The project aims to improve understanding of soil health and how farming relies on a complex ecosystem.

An ambitious new project seeking to harness the power of technology to help farmers use nutrients more efficiently is being backed by the NFFN.

NUTRIGROW is a collaboration between start-up Elaniti, AgAnalyst, the University of Lincoln and the NFFN. 

Farmers collect soil samples from their fields, which are then analysed in a laboratory to understand the soil’s biological and nutrient properties. The results, along with real-world farm management data, are fed into Elaniti’s predictive analytics platform, which provides detailed information on soil function and projected nutrient use efficiency. 

Elaniti’s AI engine also scours academic research to highlight farming practices and techniques that have delivered beneficial outcomes.

The initial stage is a three-year project involving ten NFFN arable farmers, mainly winter wheat growers, who are providing the real-world data and frontline feedback to support the team to further refine their predictive models and to optimise the user experience.

Elaniti was founded at Carbon13, a venture builder in Cambridge that invests in early-stage startups aiming to tackle the climate emergency. The company decided to focus on agriculture after realising it could take a data science approach to understanding how soil functions.