Learn about Regrow's soil sample plans and an overview of the sample design process.
Pre-requisites
Before getting started with soil sampling, there are a couple of things to consider.
- First, make sure your program boundary is finalized. All fields that will be included in the program must be enrolled.
- Next, you’ll need to contract a soil sampling company to handle the sample collection and lab analysis.
Planning your sample design
When designing your sampling plan, it’s important to consider your budget. If you already have a fixed budget or a set number of samples in mind, let us know and we’ll factor that into your sample design plan.
If you’d rather have Regrow suggest an appropriate number of samples for your project, we'll analyze the fields and provide a few options for you to consider that take into account different budgets, while reducing error. Expect this process to take about a week after Enrollment is complete as we work together to finalize the details.
There are also a few optional ways to customize the sample design (though most projects won’t need these).
- One option is setting a minimum number of samples per field, which helps group samples within fields so that fewer fields are sampled overall.
- Another option is limiting the maximum distance between samples, which helps consolidate the overall sample area—this can be a good consideration if you’re working with a budget.
Your Customer Success team will work with you to scope your plan!
Sample design model
The next step is to build out a Sample Plan - this is the process of modeling where to take samples across all the fields in the project.
Once we’ve agreed on the total number of samples and any optional parameters, Regrow will run the program boundary through our Sample Design Model. You’ll receive back a sampling plan with coordinate points defining exactly where to take samples. We also provide backup sample points in case any fields in the original plan turn out to be inaccessible.
Taking samples & lab analysis
At this stage, you’ll work with your soil sampling company to collect samples in the field. Once collected, the samples can be analyzed by a lab to provide the sample properties needed.
Pro tip: Start planning to take samples with a sampling company early! Most fields are only accessible for sampling in the months following harvest (or in some cases before planting, if your protocol allows for it).
Predicting soil properties for all fields from sample results
After the lab analysis is complete, share the results back with Regrow via your Customer Success team. Hint: We'll need the sample results shared in a specific format to make sure the ingestion process is as smooth and quick as possible.
The next step is to use the lab results to predict soil properties for every field in the project. Since DNDC requires soil property data for every field —but not all fields are sampled—we use an extrapolation model to estimate soil properties for the remaining fields that were not sampled. The results are used to initialize DNDC when quantifying carbon outcomes for the project.
If you have any questions along the way, feel free to reach out to Regrow support—we’re here to help!