Improving soil resilience is crucial for maintaining food security and productivity

CUTTING-EDGE UK ag-tech tools are coming together with research expertise to help farmers discover more about the role roots play in maintaining healthy soils.

Soil degradation currently costs England and Wales £1.2bn every year, but few tools have been developed to measure soil and root health and how they interact.

The innovative TRUTH (Thriving Roots Underpinning Total Soil Heath) project is a three-year, £1m Defra-funded project that will bring together experts in soil and root health, sensor technology, and wheat genetics.

They will work alongside farmers who conduct trials on their own farms with the goal of identifying the tools they need to assess their crop roots and quantify the impact of their farming system.

A key part of this will be developing a novel sensor, developed by PES Technologies, capable of ‘smelling’ a soil’s biological signature.

Tom Allen-Stevens is from BOFIN (British OnFarm Innovation Network), which is leading on farmer engagement for the project.

He said: “Improving the resilience of soil is key to maintaining UK food security, improving farm productivity and mitigating climate change. Healthy soils play an important role in food production, climate change mitigation, and maintaining biodiversity.

“However, what goes unrecognised is the role of the roots that weave their way through them, drawing nutrients, transferring carbon, providing life to the complex microbiome that lies unseen beneath our feet.

“What we’ve brought together with TRUTH is some really exciting, cutting-edge technology that can open a window on this unexplored world.”

The project will deliver two key innovations. First, it will build on work already carried out by PES Technologies to develop its innovative soil health sensor to enable it to measure microbial diversity and fungal bacterial ratio.

Secondly, working with scientists at University of Nottingham and John Innes Centre, it will create the ‘Root Rangers Platform’.

This is an online space offering on-farm soil/root health testing tools validated during the project by the farmers taking part.

“The project outcomes will deliver farmers the tools they need to assess their crop roots and quantify the impact of their farming system on soil health,” Mr Allen-Stevens added. “Ultimately, this will achieve our twin aims of boosting productivity while improving soil health.”