Taking the Next Steps, Can SoilStack Help Producers and Agronomists?

 Dan TerAvest on February 28, 2025

10,000! 

That’s how many “smart” soil sampling plans have been generated by SoilStack since it was launched in 2021. We’ve reached that number because SoilStack makes it really easy to apply a template for a design-based soil sample planning to tens or hundreds of fields at a time.

Collecting soil samples from predetermined locations, using known sources of variability, to best represent the field. 

SoilStack uses digital soil maps (clay and organic matter content), digital elevation maps (slope) and satellite-derived vegetative indices (NDVI) to understand in-field variability. Then it uses sampling algorithms to optimize the locations for collecting samples based on that variability.

Where are we now?

When we first launched SoilStack, we wanted to address key bottlenecks in the soil sampling process:

1. Reduce costs by leveraging publicly available data to reduce the total number of samples needed for each field while providing high quality data.
2. Enable anyone to generate “smart” sampling locations by automating the processing of publicly available data and applying scientifically rigorous approaches to generate sampling locations. 
3. Simplify the in-field sample collection process with tools that guide soil samplers to each predetermined sampling location and capture critical sampling metadata.

In its current state, SoilStack allows a user to draw a field boundary, generate unique zones based on variability of key properties (see box above) and collect samples at locations within each zone optimized to represent the variability of field conditions. Users can analyze each soil sample separately, or can aggregate samples from each zone into composite samples to reduce lab costs.

Users pay a one time fee ($10) per “smart” sampling plan created. Once created, the user has access to all of the detailed metadata about the sample plan design and that plan persists for as long as they want to use it. That means they can use SoilStack’s front-end app to navigate to those sampling locations, collect samples at those points and then access the sampling metadata as often as they wish in the future with no additional costs.

Where do we go from here?

SoilStack is developed and maintained by Our Sci LLC, whose goal is to support community research, turning citizens into researchers, researchers into community leaders and communities into solvers.

What should we, as a small, bootstrapped, open-source company do with SoilStack to continue developing it as a tool for shared community knowledge?

The simple answer is as much as we can. The more complicated answer is that we need to determine how we can leverage the existing technology stack to provide value to a (hopefully) growing user base that includes producers and agronomists.

What else is out there?

We decided to do research into some existing platforms that support soil sampling and improved agronomy support services.

There are a lot of platforms out there! They tout their support for farmers, ranchers, agronomists, consultants and supply chain actors to reduce costs (“reduce fertilizer use by 20%”), increase yields (“up to 15%”) and improve environmental stewardship (reduce water and fungicide use). Their tools benefit big groups with features like:

• Proprietary models
• AI insights
• Advanced Sensors
• Customizable views
• Satellite imagery and remote sensing technology
• Real time crop monitoring
• Big data analytics

These platforms offer their customers real value, but the tools listed above only work if you feed in a lot of data. Which means you have to buy and install sensors, pay for soil mapping using NIR technologies or digital soil cores, or buy remote sensing products. 

Another thing we noticed when reviewing the platforms’ websites is that most of them do not list prices for their various services. Granted, digital agronomy support isn’t the same as paying for soil analysis at a lab (analyte x = $y, or $z if part of a package). But, companies with affordable prices tend to mention that, a lot.

Is the digital agronomy space becoming a zero sum game? Either you go all in on a digital agronomy platform, and buy all of the bells and whistles to get the AI insights and pretty maps, or you’re on your own?

What do we want the future to look like?

We’d like to invest in a future where producers are not priced out of advanced analytics, but rather have more options to engage at levels that meet their resources and goals?

We want to hear from you!

If an open source platform like SoilStack can provide a la carte options, what features do agronomists and producers need to derive value from more targeted use of soil sample data?

Below are some of our thoughts, what do you think? What features would provide value to you or your clients?

• Easily visualize the sampling zones and the data layers used to generate sample plans?
• Import sample results to SoilStack for each sampling point, which would enable generating heat maps of soil properties?
• Import sampling locations from external services so soil samplers can use the front-end app for in-field sample support?
• Integrations with other platforms? For example, pull in field boundaries from farm management software and push sampling locations/metadata into that same software? 

Connect with us at info@soilstack.io