Thanks to a $3.2 million Australian Government grant, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Agrimix, a leading agriculture technology company, will soon be able to develop a measurement system using CO2 flux, remote sensing, and carbon models to enable farmers to access low-cost soil carbon data and possibly earn carbon credits.
Professor Peter Grace of QUT’s Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy said the project’s research and infrastructure were well established, and the grant would allow for the development of fully integrated measure-model-verification (MMV) technology that would provide precise soil carbon measurements and the capability to predict soil carbon change.
“Together QUT and Agrimix have 17 existing flux towers across Queensland and northern NSW and QUT has also been publishing soil carbon models for decades, Professor Grace stated.
Professor Grace added that with the funding, a new fleet of portable CO2 flux towers and IoT (Internet of Things) sensors would be deployed to better understand the diversity of soils, climates, and management strategies. He said they would be implemented for three to six months to provide in-fill data for calibration, validation, and verification of the soil carbon model.
“Carbon dioxide flux is a proven physical measure to calibrate and validate a soil carbon model’s accuracy, overcoming the inherent errors and expense associated with soil sampling and analysis,” Professor Grace stated.
According to him, Flux towers integrate data on carbon flows across a landscape – plants absorb CO2 during the day and emit CO2 at night.
“By putting all that information together using simulation models we can tell farmers how their practices will change soil carbon. We are targeting $3 per hectare a year to provide this vital information using integration of CO2 measurement, critical biomass remote sensing, and soil carbon models,” he added.
He said by the end of the project, the tools and platform integration will have been built and proved on many farms, and it will be ready to scale up for the industry rollout in Australia and elsewhere.
One of the significant outcomes of this project, according to Agrimix CEO Ben Sawley, is that it could assist farmers in measuring their carbon footprint in a certified manner through the Clean Energy Regulator.
“With this knowledge, farmers can take action to reduce their carbon footprint to earn carbon credit income or use carbon credits to ultimately produce a carbon-neutral product,” Sawley said.
Sawley stated that this method would be critical in the future when the magnitude of a farmer’s carbon footprint becomes significant to consumers of their products.
“Improved land management through a focus on soil carbon for soil health will increase overall productivity and profitability for farmers and provide resilience to adverse conditions such drought,” Sawley added.
 and Agrimix, a leading agriculture technology company, will soon be able to develop a measurement system using CO2 flux, remote sensing, and carbon models to enable farmers to access low-cost soil carbon data and possibly earn carbon credits.){kind=link}