OREANDA-NEWS. February 19, 2015. ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, a research institute under the Natural Resource Management (NRM) Division of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has developed ‘Mridaparikshak’, a MINILAB that can determine soil health. The MINILAB was presented by Shri Radha Mohan Singh, Union Minister of Agriculture in Annual General Meeting (AGM) of ICAR on 18th February, 2015. The development of the MINILAB is an outcome of the initiative of ICAR and the concerted efforts by a team of scientists of ICAR-IISS, Bhopal in collaboration with M/s Nagarjuna Agrochemicals Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad to meet the need for having a quick, portable, scientific, and economical system of determining soil health.

The Features of MRIDAPARIKSHAK include:

·       Mridaparikshak is a digital mobile quantitative minilab/soil test kit to provide soil testing service at farmers’ doorsteps.

·       Mridaparikshak determines all the important soil parameters i.e. soil pH, EC, organic carbon, available nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur and micronutrients like zinc, boron and iron.

·       It also provides crop and soil specific fertilizer recommendations directly to farmer’s mobile through SMS.

·       It is highly compatible with soil health card.

·       Mridaparikshak comes with soil sampling tools, GPS, balance, shaker, hot plate, and a Smart Soil Pro, an instrument for determining the soil parameters and displaying of fertilizer nutrient recommendations.

·       It can be operated by young educated farmers/rural youths (11-12 Pass) with short training.