TerraBlaster Raises $12.5 Million for a Laser Soil Scanner That Maps Nutrients at Tractor Speed
28 September 2026, St. Louis: A St. Louis, Missouri agtech startup has closed an oversubscribed $12.5 million seed round to commercialize
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Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy
Get the latest Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy news, research and developments covering rapid elemental analysis, soil testing, crop diagnostics, agricultural product quality and precision agriculture. LIBS is an atomic emission spectroscopy technique that uses a focused laser pulse to create a plasma from a sample, with the resulting light analysed to identify its elemental composition.
In agriculture, the technology is being investigated for measuring major and micronutrients in soil, detecting heavy metals and analysing fertilizers, plants and agricultural products. Handheld systems can support in-field soil assessment, while chemometric and machine-learning models are being used to improve quantitative predictions and account for complex soil matrices.
Find updates on LIBS sensors, portable instruments, soil fertility mapping, crop nutrition, disease and stress detection, food quality and safety, and precision nutrient management. Recent research has demonstrated rapid detection of bioavailable copper, iron, zinc and manganese in soil, with approaches designed to reduce analysis time and support data-driven fertilization decisions.