IIT Kanpur Develops Rapid Soil Testing Device that Displays Results in Just 90 Seconds

One of the Top Engineering institute of the country, Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K) has invented a portable soil checking out tool which could discover soil health in only ninety seconds with the help of a mobile application.

This Portable Soil Testing Device or BhuParikshak will help to know the soil fitness parameters of agricultural fields with prescribed dose of fertilizers.  

The team of scientists behind this invention consists of Professor Jayant  Kumar Singh from the Department of Chemical Engineering. His team included  Pallav Prince,  Ashar Ahmad, Yashasvi Khemani and  Mohd Aamir Khan.

The Rapid soil testing technology has been transferred to an agritech  company named AgroNxt Services, which will aid in manufacturing and marketing of the device to farmers. 

IIT- Kanpur’s New Soil Testing Technology: 

This soil testing technology is based on the ‘Near Infra Spectroscopy Technology’ that provides real time soil analysis report on smart phones with an embedded mobile application “Bhuparikshak” available on Google Play Store. 

This device assesses soil on the basis of 6 important soil parameters namely Nitrogen, phosphorus, Potassium, Organic Carbon, Clay contents, and cation exchange capacity. It also suggests the required dose of fertilizers for the field crops. 

“Farmers are our caretakers. But they face a lot of hardships. One such hardship is getting their soil tested and wait for the results for days. That will not be a hassle anymore. I am delighted for the team from IIT Kanpur for developing such a novel device that will assist individual farmers in assessing the health of their soil in almost no time,” said Professor Abhay Karandikar, Director, IIT-K. 

Can Test Upto 1 lakh Soil Samples: 

This device can test upto 1 lakh soil test samples, which is the highest testing capability of a soil testing device known so far. It requires only 5 grams of dry soil sample for detecting macronutrients present in the soil. Once, the soil is poured in to this device, it connects itself with the mobile through Bluetooth, and starts analyzing the soil within 90 seconds.