years, not seasons
Most registration reviews want two years at each of several sites, on soils common to that state.
Written procedures
Standard operating procedures for sampling, handling and data capture. Protocols follow Good Experimental Practice principles.
Independent
University and accredited commercial laboratories, under chain of custody. No in-house bench.
Four replications minimum, and all of them get reported.
A strip trial produces a number. A randomized, replicated block produces a number with an interval around it, and the interval is what tells a reviewer whether the difference is real. Where treatments overlap, we say so.
What gets measured.
| Domain | Measures | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Soil chemistry | pH and buffer pH, cation exchange capacity, available phosphorus and potassium, organic matter | Baseline and post-harvest, same georeferenced points |
| Soil physics | Water-holding capacity, aggregate stability, bulk density, infiltration | Composite cores by depth increment |
| Plant response | Stand, biomass, tissue nutrient concentration, yield and grain quality | Tissue at defined growth stage; harvest by plot |
| Silicon status | Plant-available soil silicon and leaf silicon concentration | 0.5 M acetic acid extraction by depth increment; tissue digestion |
| Turf performance | Canopy color and density, clipping yield, wear and drought tolerance | Rated plots under a wear simulator or managed traffic |
| Nutrient fate | Leachate and runoff nutrient concentration | Lysimeter or edge-of-plot collection where the claim requires it |
| Economics | Delivered cost per acre, nutrient displaced, net return | Partial budget at contemporaneous input prices |
A product is not a business until someone else has measured it.
Agricultural technology companies reach us with a working product and a credibility gap. Distributors will not carry a line on internal data. State control officials will not register a claim without substantiation. Growers, who carry the cost of a failed season, trust a manufacturer’s own numbers least of all. We produce the evidence that closes that gap, to a standard that holds in front of all three.
Written first
Each claim is drafted in label wording, then a trial is designed to test that exact wording.
As the state defines them
Commonly several soil types common to the state of registration, with at least one site inside it.
Reviewer-ready
Objective, materials and methods, conditions, results, discussion, and the qualifications of the people who ran it.
Labels are broader than packaging
Control officials treat brochures and websites as labeling. Claims there need the same substantiation.
We are a research firm, not a registration agent. We produce the data and the report; filing is yours or your counsel’s. The same trial standard carries public work - conservation programs, watershed districts and reclamation projects - where the question is performance on a given soil rather than a label.
Grasses first. Then the rest.
Grasses take up silicon in amounts comparable to a macronutrient, so a silica-rich amendment has the clearest shot at a measurable response there. The pipeline widens from that starting point.
Cereals and grains
Corn, sorghum, wheat, oats, barley, rice.
Turf and forage grasses
Golf, sports fields, sod and pasture. Wear tolerance and canopy quality join yield as endpoints.
Pulses and legumes
Soybean, dry bean, pea, lentil, alfalfa. Nitrogen is fixed, so the efficiency question becomes phosphorus and potassium.
Oilseeds and fiber
Canola, sunflower, flax, cotton.
Specialty and horticulture
Vegetables, fruit, nursery and greenhouse, where value per acre carries a higher amendment rate.
Reclamation and revegetation
Mine spoil, construction sites, roadsides and other ground being brought back into function.
One material, many conditions.
Sand to heavy clay
Degraded, eroded, compacted, saline, acidic or low in organic matter. The ground that needs help most.
Rate, blend, placement
Broadcast, banded or incorporated, alone or blended with conventional fertilizer.
More than one year
A single season proves little. Weather is a treatment, not an excuse.
Controlled growth, before anything reaches a field.
Protocol and execution
Claim review, protocol, site and cooperator selection, plot layout, sampling, laboratory coordination, in-season reporting.
Analysis and modeling
Analysis of variance across site-years, response-curve fitting by crop and soil, partial budget per acre.
Reporting
Trial report in substantiation format, summary tables, technical bulletins and support for grant applications.
Controlled-environment, phenotyping and analytical work is placed with university and research-institute core facilities. Client work is confidential, data belongs to the client, and publication is by agreement. We say in advance what a study can and cannot support.