{"id":575,"date":"2020-04-02T22:55:13","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T01:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/?p=245"},"modified":"2022-09-19T23:53:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T23:53:46","slug":"agrorobotica-analyses-soil-samples-using-nasa-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/agrorobotica-analyses-soil-samples-using-nasa-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Agrorobotics analyzes soil samples using NASA tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technology which had been used to discover water on Mars, is now being applied to make agronomic maps faster, cheaper and better.<\/h3>\n
\n

The Brazilian startup\u00a0agrorobotics<\/a>\u00a0uses NASA laser technology in order to provide farmers with quick, clean and affordable soil analysis. Their tools evaluate up to 1,500 samples per day without chemicals, using Rover Curiosity's robots that NASA previously used to search for water on Mars.<\/p>\n

The so-called AGLIBS equipment is able to supply data on the amount of organic soil carbon, texture (sand, silt and clay contents), macro and micronutrients and pH. If other methods can also measure those indexes, what is the point?<\/p>\n

Faster, cheaper and better<\/h3>\n

The big deal is that AGLIBS does it faster, cheaper and better. F\u00e1bio Angelis, CEO and founder of Agrorob\u00f3tica, explains: \u201cWe use Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to warm up samples until 12,000 kelvins, as hot as the sun. Because of this, all material goes into the 4th<\/sup>\u00a0state of matter, plasma, a type of cloud. So our AI software analyzes those nutrients lights in quantitative and qualitative parameters.\u201d<\/p>\n

While conventional laboratories need about 15 chemicals for analysis, which can take 10 days in S\u00e3o Paulo or even 40 in the Brazilian Northeast, the AGLIBS system delivers more precise agronomic recommendations to farmers in just 2 days.<\/p>\n

Correct dosage of agricultural inputs<\/h3>\n

\u201cSuch information is important for farmers, because it indicates the correct dosage of agricultural inputs to be applied for soil correction, preventing their insufficiency or excess as well as unnecessary expenses. Not to mention the contribution for the preservation of the deposits of correction minerals and non-renewable fertilisers,\u201d adds Mauro Angelis, one of the partners of the company.<\/p>\n

Normally, growers take one geo-referenced sample of 300g per 10 ha in order to identify concentrations of organic matter, macronutrients (phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and potassium), micronutrients (boron, copper, iron, manganese and zinc), pH and soil texture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThus, the software builds a complete map of a farm. We add qualitative carbon parameters, which is new and very important for efficiency and reducing costs. Our technology is more sensitive and allows greater accuracy for better decisions,\u201d say F\u00e1bio and Mauro Angelis.<\/p>\n

high costs<\/h3>\n

The development of AGLIBS started in 2015, parallel to the establishment of Agrorob\u00f3tica, as the group of researchers from the startup and Embrapa Instrumentation, part of the Brazilian public agricultural research corporation Embrapa, observed that many farmers do not analyze their soils due to high costs .<\/p>\n

The LIBS method, an acronym for optical emission spectroscopy with laser induced plasma, is remarkable for the advanced onboard technology in comparison with other techniques.<\/p>\n

360,000 annual sample analyzes<\/h3>\n

According to PhD in physics and one of Agrorob\u00f3tica's partners Aida Bebeachibuli Magalh\u00e3es, the technique allows the equipment's operational capacity to total around 360,000 annual sample analyses, which are performed without generating chemical waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch volume is almost twice the number of analyzes performed by large laboratories in Brazil that use traditional methodologies involving 13 processes,\u201d the scientist asserts, stating that the new technology resorts to a single process.<\/p>\n

LIBS a fast, low-cost system<\/h3>\n

With over 15 years' experience in the use of optics and photonics, the Embrapa researcher D\u00e9bora Milori explains that LIBS was deployed because it is a technique that analyzes a sample with little or no preparation; it is a fast, low-cost system; and it can identify elements simultaneously in a small sample like 0.5 gram, for instance.<\/p>\n

Milori explains that the LIBS system casts a high energy laser into the sample, generating plasma that emits light deriving from the atoms and ions that are present in the soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe light emission from each element is like a fingerprint that makes it possible to identify the atom that is in the plasma. That is how we can quantify soil carbon, nutrients and contaminants\u201d, the scientist clarifies.<\/p>\n

Next steps<\/h3>\n

Agrorobotics aims to go forward with its solutions. The next steps are crossing analytic data from soil and leafs and bring its AGLIBS device into the fields. F\u00e1bio argues the main challenge to drive the equipment directly to farms is Brazilian soil features.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazilian soil is highly compacted. In other words, it is really hard to find a durable solution for taking samples procedures. We need at least 2 samples. One from 0 cm to 20 cm depth and others from 20 cm to 40 cm. That is a difficulty, however, we already deliver much value to our clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, his team is already developing a large data base in order to improve AI software and to be capable of predicting relations between soil and leaf nutrition. \u201cThis is the next level for our researches. It can lead to much more efficiency and even healthier food,\u201d says F\u00e1bio.<\/p>\n

Source: FutureFarming<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Technology which had been used to discover water on Mars, is now being applied to make agronomic maps faster, cheaper and better. The Brazilian startup\u00a0Agrorob\u00f3tica\u00a0uses NASA laser technology in order to provide farmers with quick, clean and affordable soil analysis. Their tool evaluates up to 1,500 samples per day without chemicals, using Rover Curiosity\u00b4s robots […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1601,"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/1601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrorobotica.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}