Marlborough District Council environmental science technician Zeke Hoskins (right) and Manaaki Whenua technician Kishor Kumar (left) standing next to the mobile soil-sensing platform.
Any digging below the surface often requires a crowbar, and quick observation methods using an auger are simply not possible. Using diggers within vineyard rows is also problematic, with limited access and health and safety concerns putting landowners off. Observation pit sites need to be chosen very carefully because they are costly and time-consuming.
In a project with Marlborough District Council in May 2023, Manaaki Whenua scientists Dr Pierre Roudier, Dr Kirstin Deuss, Kishor Kumar, and Dr John Triantafilis embraced innovation as part of a regular S-map survey. They developed and tested a new proximal soil-sensing platform that used gamma and electromagnetic data that combined with the soil survey data, as well as aerial imagery and LiDAR.
In this way the technology acted as a ‘scout’ for pedologists, revealing almost in real time what was under their feet.
“Usually pedologists and soil-sensing people don’t tend to work in such an integrated way,” says Pierre. “Our novel approach in the Wairau Valley used a mixture of pedological knowledge and sensing to identify important changes in the soil, and which enabled targeted and rapid selection of where to spend time digging a soil pit.”
For Matt Oliver, an environmental scientist at Marlborough District Council, this work is a crucial part of the council’s efforts to optimise land and water management in the valley.
“The soils of the Wairau Valley were last mapped in 1939. It has been great to work alongside Manaaki Whenua’s team, using the latest technology to accurately and quickly remap these areas to meet our increased demand for high-quality soils information,” he says. “It very much feels like we have brought soil mapping in Marlborough into the 21st century.”
