The Soil CRC is providing farmers with live insights into soil performance – and it’s seeking partners to scale the transition

For nearly a decade, the Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils (Soil CRC) has advanced how Australian agriculture understands, measures, and manages its most fundamental asset: soil. 

Established under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) Program, the Soil CRC was designed as a long-term, industry-led collaboration to move soil science beyond isolated research projects and into practical, scalable solutions that help farmers improve on-farm decision-making for productivity and resilience.

Now in the final two years of its 10-year term, the Soil CRC is shifting from discovery to legacy, prioritising adoption, dissemination, and commercialisation of its research. On the list are two standout innovations seeking partners to take them to market: the QUOLL® e-nose, a soil health monitoring ‘e-nose’, and the BANDICOOT® portable soil profiling probe.

A national collaboration with farmers at its core

“95% of the food we eat has its genesis in the soil,” said Soil CRC CEO, Dr Michael Crawford. “But Australian soils provide a range of challenges, including erosion, acidification, and loss of organic matter. Rather than a series of shorter ad hoc projects where research and industry might come together and disperse and come together again, the CRC model has given soil research in Australia focus, alignment, and continuity across a 10-year horizon.

That alignment has brought together more than 40 university, state government, and industry partners, including 20 farmer groups, in the largest collaborative soil research effort in Australia’s history. Farmer groups have played a central role in setting priorities, shaping projects, trialling technologies, and leading extension to their members. 

“Much of the work we do is of a public good nature: guidelines; practices; know-how, and our task is to disseminate that as far and wide as possible,” explained Michael. “But there are areas where the outcome of our research is a product, and we need partners with the hard and soft infrastructure to take these products to market.”

QUOLL® e-nose: Sniffing out soil health

Inspired by the native Australian marsupial that uses scent to navigate its environment, the QUOLL® e-nose is an electronic nose designed to help farmers navigate soil management. Developed by the Soil CRC in collaboration with leading researchers from the University of Tasmania (UTAS), the QUOLL® e-nose detects biological changes in the soil health through gas analysis. 

Traditional soil biology assessments rely on laboratory analysis – costly, slow, and often impractical for routine decision-making. By contrast, the QUOLL® e-nose is a fast, portable tool to evaluate whether soil management strategies are improving soil biological activity and soil health.

“The idea is to put the information in the farmer’s hands,” said project lead Dr Shane Powell from UTAS. “Instead of sending samples to a lab, you place the device in the soil for a couple of days, then move it to the next paddock. You’re getting a direct feedback loop of what your soil is doing before and after a management change.”

Inserted around 5cm into the soil (where most biological activity occurs), the QUOLL® e-nose establishes a baseline for what ‘healthy’ looks like in a given area, and highlights when meaningful shifts occur.

“We're not quantitatively measuring different gasses and saying, ‘This is the gas you see if you've got a particular pathogen,’ or ‘This is the gas you see if you've got lots of nutrient cycling,” explained Shane. “We’re showing what healthy looks like for your soil, and how a management practice has changed that.” 

The Soil CRC is seeking commercial partners to bring QUOLL® e-nose to market. “We’re looking for partners to make the leap from a research setting into working farms,” said Shane. There’s already strong market interest from companies producing inoculants and other soil amendments wanting to demonstrate product impact, as well as from researchers seeking new biological data streams. “Farmers, particularly in regenerative systems, are also keen to understand how their management practices are influencing soil biology over time,” added Shane.

BANDICOOT® soil probe: Real-time soil profiling for smarter decisions

Whereas the QUOLL® e-nose sniffs out soil biology, the BANDICOOT® soil probe digs into the physical and chemical characteristics of soil profiling. Named after the Australian marsupial which uses its snout to probe the ground for food, the BANDICOOT® soil probe is a portable probe that enables rapid, in-field measurement down to 30cm.

Traditional lab-based soil profiling is costly to scale. Each test only represents a single point in a paddock, so to get a more complete picture, farmers must take many samples – driving up time, labour, and processing costs. This makes frequent or widespread soil monitoring impractical, and leaves growers uncertain whether their data accurately reflects conditions across the paddock.

Developed by UTAS researchers with support of the Soil CRC, the BANDICOOT® soil probe provides actionable insights into compaction, moisture, salinity and clay content in under 30 seconds, making it practical for routine in-paddock use.

While initial trials focused on vegetable growers (including interest from food manufacturer, Simplot), the BANDICOOT® soil probe has broad applications across horticulture, broadacre cropping, regenerative agriculture, and precision irrigation planning. 

Currently refining its go-to-market strategy, the BANDICOOT® soil probe team is seeking commercial partners, investors, pilot farms, and agtech distributors/agronomic service providers keen to help take this product from prototype to paddock.  

Partnering to deliver the next generation of soil insights

Both the QUOLL® e-nose and the BANDICOOT® soil probe exemplify the Soil CRC’s legacy ambition: not just generating knowledge, but translating it into practical, scalable tools that shift how Australian agriculture manages its most precious asset.

“All the IP that's been developed through the Soil CRC’s funding belongs to the CRC,” said Michael. “But our major interest is not how we can make money out of these tools; it’s how we can get them in the hands of as many farmers as possible. So we are open to a range of discussions around what that a commercial partnership might look like – from licensing agreements to the assignment or sale of IP.” 

If you are keen to help bring these tools to life, now is the time to get involved.

For more information or to enquire about partnering on the QUOLL® e-nose commercial opportunity, click here.

For more information or to enquire about partnering on the BANDICOOT® soil probe commercial opportunity, click here. 

QUOLL® and BANDICOOT® are registered trademarks of the CRC for High Performance Soils.