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LandScan joining FFAR partnership study

We are excited to begin this journey of discovery with the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) and the other corporate and university partners involved in this long-term study. LandScan is performing site characterization and analysis of the critical research locations using the Digital Soil Core (DSC) and our other complimentary technologies. The resulting

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Deep in the soil profile

Interesting in-situ image from deep in the soil profile courtesy of the Digital Soil Core (DSC). What is it? #digitalsoilcore #ii4ag #soilhealth #agtech #soilscience #subsurfaceremotesensing Learn more: https://landscan.ai/platform/digital-soil-core/

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LandScan to Exhibit at The Almond Conference

Come visit us at Booth 1734 at The Almond Conference December 5-7, 2023 at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center (1401 K St, Sacramento, CA 95814). Learn more: https://www.almonds.com/about-us/programs-and-events/almond-conference The Almond Conference brings together growers and other industry stakeholders to serve as the premier gathering for networking, education and research in the almond industry. The

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A picture is worth a thousand data points!

The Digital Soil Core (DSC) has been an integral part of LandScan’s very busy fall. We’ve collected millions of subsurface remote sensing images of complete soil profiles around California to help build our digital twins for optimizing crop irrigation and nutrition. We also learn a tremendous amount about soil health and organic matter not to

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3D Spatial Crop Metrics

It doesn’t matter how frequent or resolute your remote sensing data is if you aren’t measuring plant height, canopy volume, and other important 3D spatial crop metrics. Spectral (and thermal) data alone just isn’t enough. #ii4a #digitalvegetationsignature #digitaltwins #remotesensing #computationalagronomy

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Deep in the Soil Profile

No better place to explore soil than in its native environment! Here are some very beautiful and interesting images from deep in the soil profile. #ii4ag #digitalsoilcore #digitalagriculture #soilhealth #soilscience

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Patented In-situ Near Infrared Sensor

LandScan is excited to announce the granting of a patent for our infrared sensor technology that is a key component of the Digital Soil Core (DSC). This technology is the next generation of an infrared soil probe developed and deployed by many of these inventors two decades ago. This hardy and mobile sensor system, when

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Systems and Methods for Multispectral Landscape Mapping

The business of looking down is looking up! LandScan’s is adding another patent to our growing technology platform. Our comprehensive system combines both the hardware and software necessary to produce the type of high resolution spectral and thermal photogrammetry required for advanced computational agronomy. The technology is for airborne applications (drones and airplanes) because it

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Addressing Complex Agronomic Challenges

This is an example of how LandScan’s technology works together to make discoveries and solve complex agronomic challenges. No other technology suite in the world can obtain this information and produce these analytics. Learn more: https://landscan.ai/ #ii4ag #rootcauseanalytics #digitalvegetationsignature #digitalsoilcore #digitalagriculture #digitaltwins

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In situ analysis of nutrients in soil

The Digital Soil Core (DSC) is the only technology in the world capable of generating an in-situ full profile scan of specific nutrients in the soil. Data collected in one day from an almond orchard in California in spring 2023. Data analyzed by researchers at the University of Nebraska and the University of Florida. Peer

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What’s the matter?

There are many, many types of organic matter of all sizes and each holds clues to understanding the soil environment. All of this data was obtained from an almond orchard (loamy sand) in one day in spring 2023 in California. Statistical analysis performed by researchers at Univ. of Nebraska and Univ. of Florida (peer reviewed

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A new season is upon us…

A new season is upon us and LandScan is back in the field! Stay tuned for lots of paradigm busting and exciting discoveries in 2023. #digitalsoilcore #rootcauseanalytics #digitalagriculture #digitaltwins #agtech

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LandScan is Expanding the Horizons of Soil Science

LandScan is expanding the horizons of soil science! More fascinating discoveries in the new field of subsurface remote sensing using the #digitalsoilcore. What is this? Fungus? Using these tools is becoming more and more interesting every day. We are seeing things never-before-observed and we are excited about what’s to come. #ii4ag #digitaltwins #digitalagriculture #subsurfaceremotesensing #soilhealth

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Empower your voxels! 3D soil view of water availability

There are many practical reasons why producing #digitaltwins for #digitalagriculture is important. Empower your voxels! Here true 3D soil information relating to how much water the soil can hold that is available to the plant is used for a precision center pivot irrigation application. Learn more: https://landscan.ai/platform/dynamic-modeling/ #ii4ag

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The Power and Richness of digital 3D Soil Maps

Ever seen anything like this? These types of high resolution digital 3D soil maps can be produced for almost any soil property or attribute using the #digitalsoilcore. While it is not necessary to produce these visuals for site characterization and analysis purposes, it is useful for ‘we humans’ to see this so we understand the

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The Business of Subsurface Remote Sensing

The business of looking down is looking up! LandScan is pioneering the new field of subsurface remote sensing where an image is worth a thousand data points. Just like images obtained from satellites or airborne platforms can be processed, analyzed, and classified so too can images of the full soil profile obtained with the DSC

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Characterizing the Soil Microbiome will Never Be the Same

Characterizing the soil microbiome will never be the same! These features are the diameter of a human hair. We observed several this week in-situ at multiple depths (30-120cm) in a vineyard. The Digital Soil Core (DSC) is capable of characterizing features and properties that are not possible or practical through soil sampling.

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“Everything is everywhere, but the environment selects”

“Everything is everywhere, but the environment selects” is the critical maxim for all things soil health and microbiology. If it is important for your application to understand and inventory the current (or potential) soil microbial populations to assess soil health or the impact of biostimulants, you MUST characterize the environment first. The #digitalsoilcore is the

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Platform for Discovery in Agriculture

The Platform for Discovery is a suite of technologies that produces true #digitaltwins for agricultural applications enabling never-before-observed discoveries and practical decision support solutions. Learn more: https://landscan.ai/ #ii4ag #digitalagriculture

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ifa Smart & Green Virtual Conference

I am honored and excited to be an invited speaker at the upcoming IFA Smart & Green Conference. The title of my talk will be: Building a Digital Twin for Applied Agronomy There are many other interesting speakers as well. I would encourage anyone who is interested in the topic “where tech meets plant nutrition”

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How much water is available to your roots…

Another unique soil information product created by LandScan using the #digitalsoilcore and #rootcauseanalytics. You can’t produce this information through remote sensing or with any other technology. The amount of water that is available to a plant is called plant available water and it is a result of numerous soil properties. This is NOT the amount

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A Digital Twin in Action

This is how LandScan #digitaltwins can be put to good, practical use for #digitalagriculture. No other technology in the world can produce this level and type of information that we call #rootcauseanalytics. Learn more about LandScan: https://landscan.ai/ Learn why you can’t do this with soil sampling: https://lnkd.in/eikgMQRJ #ii4ag #digitalsoilcore #agtech #soilscience

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Proximal Soil Sensing Will Render Soil Cores Obsolete: Here’s Why

That’s a pretty bold title. Why should you believe it? To understand why proximal soil sensing (PSS) will obsolete soil coring and laboratory analysis (specifically for digital soil mapping and precision agriculture), we must first understand how each arrives at its answers. And, we must consider how close those answers can ever get to the

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Comparison of Digital Soil Probes

Understanding the soil is important for our food supply and the health of people and the planet, and yet it remains the most unexplored and elusive part of the Agtech information and analytics ecosystem. The future of soil classification and its power to enable ML/AI and digital twin applications must include direct sensing with probes

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Digital Soil Core images from 2022

The #digitalsoilcore allows anyone, anywhere to view and assess the entire soil profile in real-time and in-situ in a matter of 60 seconds. No other tool in the world can do this. Here are some interesting images from 2022. Learn more: https://landscan.ai/platform/digital-soil-core/ #ii4ag #digitalagriculture #soilscience #soilhealth

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Vision Conference – Harnessing the Power of Agriculture

Join LandScan CEO, Dan Rooney, at the Vision Conference on January 17-18, 2023 in Glendale, AZ. The VISION Conference convenes leaders across the rapidly expanding agtech ecosystem with a singular goal: To shape the strategic roadmap for building a sustainable food value system to feed the world.

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Agricultural Production Optimization Circuit

It is too slow, subjective, degrading, has low spatial and information dimensionality, and removes the soil from its in-situ environment…even if you test the soil sample in the field. Lots of steps for errors to occur too. If you are relying on the lab, then an entire new set of errors are added to the

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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas…and remember more than half of the plant (crop) is underground. Enjoy our Christmas Haiku. Merry Christmas treeMajestic in sky and soilSo much to explore

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Digital Soil Core Highlighted in Soil Health Study

LandScan’s Digital Soil Core was used to characterize soil health indicators across a young almond orchard in the San Joaquin Valley after whole orchard recycling as part of a UC Davis study. A poster about our work was presented at the Fall 2022 conference of the American Geophysical Union. See the full poster here. Thank

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Relating Plant Performance and Behavior to the Growing Environment

The crop is scanned using quality imagery #digitalvegetationsignature which in turn is used to guide the location of the #digitalsoilcore (DSC) observations. The DSC’s 7 independent sensors obtain an objective, in-situ, continuous digital soil profile to 120cm+ in about 60 seconds. Hundreds of observations can be taken in a single day. This includes a full

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World Soil Day 2022

LandScan and especially the Digital Soil Core (DSC) team would like to recognize #worldsoilday and thank all of the teachers, scientists, engineers, and data analysts who went before us. We are standing on their shoulders. There is an accelerating recognition that soil is at the foundation of our food systems and environmental stewardship. The #digitalsoilcore

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Innovation Row at the 2022 Irrigation Show | December 5-9

Meet us in Innovation Row at the 2022 Irrigation Show –
Come see us in Innovation Row at the 2022 Irrigation Show in Las Vegas, NV. LandScan will be exhibiting at booth 143.

Also, don’t miss LandScan CEO, Dan Rooney in a round-table session on Connecting Irrigators & Agronomists: Benefits & Challenges on Wednesday, December 7th at 2 pm. If you would like to setup a private meeting please contact us.

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Sustainable Ag Expo | November 14-16

Meet us at the Sustainable Ag Expo –
Join us, November 14-16, at the Sustainable Ag Expo and International Sustainable Winegrowing Summit in San Luis Obispo, California. LandScan’s Founder and CEO Dan Rooney is presenting on Site Characterization and Analysis for the Optimization of Irrigation Design and Management, Tuesday November 15th at 3:00 pm. LandScan will be exhibiting at booth E8 with live demos in the outdoor exhibits. If you are at the show and would like to setup a private meeting please contact us.

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Eureka! (?)

Eureka! (?) We are often asked about utilizing the Digital Soil Core (DSC) for mineral exploration. We are seeing what looks like gold at some depths in certain locations and at this location there was quite a bit of this material. Doesn’t seem to be pyrite. Learn more about the DSC here: https://landscan.ai/platform/digital-soil-core/ #digitalsoilcore

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The Power of 7 Sensors

The Digital Soil Core (DSC) has changed the way soil is characterized by providing rapid, digital, objective, repeatable, and transferable metrics of the complete soil profile in about 1 minute. The real power of the DSC comes from the synergies derived from having 7 independent sensors. Each sensor modality is orthogonal to the others, maximizing

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Ground Truth

What is your truth? Ground truth that is… The Digital Soil Core (DSC) is the only soil sensing technology in the world that completely ‘senses’ the soil…the DSC feels, sees, hears, and to some extent smells and tastes the entire soil profile. Learn more about the DSC and how we use it from other LinkedIn

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DVS Thermal Profiles

Characterizing and classifying vegetation is a hot topic! The Digital Vegetation Signature (DVS) includes a high-precision thermal sensor that enables LandScan to add this important ingredient into our Root Cause Analytics (RCA) tool. The two trees are not distinguishable from each other in March or June, but their differences are obvious in April and August.

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Climate Smart Agriculture Policy Mission October 2022

We’d like to recognize the important work of LandScan’s COO Jeff Dlott as he was selected to accompany California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Secretary Karen Ross on a Climate Smart Ag Policy Mission that includes the 2035 Oceania Summit that starts today in Auckland, New Zealand. Jeff serves as the Chair of the

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Digital Soil Core (DSC) enables next-level precision irrigation

The Digital Soil Core (DSC) is the only technology in the world that provides the type of information you will see in this video. The DSC will change the way water use is optimized in agriculture by enabling next-level precision irrigation. There is a significant difference in the root zone (top 4 feet) plant available

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Beware of Shifting Sands!

Beware of shifting sands! There are many who utilize EM/EC sensors to produce ‘soil maps’. These sensors do not produce soil maps and are almost always ‘oversold’ as such. The providers utilize the patterns generated from these sensors to interpolate and extrapolate their soil observations along with topography and/or yield making the false assumption that

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Digital Vegetation Signature (DVS)

It’s about time! You can’t do advanced analytics in agriculture without a digital twin. Analytical quality remote sensing data provides an entire new dimension of information for advanced temporal analytics. The data must be calibrated at the pixel scale. LandScan does this with the DVS in 3 data dimensions: 7-band multi-spectral, hyper-spatial, and thermal. This

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Information Infrastructure for Agriculture

Do you want to see something revolutionary for the first time? We call it “Information Infrastructure for Agriculture”. Remember, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. This product brings together many elements starting with a group of intelligent, hard-working, team members who designed and developed the Digital Vegetation Signature (DVS) and Digital Soil

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The “Snap Crackle Pop” sensor

We call it the “Snap Crackle Pop” sensor, but it is really a cleverly engineered listening system that collects and analyzes the complex audio signals created as the Digital Soil Core (DSC) is inserted into the soil. The many incredible rich information dimensions obtained with the audio sensor are fused with data collected from the

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Soil health and the soil microbiome

Every day we see so many amazing features in the soil that relate to soil health and the soil microbiome. Here we see a network of fungal hyphae mixed with root hairs. The spatial resolution is about 3 microns the image scale is 2.3mm x 1.3mm. The Digital Soil Core (DSC) contains 7 sensors that

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Root Cause Analytics (RCA)

I have been conducting industrial field-scale agronomic research for over 3 decades. One thing that became crystal clear to me is that the soil is the driving factor in how a crop performs and behaves over time at any given location within a field. Canopy volume has been shown to drive light interception and yield

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Back to your roots

Let the Digital Soil Core (DSC) take you back to your roots! The possibilities are endless and there is so much to discover. Every day LandScan is uncovering never-before observed in-situ relationships between plant performance and behavior and the growing environment. The digital video microscope is paired within the DSC with other sensors that add

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Breaking New Ground

The Digital Soil Core (DSC) is breaking new ground! We see water beading across void space and root hairs at 65cm along with many other features in today’s scene. The digital microscope is one of 7 sensors contained within the DSC that is revolutionizing subsurface characterization and enabling advanced analytics. #digitalsoilcore #ii4ag #soilhealth #digitalagriculture

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Structure is the Holy Grail of soil properties

They say that structure is the Holy Grail of soil properties. Drink up! The Digital Soil Core (DSC) obtains a real-time, in-situ, continuous vertical soil profile in a little more than a minute that can be viewed anywhere in the world as it is collected! The cool part is that you cannot acquire this content

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Ground Truth

Don’t be fooled by colorful maps and fantastical claims! The Digital Soil Core (DSC) will expose the ‘ground truth’… Electromagnetic conductivity (EC) data sets are useful and are one small part of LandScan’s site characterization process…but they are not soil maps. The same conductivity measurement is almost always a result of multiple soil properties measured

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1 Probe – 7 Sensors

So many dimensions in so little time. Let the discoveries begin! Informative and unique information products are being created from the Digital Soil Core (DSC) for our 2022 test sites. The DSC generates a continuous vertical soil profile from 7 sensors at a rate of about 2 cm/sec. The DSC is part of the LandScan

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LandScan is now making rock music!

LandScan is now making rock music! The Digital Soil Core (DSC) #digitalsoilcore contains 7 sensors. One of these we call “Snap Crackle Pop” and it is a highly sensitive and tuned acoustic sensor capable of delineating coarse fragments and providing additional information about other soil physical properties. This sensor adds an additional set of information

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Root Zone Plant Available Water

How much water is in the root zone of a field AND is available for the roots? The #Digitalsoilcore (DSC) is uniquely capable of practically and efficiently answering this question. LandScan produces the Root Zone Plant Available Water information product for optimized irrigation design and dynamic management.

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‘Deep learning’ in agriculture

Talk about ‘deep learning’ in agriculture! PedonView is one of the many ways to utilize the Digital Soil Core (DSC) for visualizing, analyzing, and understanding site characteristics. These data cubes contain dozens of unique information dimensions for deep machine learning and are a powerful contribution to the Platform for Discovery.

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Subsurface hyperspectral remote sensing

LandScan is the pioneer in subsurface hyperspectral remote sensing. The Digital Soil Core (DSC) has 7 sensors that are used to characterize the soil environment in true 3D. Sensor fusion combined with machine learning can produce astonishing results. In this image we can classify different minerals, quantify porosity, identify redoximorphic features and concretions, and much

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Digital Soil Core (DSC) – Viewing soil in-situ

It is fascinating to be able to see what is happening in the soil in real-time and in-situ using the Digital Soil Core (DSC). The powerful and unique analytics enabled by this tool are game-changing! Today from an almond orchard in California. We can see roots, soil grains, minerals, and more. We can learn and

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Mapping soils will never be the same!

So much can be learned about a soil profile in 90 seconds using the Digital Soil Core (DSC) including a full 3D scan of porosity, structure,texture, salinity, color, and numerous attributes related to the soil water/fertilizer/chemistry/microbiome relationship.

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Digital Soil Core – Maps

It is now possible to digitally characterize the soil profile in 1 cm increments for dozens of soil properties in-situ in about 90 seconds. The Digital Soil Core (DSC) contains 7 sensors that obtain continuous measurements of soil properties including texture, structure, porosity, organic matter, density, moisture, salinity, and many others. Data from multiple sensors

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LandScan Digital Vegetation Signature (DVS) Analytics Dashboard

Introducing the LandScan Digital Vegetation Signature (DVS) analytics dashboard. It’s more than cool pictures, these data are the result of spatially, spectrally, and thermally calibrated high-resolution imagery that enables true temporal analysis. These many independent information dimensions power deep machine learning and when combined with the Digital Soil Core (DSC) data creates a quantitative understanding

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Meet Dr. Wample

Dr. Wample is a valued member of the LandScan team. He is a brilliant plant physiologist with practical experience conducting agronomic research at an industrial scale. We are proud of his service to our country as a US Marine. See here as Dr. Wample is interviewed for the Vets in Ag podcast sponsored by AGD Consulting,

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LandScan Invests in Future of Geospatial Software With Recent Acquisitions

AgTech leader relaunches software platforms as Datum Geospatial™ Madison, WI, January 21, 2022– LandScan has announced the acquisition of three companies as part of its geospatial software relaunch. The acquisitions include: MicroImages, one of the longest standing geospatial software companies in the global market utilized in 120 countries and translated into 24 languages; Syncarto, a

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The Business Of Looking Down Is Looking Up.

Check out this ‘dirty video’ from the LandScan Digital Soil Core (DSC) tool from an almond orchard in California. One of the DSC’s seven sensors obtains in-situ, super high resolution digital imagery of the entire soil profile in about a minute at a resolution of 3 microns! You can see roots, critters, pores, grains, structure,

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It’s About Time For Advanced Remote Sensing In Agriculture.

Introducing the LandScan Digital Vegetation Signature (DVS). Remote sensing applications in agriculture and forestry are ubiquitous. Everyone it seems has a sensor mounted on a drone, airplane, or ground-based vehicle and satellite imagery is widely available to all. This has led to pervasive claims of the analytical power of these tools, claims that are almost

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Acquisition Of Paris GeoSpatial, LLC.

Over the past 30 months as we’ve worked quietly it has been a challenge to keep our activities to ourselves. Among these activities was the acquisition of several companies that complement the LandScan mission. We will be announcing these in the coming weeks. These acquisitions by LandScan bring technology, intellectual property, and brilliant human beings

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Getting To The Point About Penetrometers!

The Digital Soil Core (DSC) is a 7-sensor penetrometer. We will write about each sensor over time, but the best place to start is at the bottom. I left the geotechnical site investigation industry in 1997 in order to pursue the idea that the penetrometer sensors used to delineate deep stratigraphy could be miniaturized to

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Site Characterization In Agriculture Will Never Be The Same.

Introducing the LandScan Digital Soil Core (DSC). Imagine obtaining an objective, repeatable, and transferable continuous vertical profile through the root zone in 90 seconds! The DSC contains 7 unique sensors: tip force, sleeve friction, moisture, salinity, sound, imagery, and spectroscopy. In addition to assessing well over a dozen soil properties it is also important to

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“Houston, We’ve Had A Problem Here.”

Those were the exact famous words spoken from Apollo 13 on April 13, 1970, when a series of catastrophic failures jeopardized the mission and the lives of the crew as they floated in space 210,000 miles from Earth. It was more good planning than fortune that saved the astronauts, as NASA had an exact replica

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The Power of Knowing

It was the first day of 10th grade and, as I entered my English class, I was greeted by a single word written in huge letters on the chalkboard: sophomoric. Beside it was its definition: foolishly wise. The definition stuck with me, but more importantly, my teacher’s point; that we weren’t as smart as we

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