Soil and Plant Health, UK

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Soil quality monitoring is currently done through:

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1. Soil samples sent for laboratory analysis; or

2. Simple sensors measuring a small number of parameters such as humidity, NPK etc.

 

Both approaches are almost exclusively done to understand fertiliser needs and to improve yields. No one routinely monitors soil microbiome health, or the carbon carrying capacity of soil.

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UnifAI has worked with InnovateUK, Rothamsted Research and others, to develop an AI powered sensing solution which provides real-time remote monitoring of soil health, including the microbiome of the soil. Our AI is trained to understand the correlations between multiple variables in context and over time: the nutrient and chemical balance in the soil, the microbiome and biological footprint, and wider factors such as weather, temperature, moisture, etc.

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In addition to understand soil health in the context of plant health, we are training our neural network to determine higher order events, such as organic carbon storage capacity of the soil. This has the potential to directly monitor and measure the carbon sequestration capacity of soil over time, unlocking the value of soil carbon for carbon trading.

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