A new soil sensing technology developed by researchers at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA) is moving closer to becoming a practical on-farm tool, creating new opportunities for Australian growers to better understand and manage the health of their soils.
Future development and commercialisation of the QUOLL® electronic nose (e-nose) will now be led by TIA, following the milestone assignment of intellectual property from the Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils (Soil CRC) to the University of Tasmania this week.
The transfer gives TIA the ability to lead the next phase of development and partner with industry to bring the technology to market.
The QUOLL® e-nose is an emerging soil sensing technology that was developed through the Soil CRC, designed to rapidly measure biological activity and provide real time insights from the field. Using an electronic nose, the device detects volatile compounds released by soil microbes and provides growers with fast information about soil health that can inform management decisions.
Professor Mike Rose, TIA Director, said the device has been validated through research trials on commercial farms, and the next step is to bring it to market.
"This technology has potential to give growers a fast and affordable way to understand the biological activity in their soils without needing to send samples for laboratory analysis which can be slow and expensive. Laboratory samples can often take weeks to return results, whereas the QUOLL® e-nose can provide insights within minutes," he said.
"Many growers already use smell as a simple indication of soil health. The QUOLL® e-nose builds on that instinct by using advanced sensing technology to capture more information about soil biological activity and deliver meaningful information to growers quickly."
TIA's Ag Tech Innovation Studio is now seeking commercial partners interested in helping take the technology from advanced research prototype into a commercial device.
"We're looking to partner with companies to help us take this innovation to the next stage. Through commercial trials we've seen how the device can deliver useful information, and now our efforts are focussed on putting the device into the hands of growers," Professor Rose said.
Soil CRC CEO, Dr Michael Crawford, said the future of the QUOLL® e-nose is in very capable hands.
"With the help of the TIA team and a strong commercial partner, we anticipate that the device will soon make the leap from a research setting into working farms," he said.
The project is being supported by InVent, the University of Tasmania's research commercialisation arm, which is working with TIA to identify pathways to scale production and deliver the technology to growers.
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Companies interested in partnering with TIA to commercialise the QUOLL®
