Rapid soil tests using ‘lab-on-a-chip’ and an app

The costs and time required for traditional soil sampling and chemical analysis can be significant. Many farmers would conduct more soil testing if they had rapid, cheap and reliable in-field soil tests to support their decision making.

The Soil CRC’s project ‘Affordable rapid field-based tests’ has developed a prototype of a field-based toolkit for measuring soil pH and nitrogen, using microfluidic chip technology (‘lab-on-a-chip’). The device will allow GPS mapping of soil testing data to existing soil and geological information, which will help enhance the meaning of the test result. This device is simple and relatively inexpensive.

A related colourimetric calibration tool using smartphone cameras has also been developed. The prototype of the smartphone app uses the phone camera to capture results from the colourimetric measurement of the reactions on the microfluidic chip. This app can automatically interpret the colour values into the quantitative prediction of targeted soil nutrients using calibration models.

The project will undertake commercialisation and market studies for the devices’ design and cost. If fully developed and integrated, the final devices should attract significant commercial interest, especially from organisations that supply soil testing services to farmers. Ultimately, farmers will have access to a faster, cheaper and reliable alternative to conventional soil tests.