Recorded at Pocket City Farm, Sydney, Australia, in their food forest, February 2026, using the Soil Acoustic Meter (SAM).
Whether you are an agronomist, arable or pastural farmer, land or estate manager, food producer, winegrower, or managing a rewilding or agro-forestry project, soil health will be important to you. You are probably already measuring soil organic carbon, pH, bulk density and any number of other metrics on a regular basis and submitting these lab results to a toolkit or portal. You may even be digging worm pits to count earthworms.
The Soil Acoustic Meter (SAM) records the sounds of invertebrates moving and making noise within the topsoil. By measuring the amount and diversity of the sound made by worms, beetles, ants, and other organisms, the biological health of the soil can be assessed.
The testing process
The SAM is easy to use. A hand-held data recorder with a probe that is pressed into the soil with a sampling protocol aligned with the AHDB guidelines for worm-pits (around ten samples per setting). When you have finished the sampling session, plug the unit into a computer (standard USB C connector), log in, and upload the batch of data to the customer portal. The automated reports will be available after 48 hours, giving fast insights into the biological health of your soil.
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