NASA data is powering soil analytics that can deliver accurate and scalable irrigation and fertiliza2 Apr 2021 11:52
NASA data is powering soil analytics that can deliver accurate and scalable irrigation and fertilization metrics and enable research into sustainability and the impact of extreme weather events.
The Harvest Consortium, part of NASA’s Food Security and Agriculture program, is partnering with CropX, a soil analytics firm, to gain advanced insights for global agricultural monitoring.
CropX uses 18-inch in-ground soil sensors that collect and geo-tag moisture, temperature and salinity data at multiple depths. Data from the soil sensors, precise weather and evaporation forecasts, satellite images and other moisture-related data are fed into the company’s crop models to show how water, nutrients and salinity levels affect the development of specific crops. The soil intelligence platform’s machine learning algorithms of are constantly refined based on actual growth of the crops.
The in-ground sensors are a key data source. “Most agricultural companies rely on above-ground data such as satellite imagery, and less than 10 percent of companies get data from within the soil, which is where the most valuable data is,” Matan Rahav, director of business development at CropX, said in an Amazon Web Services case study. “By the time there are visible signs of crop stress detected from space, the damage is already done.”
we all know Bill Gates is interested in Agriculture and land so he will turn up on CropX door soon