For generations, Indian farmers have relied on traditional wisdom and visual cues to care for their land. Decades of overuse of chemical fertilisers have left the soil exhausted and less productive. About fifty years ago, producing two tonnes of crops per hectare required just 54 kilograms of fertiliser. Today, that same yield demands over 280 kilograms, which is a startling sign that the soil is no longer responding the way it once did.

Fertilisers are added without knowing what the soil needs. And while soil testing could solve this, the reality is that it is slow, inconvenient, and often too expensive. Farmers must collect half a kilo of soil, send it to a distant lab, and then wait 10 to 15 days, by which time seeds have already been sown, and fertilisers have already been spread.

But a significant breakthrough has finally provided a solution to this problem. Developed by Dr Rajul Patkar, co-founder of Proximal Soilsens Technologies, ‘NutriSens’ is being called the........

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