TerraBlaster

Every year, farmers spend around $250 billion on fertilizer. It's the single biggest expense in agriculture. Used on every crop, everywhere.

But about $100 billion of that gets wasted.

One of the reasons why this is happening is because they're making decisions with information that's already outdated by the time they get it.

I’m talking about soil testing.

Here's how soil testing usually works today: You drive into your field. Stop every couple acres. Dig samples. Send them to a lab. Wait two weeks for results.

A lot of waiting

In the mean time the weather shifts. Plants grow. Nutrient levels move.

Also, up to 70% of applied nitrogen never even reaches the crops. It runs off into waterways, creating dead zones like the one in the Gulf of Mexico. It drives up costs. It makes food more expensive.

The big challenge here is getting real-time data about what the soil needs, right when you're applying it.

Today’s company is figuring that out. This technology was originally built for the Mars rover. They adapted it to ag and now they're analyzing soil instantly as farmers drive through their fields.

Here's what they built.

TerraBlaster uses laser technology originally developed for NASA's Mars rover to analyze soil nutrients in real-time, enabling farmers to apply fertilizer with precision as they move through their fields.

Let's start with what makes traditional soil testing so frustrating.

You drive into your field and stop every couple acres. Dig up samples. Record GPS coordinates. Package everything. Send it to a lab. Then wait.

Two weeks later, results finally arrive. But by then, your field has moved on. The data tells you what your soil needed two weeks ago, not what it needs today.

This is where TerraBlaster changes everything.

They're using technology called Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, or LIBS.

Here's how it works.

The system fires a laser pulse at a tiny spot of soil. That blast creates plasma at around 30,000 Kelvin. That's hotter than the surface of the sun.

As this plasma cools down, every element in the soil gives off its own unique light signature. Nitrogen has one pattern. Phosphorus has another. Potassium, calcium, magnesium – each creates a distinctive fingerprint.

Think of it like fireworks. Each color comes from different chemicals. If you know what you're looking for, you can identify exactly what's burning based on the colors you see.

LIBS does the same thing, except it's reading nutrients in your soil. And it does it instantly. The laser fires in milliseconds. The measurement also takes milliseconds.

Now, instead of stopping to collect samples, you drag a TerraBlaster sensor behind your tractor or ATV. It opens a small channel about six inches deep. As you drive through your field at up to 10 mph, the sensor continuously analyzes the soil in real-time.

You get immediate data showing exactly what nutrients are in each part of your field.

The resolution is really good. Traditional testing gives you data around every 2.5 acres. TerraBlaster measures every 0.1 acres. That's 25 times more detailed.

But the real breakthrough isn't just getting faster data. It's what you can do with it.

You can make decisions as you move. The system tells you what each spot needs. One area has plenty of nitrogen? You know immediately. Another area needs more phosphorus? You see it right there.

This enables variable rate application that works better. Plants get exactly what they need, where they need it, when they need it.

They successfully tested their first prototype in Iowa in the fall of 2025. More field trials are planned for this year before they scale up production.

CEO Jorge Heraud co-founded Blue River Technology, which John Deere acquired in 2017 for $305 million. He calls TerraBlaster "the number one opportunity in agtech right now" that's coming from someone who's already done it once.

The technology itself comes from Impossible Sensing, a company that builds LIBS instruments for NASA's Mars and Moon missions. TerraBlaster licenses it and adapts it for agriculture.

It's exciting to see soil testing finally going from a slow and expensive guess into something you can see and act on immediately.

AgFunder's interview with Heraud explaining why he left John Deere to start TerraBlaster and why reducing fertilizer waste is agriculture's biggest opportunity. [6 min read, AgFunderNews]

Technical deep-dive into how LIBS works for soil analysis, including the physics of plasma generation, elemental detection, and why it's faster and more versatile than traditional methods like X-ray fluorescence. [8 min read, Spectroscopy Online]

The story of how NASA contractor Impossible Sensing spun out TerraBlaster and why St. Louis became the hub for turning space technology into agricultural solutions. [7 min read, St. Louis Magazine]

Two quick things:

- Enzo