Our History Continued.....

Then and Now

A black and white photo of a texas soil laboratory building.
A building with a porch and a sign on the side of it.

Dr. Albin D. Lengyel was a teenage immigrant from Hungary who escaped Hitler. After being discharged from the U.S. Navy, he used the GI Bill to advance his education with degrees in agronomy, physiology, and biochemistry. He established Lengyel's Agricultural Consulting Service and Laboratory in Phoenix and was a pioneer in plant analysis's practical application, particularly petiole (leaf stem) sap testing. 


In 1964, Esper K. Chandler began collaborating with Lengyel. Chandler vigorously pursued petiole and leaf testing. It accurately measures nutrient levels in the plant and allows fertilization adjustments to be made at critical times during the growing season. Chandler was a pioneer in the South for petiole testing, establishing proprietary field-proven standards. The research and development of these standards continue to today.


Chandler's experience started in his youth as a tractor pilot on a farm. He went on to become a farm manager and owner, an L.S.U. Experiment Station researcher, Fertilizer Industry salesman, Agronomist, an R&D executive with three prominent fertilizer companies who were industry leaders, and was an Independent Agricultural Consultant in Conventional, Sustainable, and Natural / Organic methods.



A man in a yellow shirt is sitting at a table.

Sr. Consultant, Conan T. Wood, Jr., a Rio Grande Valley native, had over 51 years of service to the lab. Before Chandler's and Lengyel's acquisition of the lab, Wood was Laboratory Manager. Afterward, he became the Citrus Specialist and Manager of Field Services. He retired as Senior Soil Texture Analyst in June 2010 and died December 9th, 2010, aged only 91 years.

Chandler was cited as a soil fertility leader and plant nutrition by Acres U.S.A., an internationally-recognized agricultural publication. They featured the lab as a cutting-edge leader in the field of soil fertility and plant nutrition. Later, they published a book (available from them) titled, Ask the Plant®, thoroughly discussing Chandler's approach to these subjects.

Shortly after that, TPSL® registered the trademark, Ask The Plant®, to identify its signature suite of petiole and leaf tests with proprietary nutritional interpretations and recommendations. Together with its other signature test, the CO2 Extraction Method Soil Test, presented in our exclusive color-coded format. TPSL®'s development of standards using sap "plant blood" tests calibrated to soil tests is still leading the field of helping growers fix nutritional problems, resulting in improved yields, quality, and profits.

TPSL's Ask The Plant® exhaustive plant analysis identifies nutritional problems and increases yields, quality, and profits by allowing correction of nutritional deficiencies in the plant at critical stages of growth seven to 21 days before it shows visible signs of stress.
"By the time problems are seen, the crop has already been retarded and will not achieve its full capability."
A logo for ask the plant dynamic crop nutrition
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