Following on from a farm trial undertaken by Andy Cato’s Wildfarmed farms, (as mentioned in our Farmer Profile issue Nov’ 24) we’re drilling down (pardon the pun) into the technology behind a new technique for measuring soil health – ecoacoustics.
Ecoacoustics is an emerging science which investigates natural and anthropogenic sounds and their relationship with the environment. Ecoacoustics has been used as an ecology tool for decades in the marine environment and now more recently for recording bats and birds and other above-ground wildlife. As the technology has developed and become cheaper, Baker Consultants, along with a small group of like-minded researchers and soundscape artists around the world, saw the potential to apply this method to the soil.
Winning a DEFRA Farm Improvement programme grant in 2022 with University of Warwick Crop Centre, Baker Consultants embarked on a research project to determine whether this technology could be used commercially to assess earthworm populations, instead of just using more traditional methods, such as digging worm pits. The study has discovered that the diversity of soil invertebrates can be measured using ecoacoustics, and is also usefully paired with existing methodologies for assessing above-ground biodiversity using soundscape recordings.
The premise being ‘A healthy soil is a noisy soil’ was born, and large-scale farm trials were undertaken to gather data from the full range of geologies and soil types, on arable, pastural farms, vineyards and agro-forestry, as well as those under regenerative management practices.
As well as a sample of Wildfarmed farms, organisations including Rothemsted, The National Trust, Yeo Valley & Ruinart Vineyards have been part of the trial and have contributed to amassing a large database of thousands of soil-sound files. This has been used to develop a brand-new Soil Acoustic Quality Index (SAQI) score system, against which each new recording can be compared. This score will be able to show farmers how the acoustic diversity of your soils compares to the rest of the UK and allow you to target the areas most in need of help, or track changes in the soil, following different interventions. The soil database & acoustic analysis is AI-driven and the service will be supported by automated reporting, with each sample generating a dedicated SAQI scorecard.
This month, in time for World Soil Day, a hand-held device has been launched for farmers and agronomists to start recording their own soils and creating baseline scores for their fields. Regenerative farmers are often the first to adopt new technologies and the importance of baseline data is recognised as a key step to changing farming practices effectively. Knowing the effect of certain inputs and being able to take recordings before and after treatments will cut down the ‘guesswork’ element.
Rob Bray, People & Sustainability at Wildfarmed, said “At Wildfarmed we see the difference when farmers transition to regenerative farming, with more birds, bugs and bees in their fields through the introduction of pollinating flowers amongst our arable crops. Wildfarmed grows food in a nature-friendly way that’s better for you and the planet. We can’t know what ‘nature friendly’ means unless we can measure it. It’s been fascinating to work with Baker Consultants to understand better what is happening below ground and start to quantify the benefits of our approach.
The SAQI reporting will be run through a subscription service and the Soil Acoustic Meter scorecard system has been designed to align with the same approach taken in the current AHDB Soil Health Scorecard system. Collaborations with other standard data collection portals are also in the pipeline, so that this data can be viewed alongside other soil metrics, such as organic carbon. The new Sustainable Farm Incentive also includes a soil management plan payment, and it is hoped that soil acoustics will soon be able to support the monitoring methods that can be used for demonstrating compliance with this SFI scheme.
Soil Acoustics Ltd has launched a Kickstarter campaign this month (which is a type of crowdfunding) to fund the production of this new hardware and enable it to get it to market in Summer 2025. To sign up as an early-adopter and get unlimited data uploads for the first 12-months, go to their Kickstarter link here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soilacoustics/sam-the-ecoacoustic-device-for-listening-to-your-soil
A multi-buy deal is also available for agronomists and farm advisers with multiple sites to manage.
Gavin Ward, Director at Soil Acoustics Ltd says “We are excited to see this technology enable land managers to track how their topsoil invertebrates respond to both environmental events and their own farming interventions. By monitoring how these communities respond, these rapid and cost-effective insights will hopefully help famers to optimise the timing of their activities, so that the resilience, productivity and overall health of their soil is improved.”
For more information on soil acoustics email ecoacoustics@bakerconsultants.co.uk or visit: www.soilacoustics.com
