A major challenge on smallholder farms is the tremendous heterogeneity of soil properties. This is at the same time an opportunity, as it is now feasible - at fine resolution - to quantify variability of soil organic carbon and other properties on farmer fields. This can provide unique insights for moving beyond conventional agriculture, which has largely relied on the use of large doses of inputs and average values. Alternative approaches are needed, ones that embrace heterogeneity rather than smooth it over. Two such alternatives are precision agriculture and ecological nutrient management. Such approaches can benefit from harnessing citizen science, open data and inexpensive monitoring. Specifically, on-farm, participatory experimentation can facilitate communication with farmers through local data, and generate new insights about soil processes and thresholds for crop and soil response as well as management options. Use cases are needed to document this process of integrating fine grained local soils data to improve knowledge and farmer decision making.

小农农场面临的一个主要挑战是土壤特性的巨大异质性。这同时也是一个机会，因为现在可以在高分辨率下量化土壤有机碳和农田其他特性的可变性。这可以为超越传统农业提供独特的见解，传统农业在很大程度上依赖于大剂量投入和平均值的使用。需要替代方法，即接受异质性而不是平滑它的方法。两种这样的替代方案是精准农业和生态养分管理。这些方法可以从利用公民科学、开放数据和廉价监测中受益。具体而言，农场上的参与式试验可以通过当地数据促进与农民的沟通，并产生关于土壤过程和作物和土壤响应阈值以及管理选项的新见解。需要使用案例来记录这一整合细粒度当地土壤数据以提高知识和农民决策的过程。