Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy: A Faster Pathway to Soil Health Assessment
What if a soil test could be completed in seconds rather than days?
Traditional soil health assessment relies on laboratory analyses that are often costly, time-consuming, and difficult to scale across large regions. As interest in soil health continues to grow, researchers are exploring new technologies that can provide faster and more affordable alternatives.
One of the most promising approaches is mid-infrared diffuse reflectance Fourier transform spectroscopy (Mid-DRIFTS). This technology uses infrared light to capture a unique spectral fingerprint of the soil. When combined with machine learning, these fingerprints can be used to predict important soil health indicators without performing every laboratory analysis.
In our study, we evaluated the ability of Mid-DRIFTS to predict several biological soil health indicators in Florida pasture systems, including soil protein, permanganate oxidizable carbon (POX-C), water-extractable organic carbon (WEOC), water-extractable organic nitrogen (WEN), and potentially mineralizable carbon (Cmin).
The results were encouraging. Soil protein was predicted with excellent accuracy, while several other biological indicators were predicted with good performance. Neural networks and support vector machines often outperformed traditional statistical approaches, demonstrating the value of combining spectroscopy with modern data analytics.
Although spectroscopy will not completely replace laboratory testing, it has the potential to dramatically reduce costs and increase the accessibility of soil health assessment. As spectral databases continue to expand, technologies such as Mid-DRIFTS may help bring rapid soil health diagnostics from the laboratory directly to the field.
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This article is based on published research led by Dr. Franky Celestin and colleagues.
Reference
Celestin, F., Deiss, L., Champiny, Ryan E., Dubeux, Jose C.B., Maltais-Landry, G., Mylavarapu, R., and Lin, Y. (2026). Predicting soil health indicators in sandy soils using diffuse reflectance mid-infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy. Soil Use and Management, 42(1), e70184. https://doi.org/10.1111/sum.70184
