Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Kanpur has developed a technology to assist farmers with soil health detection technology. The technology offers a chemical-free, cost-effective, and quick detection of soil health.
Since the detection of soil health is essential, most farmers employ government-devised methods to detect the soil health, which is time-consuming and demands the usage of harmful chemicals. Taking this into account, IIT Kanpur has developed Soil-Health Detection Technology.
Professor Jayant Kumar Singh, Department of Chemical Engineering and head (Bhuparikshak project), said that it's a well-documented fact that despite India being a bigger user of fertilizers than China, the country’s yield per hectare is lower.
Thus, understanding the accurate requirements of soil in terms of fertilizers is essential as it will assist the farmers become decision-makers regarding their soil health and strength, Singh said.
Addressing the government initiative's as comprehensive, Most farmers tend to disregard the waiting period and take decisions according to their ‘intuition’. The process uses harmful chemicals, he said.
After recognizing the problem, a team started researching and working to devise a chemical-free, quick and economical alternative for farmers, Singh added.
Earlier, in 2015, the project started and the core has been changing since then. The team has developed an optical sensor that uses certain wavelengths of sunlight to recognize the intensity of particular molecules such as phosphorus, nitrogen and more, in a soil sample.
IIT Kanpur Citi India Launches Lab to Provide Grants to Startups
Once this has been detected, the information is mapped through a cloud computing software that will assist distinguishing the information according to the geographical regions and will be available to all the stakeholders for better agricultural capability and policy formulation in the future, Singh said
Further, a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning skills will be used by the sensors for the process of cloud computing and spectroscopy to make the process seamless, Singh said.
At present, the Soil-Health Detection technology has been tested on soil samples taken from Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.
In order to make the farming community familiar and comfortable with the new technology, the institute has introduced the sensor in five villages near Kanpur, where the village panchayats will provide the soil-health detection technology for free to farmers, Singh said.
Further, the sensor will be offered to the village heads to enable the farmers to have easy access to the technology, he added.
Singh said that an experienced agricultural start-up has been charged with the responsibility to bring the sensor to market. It is expected that the technology will be made available in the market within a month.
One lakh soil samples can be tested with the help of one sensor and the process of soil detection will take approximately 90 seconds, so, the cost of the sensor will also be affordable, Singh concluded.
Read More: IIT Delhi and IIIT Delhi Invite Professors to Collaborate on Cutting-Edge Research Initiatives
Comments