Produce World has outlined its soil management technology Soil-for-Life at a conference hosted by Waitrose.
Soil-for-Life is about collating and integrating datasets to show whether or not current practices allow the industry to truly optimise the use of soils, Guy Thallon, Soil-for-Life project manager, explained.
The Soil-for-life grower portal, that is being developed, will provide a web-based platform for users to upload data, view map layers, run queries on the aggregated Soil-for-life database and access knowledge-transfer material.
Thallon said: “This project represents a significant step towards big data approaches in soil science research.”
“It will give us better access to the data required to understand how to quantify soil health, whilst providing a unique knowledge transfer mechanism to promote best practice back to land managers, farmers and advisors.”
Soil management was debated further at the Waitrose Eastern Vegetable Conference with talks delivered on soil threats and opportunities for the Eastern region and soil compaction in a vegetable rotation.
Water challenges for the Eastern region catchments were also considered by Dr Rob Lillywhite from the Warwick Crop Centre, while Jim Shanks, a dairy farmer, reviewed alternative energy options for farmers.
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