A device developed by IIT-K to detect soil health in 90 sec

A device developed by IIT-K to detect soil health in 90 sec

The device has the highest testing capacity of any soil testing device among its predecessors, with the ability to test up to 1 lakh soil test samples.

IANSUpdated: Monday, December 13, 2021, 02:45 PM IST
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IIT- Kanpur |

Kanpur, Dec 13 : The Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K) has created a portable soil testing device with an embedded mobile application that can identify soil health in only 90 seconds.

This Portable Soil Testing Device or BhuParikshak will help individual farmers in obtaining soil health parameters of agricultural fields with a recommended dose of fertilisers.

The invention uses Near Infrared Spectroscopy technology to deliver real-time soil analysis findings to smart phones via an embedded mobile app called BhuParikshak, which is accessible on the Google Play Store.

The gadget can detect nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, organic carbon, clay content, and cation exchange capacity, among other soil factors.It also specifies the amount of fertiliser to apply to the land and crops.

"Farmers are our caretakers. But they face a lot of hardships. One such hardship is getting their soil tested and waiting for the results for days. That will not be a hassle anymore. I am delighted for the team from IIT Kanpur for developing such a novel device that will assist individual farmers in assessing the health of their soil in almost no time," Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT-K said in a statement.

The device has the highest testing capacity of any soil testing device among its predecessors, with the ability to test up to 1 lakh soil test samples.

For detecting macro nutrients in the soil, the portable and wireless soil testing instrument only takes a 5 grams dry soil sample.After the dirt is put into the 5 cm long cylindrical-shaped gadget, it connects to the cellphone through Bluetooth and begins 90 seconds of soil analysis.

After the analysis, the results appear on the screen in the form of a soil health report, which is accessible on BhuParikshak cloud service with a unique ID. The report also comes with a recommended dose of fertilizers.

The mobile application is made user-friendly through the user interface which is available in local languages, such that even a class eighth pass person can easily handle the device and the mobile application, the institute said.

The rapid soil testing technology has been transferred to an agritech company named AgroNxt Services, which will aid in the manufacturing and marketing of the device to farmers.

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