Mitchell Hora: Soil Health Data Analytics

Mitchell Hora’s first word was “corn,” which couldn’t be more fitting for this seventh generation Iowan farmer. In fact, in 2021, the Hora family will be celebrating 150 years of Hora family farming legacy and innovation in their hometown of Washington, Iowa. Mitchell still works closely with his father, trialing and experimenting with new processes of production to improve soil health and sustainability. 

In 2015, Mitchell took his passion for soil science, sustainability and regenerative agriculture and combined it all into his own company: Continuum Ag. Originating with excel spreadsheets and human-interpretation, Mitchell analyzes reports from the Haney Test, which uses unique soil extracts in the lab to determine what quantity of soil nutrients are available to soil microbes. The most current soil test for showing available nutrients today, Mitchell tests his own soil weekly to continue adding and analyzing data to their research, but recommends everyone to test their soil every other year. 

Continuum Ag has built the first software to help interpret the Haney Test and has the largest private database of Haney Test results and has served 40 states and ten countries. As Continuum Ag continues to grow, the plan is to use a wide array of tools to provide comprehensive, unbiased and scalable systems to help farmers make decisions in a transparent and unbiased system. 

“I have very intense data and that’s why I work very closely with Dr. Haney,” explains Mitchell. “The soil is a living system and is always changing so that I can cross-compare a soil sample from one-second in time across all of our data.”