Soil carbon measurement in Canada could get much easier in the future.

Since April of 2024, CANZA has been working with Professor Asim Biswas, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Digital Agriculture at the University of Guelph and founder of SoilTeck to develop the foundation of a cost-effective system for measuring, monitoring, reporting, and verifying (MMRV) soil carbon.

Work to date includes soil sampling in Saskatchewan and extensive prototype development at the university under Biswas’s leadership. Alongside Maple Leaf Foods and Nutrien, additional project partners include the University of Guelph, the University of Saskatchewan, SoilTeck, and TheoryMesh.

“The approach we’re taking aims to break the bottleneck of cost, time and resource use for carbon measurement for any MMRV development,” said Biswas.

“It aims to give that blueprint for an MMRV.”

The tool, currently in prototype, combines three technologies: Soil moisture measurement, digital imaging capabilities, and spectroscopy, all in a single unit.

A prototype version of the analyzer, shown at the University of Guelph. Photo by James Wood/CANZA

No similar tool currently exists on the market.

Using the soil samples from Saskatchewan, the tool is being benchmarked against laboratory testing methods this spring and summer.

Biswas looks forward to putting a more affordable option out on the market in Canada’s agri-food sector.

“We do not expect to fully replace lab precision at the individual sample level,” said Biswas.

“However, our goal is to achieve comparable accuracy at the field scale, with dramatically lower cost and more effective sampling density. We expect to reduce cost per measurement, increase ease of use in the field, increase the density of measurement and smoothly integrate into existing MMRV workflows.”

Biswas is also proud of the work done by his students and team to move the project forward.

“My students have been doing amazing work, and when we’re finished, we’ll be sharing this fantastic tool with the Canadian agri-food sector.”

Following the lab prototype testing, Biswas and his team will take the equipment into the field, testing at farms across Ontario.

By project’s end, CANZA and its collaborators expect to deliver a regionally relevant, cost-effective, and scalable MMRV system for farmers across Canada.

Funding for this project has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program.