Share this
by Jamie Nix on 06/Oct/23
Whether it be to research and develop a new biological product, or to understand your field better, soil testing is a crucial aspect of optimizing farming practices. The process of extracting valuable data and action-oriented insights from a sample is meticulous and rewarding. In this blog, we’ve set out to show you exactly what happens during a sample’s life, tracking it from your field to our lab.
Step one: connect with us
You can either purchase a BeCrop® Test directly on our website or request a demo.
Step two: we plan your project
You hop on a call with our agronomy team and we develop a plan addressing your specific soil-related challenges.
During this conversation, we understand your goals and provide a unique proposal to meet your needs.
Step three: the samples are collected
It’s time to collect the samples!
We provide you with a step-by-step process on how to extract them correctly. The Biome Makers team needs to know everything we can about your soil samples so that we can generate the most accurate report.
You receive an Excel spreadsheet to fill out with information like:
- Sample name
- Date it was collected
- Field name
- Crop type
- Soil type
Once you’ve taken the samples, you send us the data and we upload it to our database.
Step four: the samples are shipped
The samples hit the road!
To keep the microbiome in prime condition, you have to make sure that the samples reach us within 5 days. If you’re shipping internationally, or if you think it could take longer than 5 days, we recommend you use ice packs. You can also freeze your samples indefinitely, but make sure that the temperature is consistently below 0°.
But don’t worry, all of this information is provided in the instructions we send you.
Step five: the samples arrive at our testing facility
Your samples are received by our lab managers in the testing facility, and from there, they go into the ‘wet lab’.
This is where all the DNA extraction happens! Biome Makers’ state-of-the-art instrumentation means we can extract up to 96 samples at a time. Once this is done, our team sends all of the bio-information to the cloud, where it is received by our data scientists.
The sample is now in the ‘dry lab’, which is where our team performs calculations to provide functionality data.
Step six: the data is sent to our artificial intelligence
At this point, the samples have come a long way.
They’ve been collected, shipped to our facility, extracted in the wet lab, sent to the dry lab, and now it’s time for their data to be put through our machine-learning platform.
You can be sure your samples are in good hands: Biome Makers has the largest global taxonomic database, with over 24 million microorganisms. Moreover, our technology represents the first Intelligence Computing System based on Artificial Intelligence, with a proprietary database of microbial profiles with more than 201+ crops analyzed from 56+ countries worldwide.
Step seven: you receive the report
The raw data we receive through the platform is extremely complex and needs to be converted into functional data.
We create a report for you with easy-to-understand information that you can use to determine practical next steps. You also receive access to the BeCrop® Portal, where you can view even deeper insights about your samples. If you want to see an example report, fill out the form on this page.
With bigger projects, like BeCrop® Trials, you receive various reports that compare the samples and provide statistical analysis.
Conclusion
A sample’s life is short but busy; it is extracted from your soil, shipped to our lab, analyzed, and made into a functional report you use to make practical decisions. It’s an honor for Biome Makers to be at the forefront of soil biology and on the journey to a future of sustainable agriculture. Each sample we add to our database makes our Artificial Intelligence more capable of providing deep insights to our clients, which in turn, helps you make better informed decisions.
Will you join us on this mission?
