AI-Powered Soil Analysis Streamlines Agricultural Land Acquisition for Sugarbeet Farmers

When making decisions about purchasing new fields, agricultural companies consider a variety of factors, from soil quality and environmental conditions to legal and economic aspects. Imagine a scenario where your small or mid-sized company is planning to buy a specific field and needs to determine if the soil is suitable for growing sugarbeet. As a tech specialist, you can play a crucial role in streamlining this process through automation using Power Automate. The first step is to set up input variables for your automation flow. These include the coordinates (longitude and latitude) of the field and the type of crop to be grown. A manual trigger is a straightforward way to input these variables, though you can adapt this to fit your company's workflows. To gather essential soil data, you can leverage a REST API via an HTTP action in Power Automate. This action retrieves data from a server, which in this case is ISRIC's SoilGrids service. The API call needs to specify the properties of interest, such as the proportion of clay, sand, and silt particles, the pH level, organic carbon content, and nitrogen content. Additionally, you should define the soil depths and the type of value (mean or uncertainty) you want to retrieve. Here’s the constructed URI for the API request: https://rest.isric.org/soilgrids/v2.0/properties/query?lon=@{triggerBody()['text']}&lat=@{triggerBody()['text_1']}&property=clay&property=sand&property=silt&property=phh2o&property=soc&property=nitrogen&depth=0-5cm&depth=0-30cm&depth=5-15cm&depth=15-30cm&depth=30-60cm&depth=60-100cm&depth=100-200cm&value=mean&value=uncertainty Next, head over to the AI Hub section in Power Automate and create a custom prompt. This involves setting up text input variables and providing instructions for generating an appropriate response. You will input the name of the crop (sugarbeet, in this case) and the API response body from the previous step. The "Create text with GPT using a prompt" action in Power Automate uses the inputs you've provided to generate a detailed report on the soil's suitability for growing sugarbeet. Once this report is ready, you can use the "Start and wait for an approval" action to send it to the relevant manager for review. Finally, the "Send an email (v2)" action in Outlook forwards the manager's approval decision to the person handling land acquisition. Let's break down the steps for clarity: Set Up Input Variables: Use a manual trigger to input the field's coordinates (longitude and latitude) and the crop type (sugarbeet). Retrieve Soil Data: Use an HTTP action to call ISRIC's SoilGrids API and fetch the required soil parameters. Generate Report with AI: Utilize a custom prompt in the AI Hub to produce a report evaluating the soil's suitability for sugarbeet cultivation based on the API data. Seek Manager Approval: Forward the AI-generated report to a manager using the "Start and wait for an approval" action. Notify Land Acquisition Team: Send the manager's decision to the land acquisition specialist via an Outlook email. By automating these steps, you significantly reduce the time and effort needed for soil assessment, allowing your company to make quicker and more informed decisions. To illustrate how this works, let's run through a simple example of the flow. This should give you a clear idea of how AI can be integrated into the decision-making process, making it both efficient and accurate. If you find this approach intriguing or have any questions, feel free to reach out! We will continue to explore other ways to use Power Automate for automation in various sectors. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn and follow Zeniteq to keep abreast of the latest generative AI stories. Subscribe to our newsletter and YouTube channel for the most recent news and updates on generative AI. Together, we can shape the future of AI!