A revolutionary soil health analysis tool that can ‘smell’ a soil’s biological signature is being put through its paces by the TRUTH project’s Root Rangers.
PES Technologies developed its system to allow farmers and agronomists to carry out quick, cost-effective soil tests in the field. The system negates the need for farmers to send samples away, producing accurate results in just five minutes.
The hand-held, battery powered system is controlled with the smartphone app ScentsCheck. Put simply it ‘smells’ the soil, detecting volatile organic compounds and small molecular gases. This ‘smell fingerprint’ is captured and run through PES’s machine learning to provide more than 10 key biological and non-biological soil health indicators in a single test.
A small, representative sample is taken from the top 5-15 cm of soil and placed in the sensor’s soil drawer. After just five minutes it provides comprehensive information about the sample’s organic matter, microbial biomass and bulk density.
In addition, every sample also includes the GPS coordinates of where it was taken, making it easy to track how the soil’s health changes over time.
PES Technologies CEO Andrej Porovic says: “Getting the results straight away means you’re given intelligence of what is happening in a field while you’re stood looking at it.
“Everybody can see what’s going on above ground, but not what’s going on below – we want everyone to be able to see both at the same time to help them make decisions. We’re really looking forward to hearing how the Root Rangers get on with the sensor.”
Read more about the Root Rangers experiences on The Soil Circle on The Farming Forum or join the BOFIN WhatsApp community.