by North Forty News Staff | NorthFortyNews.com
Artificial intelligence platform aims to help Colorado producers improve soil health and resilience
FORT COLLINS — A new $1 million research project at Colorado State University is using artificial intelligence to help farmers turn complex soil data into practical, decision-ready insights that can strengthen agricultural resilience across Northern Colorado and beyond.
The TerraScope project, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, brings together computer scientists, soil experts, and outreach specialists at CSU to build a unified platform that combines on-the-ground measurements with satellite remote sensing data. The goal: make it easier for producers to understand soil conditions, track changes over time, and make informed management decisions.
Healthy soil plays a critical role in crop success, supporting water retention, root growth, and nutrient cycling. But for farmers facing drought, increasing weather variability, and pressure to maximize yields, understanding how management decisions affect soil health over time can be challenging.
Professor Shrideep Pallickara said one of the biggest hurdles is organizing and aligning diverse data sources — from farmer-provided field records to high-resolution satellite imagery — into formats that AI models can analyze effectively.
“The data we will be using to train these AI-informed models is both diverse and voluminous,” Pallickara said. “By combining traditional on-the-ground observations with remotely collected data, we hope to address gaps in understanding and reveal patterns that aren’t visible when data is viewed in isolation.”
A key component of TerraScope is ongoing collaboration with Colorado agricultural producers. Researchers say the platform will be developed with direct input from farmers to ensure it is practical and responsive to real-world needs.
Megan Machmuller, a research scientist at CSU and co-director of the university’s Integrated Rocky Mountain-region Innovation Center for Healthy Soils, emphasized the importance of usability.
“Too often, tools like this are created without considering what producers actually need,” Machmuller said. “TerraScope will be crafted in collaboration with the agricultural community to ensure it’s reliable and relevant to the challenges faced by farmers in Colorado.”
Colorado’s diverse soils, climate zones, and topography make it an ideal testing ground for the platform, researchers said. The project builds on CSU’s long-standing soil research and extensive datasets, positioning the university to strengthen decision-making capacity and support long-term agricultural resilience statewide.
Additional team members include faculty from CSU’s Departments of Soil and Crop Sciences, Computer Science, Statistics, and Sociology, reflecting the initiative’s interdisciplinary scope. More information about the university’s research efforts can be found at https://www.colostate.edu.
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Attribution: Colorado State University