Agri environment management firm FarmLab has acquired Ziltek, aiming to enhance its soil measurement profile with latter’s in-field soil scanner, RemScan. FarmLab will integrate RemScan into its digital platform while ensuring continuity of service for Ziltek’s existing customer base. The company will now be able to embed the technology in soil testing labs in Australia and the US, enabling a reduction in measurement costs by up to 50% for a single soil carbon test.
By combining Ziltek’s sensores with FarmLab’s software, FarmLab will be able to considerably reduce the cost of soil measurement for their soil carbon projects. FarmLab announced on LinkedIn that this integration marks a major step toward making high quality soil carbon measurement more affordable and scalable. RemScan has not only capability to measure percentage of soil carbon in a sample, but it can also recognize carbon type, pH level, and cation exchange capacity, all of which are critical indicators of soil health and its capacity to store carbon.
FarmLab Enhances High Quality Soil Testing
Ziltek employs infrared spectroscopy for soil analysis, where a 20 second scan to replace up to six pieces of lab equipment, enabling more frequent sampling and extraction of quality data. By integrating RemScan into its technological infrastructure high quality soil sampling has potential to be more accurate, fast moving, transparent, and a more practical endeavor overall.
As per the announcement made by FarmLab on LinkedIn, combining FarmLab’s remote sensing tools with the Ziltek’s in-field MIR scanning has demonstrated over recent years that soil carbon measurement costs can be reduced by up to 50% without compromising accuracy. This technique has the potential to build stronger time series data on soil carbon, layered with AI driven spatial mapping, for deeper insights into carbon dynamics and the impact of land management practices.
Also read: Perennial Partners with Verra to Enhance Digital Soil Mapping
In a recent interview with AgFunder news, Sam Duncan, CEO of FarmLab, stated that measuring regenerative agriculture practices, where soil carbon plays an important role is a major focus for their existing customer base. FarmLab platform already offers a suite of software tools, including satellite imagery and a mobile app for remote soil measurement. However, many customers still continue to to collect in-field soil samples alongside these digital tools, a dual approach that ensures compliance with high integrity measurement protocols such as Verra’s VM0042 and the Australian Clean Energy Regulator’s Soil Carbon method.
Beyond Agriculture to GeXLab Expansion
On LinkedIn, Sam Duncan announced that the acquisition of Ziltek had been four years in the making. He recalled his first collaboration with Dr Sean Manning in 2021 and recognised both a strong product and cultural fit between the two companies. Praising Manning’s vision in leading Ziltek’s global expansion from oil fields in Kuwait and Nigeria to remote environments like Antarctica, Duncan expressed pride in announcing that Sean has now joined FarmLab as Head of Soil Analytics.
Ziltek’s in-field applications extend well beyond agriculture, with uses in soil remediation for mining, oil and gas, as well as environmental monitoring in Antarctica. For environmental remediation, integrating hardware with data offers consultants a way to reduce costs and complexity while enhancing transparency and trust in data extracted from below ground conditions. Reflecting this broader scope, the company will soon rebrand as GeXLab (Geo Exploration Lab), while continuing its commitment to enhance regenerative agriculture.
FarmLab has already demonstrated the technology as an accurate and cost effiecient tool for measuring soil carbon in the generation of Australian Carbon Credit Units. The company will now extend its application to support emissions calculations for the Australian livestock sector and is in early discussions for potential application in insetting programs by CPGs and global restaurant chains.