Cracking the Code on Living Soil: A New Metric for a New Era
As soil health takes centre stage in smart agriculture, a new indicator is emerging to quantify what truly matters: the biology.
The Problem with Soil Monitoring Today
Soil biology is alive — dynamic, complex, and central to everything from crop yield to carbon sequestration. Yet in 2025, most of our monitoring infrastructure captures only a small fragment of this picture.
We routinely measure soil pH, moisture, and nutrient levels using off-the-shelf tools. But when it comes to biology — the microbial engines that power nutrient cycling, plant growth, and carbon flux — we’re still largely in the dark.
Traditional biological assessments are slow, expensive, and largely lab-based. They can’t track how soil life is responding to inputs, weather, or management practices in real time. And they often fail to distinguish between active microbial communities and dead or dormant material.
As agriculture embraces regenerative practices, carbon marketplaces, and data driven input use, the industry needs a new class of tools — ones that make real-time biological insight both possible and practical.
Introducing ABI: The Aggregated Biome Indicator
The Aggregated Biome Indicator (ABI) is BioSensor Solutions’ response to one of agriculture’s most urgent needs: real-time, in-field insight into soil health.
Rather than relying on lab-based tests, ABI works in situ, directly within the soil, continuously capturing key biological and environmental signals — including microbial activity, temperature, and moisture. These inputs are combined into a single, dynamic score, powered by BioSensor Solutions’ proprietary biosensing technology.
But ABI isn’t just a better way to measure — it’s a better way to manage. By translating complex soil dynamics into accessible, actionable data, ABI empowers farmers, researchers, and sustainability teams to make smarter decisions — in the moment, in the field.
It’s a shift from reactive snapshots to living insight — from static proxies to real-time biological intelligence.
How ABI Is Calculated
ABI is designed to be both interpretable and scalable, allowing it to serve a wide range of agricultural, environmental, and research applications.
At its core, ABI is calculated using a weighted combination of real-time sensor inputs:
Where:
ABIt = the Aggregated Biome Indicator at time t. This is the final, calculated score representing overall soil biological activity at a given moment.
Sn = an individual sensor input or signal. Examples include microbial activity, soil temperature, or soil moisture — any measurable parameter that contributes to understanding the soil’s functional state.
wn = the weight assigned to each signal Sn. This reflects the importance, reliability, or influence of that signal in the overall ABI calculation. All weights are typically normalized, so the equation produces a value between 0 and 1 (or scaled to 100).
∑wi = sum of all weights. This normalizes the weighted average, so the final ABI score is on a consistent, interpretable scale.
t = the time point at which the ABI is calculated. Since ABI is dynamic, it can be updated regularly (e.g., every minute, hour, or day) based on live sensor input.
This formula produces a single, dynamic ABI score that reflects the functional status of the soil environment, updated in real time.
To begin with, ABI might combine signals like:
- Microbial activity (from respiration or redox activity)
- Soil moisture (to understand hydration)
- Soil temperature (to account for biological rate dependencies)
However, the framework is flexible by design. Additional parameters — such as pH, nutrient availability, or even remote sensing data — could be integrated over time or customized for specific use cases (e.g. vineyards vs rangelands, field crops vs controlled environments).
The ABI score can be scaled between 0 and 1 (or 0 to 100), and optionally categorized into low, moderate, or high biological activity zones — enabling field-level decision-making, historical benchmarking, or even integration into AI-powered farm management systems.
Visualising ABI scores across a production field. Each block reflects a calculated ABI value (0–100), colour-coded by activity level. The adjacent field, marked with question marks, has not been monitored — highlighting the gap in insight without continuous, in-situ data.
As more data is collected across seasons, soil types, and farming systems, ABI becomes increasingly adaptive and predictive, serving as both a diagnostic tool and a learning system for smarter land management.
Why Now?
The push for regenerative agriculture in the U.S. has moved beyond fringe experimentation and into the mainstream — driven by climate urgency, shifting consumer expectations, and a growing recognition that soil health is foundational to food system resilience.
👔 What Corporates Are Saying
Major U.S. food brands are embedding regenerative practices into their core supply chain strategies. In April 2025, McDonald’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Beth Hart, stated:
“No lettuce, no Big Mac… We have to equip and motivate farmers to adopt regenerative practices through peer networks, practical data, and the right tools.”
— Reuters
Across the board — from row crops to viticulture — companies are no longer just talking about carbon offsets. They’re demanding measurable ecosystem restoration, including improved soil structure, biodiversity, and nutrient cycling.
🌱 What Farmers Are Asking For
As regenerative methods scale, farmers and agronomists need more than theory. They need tools that offer real-time, in-field feedback — not just seasonal lab reports.
“Regenerative agriculture is the best way for farmers to build resiliency and adaptation into their operations.”
— Jenna Schueler, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Yet current biological soil assessments remain slow, centralized, and costly. BioSensor Solutions answers this need with a live, scalable solution — bridging the gap between ambition and action.
🧪 How USDA Is Responding
The USDA and NRCS have launched multi-million-dollar initiatives like the Soil Carbon Monitoring Network, with an emphasis on field-based, real-time data collection across working lands.
These programs aim to validate conservation practices with direct measurements — not just theoretical models. But most existing tools are limited to chemical and physical properties like nitrate, pH, or temperature. The biological component remains underserved.
📈 What the Market Demands
The U.S. is seeing rapid growth in the voluntary carbon market, expected to reach $100–$250 billion by 2030. Soil carbon sequestration is a key part of this ecosystem — but it faces a credibility problem.
Many current models estimate carbon storage without capturing the biological activity driving it. ABI introduces a missing layer of functional verification, offering investors and certifiers a direct lens into microbial processes that underpin carbon cycling.
“Without a reliable indicator of microbial activity, soil carbon is just theory. ABI turns theory into evidence.”
— BioSensor Solutions
With regenerative farming now a business imperative, and biological data in higher demand than ever, ABI arrives at exactly the right moment: to move agriculture from snapshots to living insight, and from assumptions to accountability.
From Insight to Action
ABI marks a turning point in soil science — one where biology is no longer the blind spot, but the backbone of smarter land management.
From real-time microbial sensing to integrated ecosystem metrics, ABI transforms how we understand and interact with the soil beneath our feet. But, like any breakthrough, its value depends on real-world application.
That’s why BioSensor Solutions is inviting innovators to help shape the future of regenerative agriculture — not just with data, but with action.
Join Our 2025 Regenerative Digital Soil Health Pilot!
Are you a grower, farm advisor, or ag-tech provider exploring the future of regenerative agriculture?
BioSensor Solutions is launching our 2025 Digital Soil Health Pilot — and we’re seeking forward-thinking partners to join us.
Ideal Pilot Partners
- 🌿 Growers and farm advisors — trialling regenerative practices
- 🧪 Biofertilizer producers — validating microbial performance
- 🔗 Ag-tech integrators — embedding live soil data
- 🛒 Retailers — enabling regenerative sourcing
Let’s Collaborate!
We’re currently partnering with innovators across the agriculture value chain to test and refine our real-time soil sensing platform. If you're ready to explore what’s happening beneath the surface, we’d love to hear from you.
Contact us today to schedule a meeting and learn more about the pilot program.
Dr. Daniel Carroll is an electrochemist specialising in the development of biosensors for environmental, agricultural, and healthcare applications. He has worked in academic research, early-stage startups, and as a scientific consultant, helping translate early-stage innovations into practical technologies.
In addition to his research, Daniel advises companies on sensor development and scientific communication. He is the founder of Electrochemical Insights, a Substack that helps research students and early-career scientists build confidence in electrochemistry and apply it effectively in real-world research.
🔗 Connect on LinkedIn | 🌐 Electrochemical Insights
