The nutrient-primed incremented substrate degradation principle. A novel method and an automated tool to assess and correct agricultural soil deficiencies to optimize its fertility and crop productivity

Is my land fertile? Do I need to add fertilizers? Which nutrients are needed and how much of each? A shift of perspective to the microbial point of view provides novel insights on these themes and prompts a method with a corresponding tool to probe the soil and obtain answers to each of these questions. The principle has been defined and patented (International patent PCT WO2012/140523/A1) and allows the comparative assessment of soil vitality and fertility and the amount of fertilizers needed to bring it to optimal levels without wasted excess. The living microorganisms are in nature the actual mediators of the organic matter mineralization which results in nutrient turnover to the benefit of cultivated plants. Soil fertility strictly depends on the promptness at which soil microbes can process organic matter, thus liberating its soluble nutrients that will be absorbed by plant roots. Using buried 'bait' filaments made of cotton (=cellulose) or silk (=proteins) and recording the change in their tensile strength after an appropriate period of persistence in soil, one can obtain a direct information on the state of its potential activity and on the possible deficiencies of key nutrients. All is deduced as a function of the speed of activity of the soil microbial communities on nutrient-spiked cotton or silk fibers in comparison to their plain un-spiked versions. The method and the ensuing devices go under the name of Fertimetro. In the present report the automatization of a tool suited to store this information and offer it to the farmer is presented.