Trimble announced that it has acquired the assets of privately-held C3 of Madison, Wis. The acquisition will enable Trimble to provide unique soil information as well as decision recommendations to farmers’ trusted advisors—such as agronomists, Trimble resellers or Ag retail suppliers. Farmers will be able to view the C3 data and recommendations from their trusted advisor on the Connected Farm™ dashboard, a Web portal that provides one centralized location for farmers to view key information impacting their operations. To align with Trimble’s brand agnostic strategy, the data can be applied to all manufacturer equipment types. Financial terms were not disclosed.

C3 combines crop information with detailed soil data to enable a more complete assessment of the site-related factors that impact crop yield, quality and health. The C3 Soil Information System™ (SIS) solution is a collection of innovative tools and techniques for digital, 3-D mapping of soil characteristics—analyzing 120 unique soil and topographic properties. With SIS, it’s now possible to precisely map the top four feet of the earth’s surface using above and below ground sensors combined with GPS. The data is processed with a series of algorithms resulting in more than 60 precise 3-D soil models for physical and chemical soil characteristics including root zone depth, soil texture, plant available water, compaction depth and severity, macro and micro nutrient levels, soil nutrient holding capacity, and salt and toxicity concentrations.

By providing a greater understanding of the physical and chemical characterization of the soil, including how inputs move through the soil, agronomists and other Ag service providers will be able to help farmers implement a more effective solution to resolve the unique challenges of each area of their field. For example, if a field has areas of high soil compaction, the farmer may be over watering or over fertilizing to accommodate for areas of low productivity without realizing that the main issue is lack of root expansion. SIS helps service providers pinpoint problem areas, develop a more effective strategy for improving output, and provide a recommendation such as the exact depth and area to break up hard soil.