Tom Massey’s show garden, supported by Project Giving Back, has been designed to uncover the unseen and unheard creatures that live in the natural world – which is where Baker Consultants’ soil listening station comes in. Visitors at RHS Chelsea Flower Show will be able to interact with the show garden’s insect laboratory and listen to the sample of living soil that will be on display. The device is the first of its kind, and allows our specialist Ecoacoustics team to record and analyse the noise made by wildlife living in the earth beneath us which, in turn, enables us to determine the health of the soil. We can determine the health of soil by following one simple rule of thumb: a healthy soil is a noisy soil.
Through developing this Ecoacoustic method, we can provide sound science that can be used by farmers, landowners, regenerative agriculture systems, vineyards and conservation organisations. The application of ecoacoustics methods also gives the food, farming and wine production industries a cost-effective and robust method for measuring and monitoring soil health as consumers increasingly demand more organic and sustainably farmed foods from them.
In regards to the show garden, Andrew Baker, Managing Director of Baker Consultants said: “This collaboration with the RES gives us an opportunity to show how the use of technology can transform not only how we see and hear the natural world, but also how the application of ecoacoustics can promote the uptake of more sustainable farming practices worldwide based on sound science. Consumers have been demanding greater accountability in the food production chain, and gardeners have been adopting better practice in recent years. We’re really excited to be able to bring this message to a wider audience at RHS Chelsea this year.”
Baker Consultants will be at RHS Chelsea Flower Show on 22-27 May, so make sure to come along to the RES show garden and join us in discovering the world of insects.
Find out more about the show garden here.
Find out more about our work in ecoacoustics here.
The Baker Consultants team is highly experienced and we are passionate about what we do. If you need advice related to ecology, surveys or conservation, then please get in touch with us via our contact form on the website, or you can call us on +44 (0)1629 593958 or email us on info@bakerconsultants.co.uk.