Rohrer set to go forward with AgroLab Inc.

By CAROL KINSLEY
Staff Writer

MILFORD, Del. — William Rohrer has spent the summer doing his homework as he sets up a new business, AgroLab Inc., a soil testing facility “serving agriculture and soil fertility professionals.”
He has been making connections and seeing how labs work in the Corn Belt. “I’ve got a good relationship with other labs,” he said. “It has been time well spent.”
Dr. Raymond Ward, president of Ward Laboratories in Kearney, Neb., a 50 year veteran soil chemist, has become a mentor. “He seems to enjoy helping me and has provided invaluable resources for setting up AgroLab,” Rohrer said. “The data management software developed by Ward labs will be used in AgroLab.”
Rohrer freely admits, “I’m not a soil chemist, not a lab person.” So why start a soil lab? “I was ready for a change,” he said. “I wanted to get back into the private sector, particularly production agriculture, and saw a void for a lab on the Shore.”
A college friend, David Bahm, from Erie, Pa., managed a soil lab in Ohio and the two often discussed a soil lab. Rohrer said, “I would often tell Dave that Delmarva could support a commercial lab and he would always remind me that it takes volume to make a soil lab work.”
Two years ago, having developed a general business concept, Rohrer started structuring the business. Estimating that approximately 100,000 soil samples are currently being sent to labs hundreds of miles away, he was confident there would be enough work to sustain his fledgling business.
He met Al Paoli of Delaware Small Business Administration, who offered an excellent template for a business plan. “I spent nine months working on a new plan after work and on weekends,” Rohrer said.
He talked to nutrient management consultants, questioning whether they thought his plan would work.
“If it’s like other commercial labs in Richmond and Ohio, that will be great,” they told him. “It’s a quality issue.”
Rohrer put that problem to rest by joining the Agriculture Lab Proficiency Program that provides physical samples to member labs and compares their readings with a mean and standard deviation, reporting back to the members “so we all know what we should be reading,” he explained. If results from all labs are identical, there’s no question of their accuracy. “For every 100 samples, we’ll have a standard check sample to validate accuracy,” he said.
In the past, the closest soil samples representing the East Coast came from Richmond, Va. With his encouragement, samples from Delmarva and New Jersey have been added. “They’ll pull several gallons, mix it and send it to a number of labs,” Rohrer said. “If your analysis is outside the standard deviation, they’ll tell you. It’s quality assurance.”
It also gives him confidence, when he talks to consultants who have dealt with the same lab for 20 years, those procedures and readings will not change.
Located in the industrial park in Milford at 1009 Mattlind Way, the building has access 24/7, Rohrer said, through a keyless entry in the rear so high volume clients can drop off samples. Rohrer also plans a courier service with pick-up points from Salisbury to Newark. He recognizes that packaging and shipping soil samples can be a hassle for consultants. “We’re within 50 miles of most of the peninsula,” he noted.
He expects the core of his business to come from Delmarva, where he has “a lot of roots in the agricultural community,” but he won’t turn away business from out of the area.
A walk-in closet with forced air dehumidifier will serve as a soil dryer, capable of drying racks of samples within six to eight hours. Once dry, the samples go through a grinder to homogenize them before being placed into soil trays. A conveyor system will minimize handling. The conveyor will carry trays through the walls that separate the soil preparation area from the chemistry testing equipment. Ten grams are taken from each sample for pH testing; another gram goes through the ICP (Inductive Coupled Plasma) equipment. A sub sample of 5 grams is tested for organic matter.
Rohrer is investing in state-of-the-art equipment. A robotic pH system will be able to analyze 60 samples in just a few minutes.
The ICP is the main instrument. It measures plant-available nutrients. Like many other labs in the industry, it uses the Melich-3 method of nutrient extraction.
A computer at each station will read the raw data. The lab management software puts the information into language agronomists and farmers can understand. Results will be available on-line and by email so consultants can manage the files right into their nutrient management plans.
Rohrer said he is fortunate to have his friend Bahm, Dr. Ward and a consultant, Dr. Byron Vaughan, to depend on for advice when making tough decisions about purchasing equipment and setting up lab procedures. He expects everything to be in place by Aug. 1 and to be in business by Sept. 1.
While this is a difficult time to start a business, particularly getting a business loan from a bank, Rohrer found financing through Mid-Atlantic Farm Credit. His company qualified as an Ag service, he said. “Financially, it’s no different than buying a combine and building a chicken house.”
He did not pursue a start-up grant.
“I want this business to succeed on its own,” he said. He also resigned — in April, before starting the business — from his position as administrator with Delaware’s Nutrient Management Commission at the Department of Agriculture, where he had served since the program’s inception in 1999.