LandPKS has had a long and successful history of helping people around the world collect data and access valuable information about the potential of their land. Recognizing the need for an updated codebase, LandPKS founder and USDA soil scientist Jeff Herrick approached Tech Matters in the fall of 2022. He proposed rebuilding LandPKS as an open-source app suite for iOS and Android, providing a tailored user experience to users based in the US and beyond, and scaling to the next ten million potential users. This next generation of LandPKS will find its home in the Terraso platform, which equips land and community stewards with tools to manage their data and communicate their impact.

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Current plans for the suite include a US Soil ID app, a global Soil ID app, and a Land Monitoring app. For the past year, Terraso team members have been working to design, develop, and test the first of these mobile apps – US Soil ID. The new US Soil ID app will be easier to use, preserve and enhance the core functionality of Soil ID, and introduce exciting new additions to the app, including:

• Projects – Group and configure multiple sites for the purpose of sharing information and collaborating on data collection with a team. Managers can set required data inputs, user roles, and more.
• Custom soil depth intervals – Define soil horizons according to what is observed in nature at the project and site level.
• Enhanced photos and notes capabilities – Add multiple photos and searchable notes per site, and share them with collaborators.
  Smarter Soil ID algorithm – Discover the most valuable pieces of information to collect at a site in order to minimize effort while in the field.

The first release of US Soil ID is scheduled for late spring/early summer of 2024, with plans for iterative improvements throughout the year. Following this, a global version of Soil ID and a Land Monitoring app enabling standardized vegetation monitoring are next in line for release.

Phasing out the legacy app

What will happen to the LandPKS app that is available in the Google Play and Apple App stores today? What will happen to the data that was collected with that version of the app?

• The existing LandPKS app will be referred to as “the legacy LandPKS app,” and will remain available until Terraso has released apps that replicate the existing feature set of LandPKS today. The legacy LandPKS app will continue to be available in the app stores at least until the end of 2025.
• We expect users of the legacy LandPKS app to be able to transfer their data into the new app suite.

We welcome your feedback!

If you would like to provide feedback for any of these apps, please start by completing this brief survey. Stay up-to-date on development and receive more opportunities to participate by joining the mailing list.

Many thanks to our partners in developing the new LandPKS app suite:

• USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Range Management Research Unit at the Jornada in Las Cruces, NM
• USDI – Bureau of Land Management
• United States Agency for International Development
• International Fertilizer Development Center
• USDA NRCS
• Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
• Cisco Foundation

Many of these funders, along with The Nature Conservancy and the Global Environment Facility, were contributors to the development of the original LandPKS app. Both apps were developed with the collaboration of New Mexico State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder.