BANDICOOT®: A Portable, Multi-Depth Soil Profiling Tool – Seeking Commercial or Licensing Partners
Opportunity for
- Commercial partners or licensing partners to support product deployment.
- Agribusiness investors to accelerate go-to-market and scale-up.
- Pilot partners in high-value horticulture (initial focus: vegetable growers).
- Agtech distributors and agronomic service providers to integrate BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool into advisory services.
Opportunity for
- Commercial partners or licensing partners to support product deployment.
- Agribusiness investors to accelerate go-to-market and scale-up.
- Pilot partners in high-value horticulture (initial focus: vegetable growers).
- Agtech distributors and agronomic service providers to integrate BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool into advisory services.
Opportunity description
Industry challenge
Traditional soil measurement methods, such as stationary probes and lab-based testing, are costly and only provide data about a single point in a paddock, leaving farmers and consultants to work out if the data is relevant to the whole paddock.
The BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool is different. The BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool is a portable soil probe that enables farmers and consultants to take as many or as few readings as they need, wherever and whenever they want, at multiple depths down the soil profile to 30 cm.
The BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool provides growers and consultants with a rapid, low cost means to measure and map the size, depth and severity of a range of soil issues including compaction, soil moisture, salinity and clay content.
The lack of an easy-to-use, on-farm soil profiling tool has left growers reliant on limited or outdated information, impacting their ability to adapt to climate variability and optimise soil health.
Current opportunity
The BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool is a rugged, portable, and farm-ready soil profiling tool that delivers real-time, GPS-tagged insights into moisture, salinity, and compaction, exactly where and when growers need it.
Developed by the Soil CRC through its partner at the University of Tasmania’s Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, the BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool eliminates the need for complex installations or lab testing, allowing farmers to make informed decisions instantly in the field.
Key advantages:
- Portable and intuitive: Simple operation—stand, press a button, and receive soil profile insights in under 30 seconds.
- Farm-ready toughness: Designed for real-world agricultural conditions.
- Data-driven decision-making: Provides actionable soil insights to optimise water use, input efficiency, and crop yields.
- Proven market demand: Developed in consultation with growers, with trial interest from Simplot, VegNet, NRET Cradle Coast, Riverine Plains, and Southern Farming Systems.
- BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool also presents an opportunity for integration as an attachment to existing farm machinery—such as planters, cultivators, or deep rippers—providing real-time soil profiling during field operations for a seamless, data-driven approach to soil management.
Opportunity background
The BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool team is refining its go-to-market strategy, evaluating a direct-to-farmer vs. consultant-led approach. Target customers include:
- Primary segment: High-value irrigated horticulture (e.g. vegetable and potato growers).
- Secondary segment: Agricultural consultants, grower groups, and agronomists.
The business model is structured around an initial hardware sale model ($2,500 per unit) with a transition to Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) in 2026, incorporating software subscriptions for analytics and historical data tracking.
Potential other applications
While initial trials are targeting vegetable growers, the BANDICOOT® soil profiling tool has broad potential across:
- Vegetable and high-value horticulture
- Broadacre cropping for moisture and compaction monitoring
- Regenerative agriculture and soil health assessment
Precision agriculture for optimised irrigation and input use
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