Soil Indicator Project

Many crop types need to be harvested and replanted from scratch on an annual basis. To maintain nutrient levels in the soil, farmers often have to put down considerable quantities of fertiliser. This is costly, and a fair proportion of it ends up landing on soil that has enough nutrients anyway. Additionally, some of the nutrients in the fertiliser are often washed away, affecting local ecosystems. This process is called Eutriphication. This is a major environmental concern, as it can cause algal blooms that drain oxygen out of rivers and lakes, killing fish and other wildlife.

Our project aims to create a cheap, versatile soil fertility sensor to be used primarily by farmers. Our device will work by sensing whether nutrients in newly ploughed soil are above a given threshold. If this is the case, it will express a colour signal, identifying its area as high in nutrients. Our device will be based on an E-Coli chassis.