A 'smart seed' may help farmers beat climate change

A 'magic bean' has been created to help farmers outmaneuver climate change

Engineers from Britain's Brunel University in London, have unveiled the artificial intelligence soil monitoring system, or smart seed, in a bid to save time and water, as well as cut waste.

The pod costing $118 is planted into the soil where it collects hourly data on growing conditions, including soil temperature and moisture levels

Electronic engineer researcher Lorenzo Cucurachi helped develop the technology.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) ELECTRONIC ENGINEER RESEARCHER, LORENZO CUCURACHI, SAYING:

"Magic bean is a wireless device that has a battery and uses the sensor to collect data from the soil and then it sends this data every hour to the server and then for the rest of the day it's just sleeping."

Electronic Engineer Dr Tatiana Kalganova says the aim is to make the product affordable for global use.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) ELECTRONIC ENGINEER, DR TATIANA KALGANOVA, SAYING:

"Making sure that when we designed the 'magic bean', it was as cheap as possible, but we were not losing on the quality of signals, on the quality of data we were receiving and all of the data will be stored in the cloud for further analysis"

Kalganova added that as the weather is changing at a dynamic pace, farmers need to adapt to the changing conditions of soil.

Farmers will be able to check the data collected via a website or app and then see what the soil needs and where, allowing them to save time and resources.

The pod is being used by several farmers in the south west of England with plans to also work with farmers in India.