A Norfolk firm's "revolutionary" soil analysis tool is set to play a leading role in a new farming project which digs down into the roots of crop performance.
PES Technologies, based in Diss, has developed a sensor system which can "smell" a soil's biological signature, allowing farmers and agronomists to carry out quick, cost-effective tests in the field without the need to send samples to a laboratory.
This can them help them choose which crops to grow, and how to treat them.
The technology will now be used in the Thriving Roots Underpin Total soil Health (TRUTH) project – a £1m Defra-funded farmer-led effort to evaluate soil/root interactions.
Andrej Porovic, chief executive of PES Technologies, said: "Currently, the biggest barrier to the uptake of regenerative farming is the understanding of soil health and the cost of testing.
"There are no good quality, affordable tests for soil health – that’s the problem we want to solve.
"During discussions with NIAB (the National Institute Of Agricultural Botany), we learnt that if you could smell the soil, you could potentially learn lots of things about it, but no one had ever really tried before."
Co-founder Dr Jim Bailey developed the hand-held sensor system, which is controlled with a smartphone app.
It analyses small samples, scooped from the top 5-15cm of soil, detecting volatile organic compounds and small molecular gases.
This "smell fingerprint" is put through the sensor’s dataset to provide more than 12 key soil health indicators in a single test, generating "comprehensive data" in just five minutes.
“Getting the results straight away, rather than having to send it off to a lab, means you’re given intelligence of what is happening in a field while you’re stood looking at it," said Mr Porovic.
"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."
The product will be used within the three-year TRUTH project, which brings together experts in soil and root health, sensor technology and wheat genetics.
Led by the British On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN), it will recruit farmers to conduct trials on their own land and identify the tools they need to assess their crop roots and quantify the impact of their farming system.
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