Digital ag innovations map soil constraints

A NEW research and development project is set to develop products to help growers map soil constraints in three dimensions.

The products will use machine learning to map constraints such as sodicity, pH, salinity and gravel, and determine the depth at which these constraints become limiting and impact plant available water capacity.

GRDC is partnering with the University of Sydney and leading agtech business PCT AgCloud on the three-year, $2.6 million project.

Once commercially available, the products will help growers and advisers better predict crop yield variability, both before and in season, and make decisions on management options such as inputs and soil amelioration.

“The data for this project comes from publicly available soil and climate databases, satellite-derived information and on-farm surveys and monitoring, which can be analysed for improved decision-making on-farm,” University of Sydney Professor Thomas Bishop said.

The new work builds on a pilot project by GRDC and the University of Sydney which developed the initial machine learning models to map soil constraints and PAWC.

“This project will validate these models in more environments and scenarios and develop constraint-limited PAWC maps based on site and crop dynamics,” Prof Bishop said.

“The initial project tested the approach on four farms.

“In this new project we will scale out to 75 farms Australia-wide for further testing across a range of soil, climate and farming systems.

“For areas where a lot of soil constraints data exists, one product will use freely available satellite imagery, modelled estimates, and other historical training data to enable users to try out mapping their paddock soils in 3D.

“For areas where little data exists, a premium version will generate custom 3D maps of key soil constraints, depth to soil constraints and PAWC for any paddock where soil test and precision ag data has been uploaded.”

Professor Bishop said the maps will be provided in a standard electronic format to be used to guide variable rate management for soil amelioration.

“Additionally, spatially optimal soil sampling sites will be determined for a given paddock or farm using our modelling approach, which will give growers an understanding of the type, depth and location of soil samples required to achieve the model accuracy needed for the 3D mapping and amelioration of constraints,” he said.

GRDC manager transformational technologies Liam Ryan said the project aimed to provide growers with a cost-effective, accurate, and easily scale-able approach to aid key decisions on soil inputs and amelioration.

“It is really pleasing to have world-class soil scientists working closely with a world-renowned commercial company to scale impactful science for the benefit of Australian grain growers,” he said.

“Effectively, this work will enable growers to spatially map PAWC bucket size with ease, and then overlay depth to constraints maps to generate spatial data on effective bucket size across their paddocks.”

Work started in June and products are expected to be ready in mid to late 2024.