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Exploring a Dynamic Soil Information System Proceedings of a Workshop (2021) / Chapter Skim
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6 Fireside Chat with Industry Representatives
Pages 47-54

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From page 47...
... Answering first, Bekele stated that Land O'Lakes is a farmer-owned, farm-to-fork coopera­tive with three divisions: crop inputs, animal nutrition, and dairy products. Crop inputs is the largest division, accounting for nearly 50 percent of the company's sales.
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From page 48...
... "This is something that's become pretty fundamental to our business," he said, and a soil mapping system would support the design of some of those products. Soil is a tremendously complex system, and at the moment, a great deal remains unknown about how the products work under various soil and environmental conditions.
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From page 49...
... Other customers -- for instance, those interested in carbon s­ equestration -- might be focused on time scales of 1 year or longer and on length scales that are acre by acre. Thus, he concluded, the Holy Grail of soil maps must provide information on a variety of scales that are targeted to different potential users.
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From page 50...
... Temme explained that Pivot aims to contribute to basic science on the smallest of time scales and the shortest of length scales possible. Providing insight into the inspiration for his company, he explained that during his time as a graduate researcher in the nascent field of synthetic biology, a significant innovation was the move from bulk fluorescent measurements on a population of cells to use of a cytometer to obtain a fluorescent measurement on each individual cell in a culture.
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From page 51...
... What is the value for technology companies that do not collect data but can create products that enable data users to make more informed decisions? Another involved party is academics, who use the data to advance science, but may be reluctant to share secondary data or new insights because of intellectual property constraints.
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From page 52...
... For his final question, Chandra asked the industry representatives to describe the new business models or scenarios that might be enabled by the data provided by dynamic soil maps. He asked them to assume that such maps have already been created and to project out to 10 years.
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From page 53...
... With a better understanding of the soil, farmers would be more comfortable with their decisions to make such a switch. In summarizing the session, Chandra said, "A dynamic soil map helps build better soils.
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Key Terms

  • soil map
  • soil maps
  • soil information
  • industry representatives
  • soil health

  • soil composition
  • soil structure
  • chandra asked
  • holy grail
  • length scales

  • various soil
  • soil quality
  • soil properties
  • soil samples
  • soil mapping

  • crop input
  • farm management
  • share data
  • help farmers
  • controlled conditions

  • technology companies
  • variable rate
  • rate maps
  • crop inputs
  • soil constantly

  • sell soil
  • mapped soil
  • soil characteristics
  • developing soil
  • create soil


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