Remote Imagery

A New Eye In The Sky: High Frequency, Multispectral Satellite Constellation Approaches 2026 Debut

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 19:40:17 GMT

The 2025 crop season has been a solid proving ground for the value and utility of satellite and aerial imagery in farming.

That’s because corn and soybean fields this summer appeared incredibly healthy and high-yielding from the drive-by scouting pass in the pick-up truck, but then crop scouts marched into those same fields , uncovering widespread yield variability and a high level of foliar disease pressure .

EarthDaily (formerly Geosys) says it will soon leverage a new satellite constellation to beat USDA yield forecasts by capturing daily calibrated images of crops and feeding those images through artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

The news

Satellite imagery of a corn field in the U.S. with corresponding NDVI (plant health) and precipitation data all the way back to 2017.

(EarthDaily)

EarthDaily says it intends to provide daily, high-quality aerial data that agronomists, grain traders and commodity brokers can use to get snapshots-in-time for farm fields, without ever having to launch a camera drone or upload thousands of images to stitch together an orthomosaic. Farmers also stand to benefit because the data will be available within many popular farm management information software systems.

The company is in the process of launching a new 10-satellite constellation that will be fully operational by the 2026 cropping season. This constellation is different from other ag-monitoring satellites orbiting the earth in that it will feature a yellow-band index among its impressive 22 spectral bands.

How is it different from other ag satellites?

EarthDaily satellite data showing the crop progress of China’s corn production regions for the last five growing seasons. The 2025 trend line (black) shows higher than historical average crop health.

(EarthDaily)

“Most [ag] satellites do not have an imager to collect the yellow band,” says Nick Ohrtman, key accounts success lead, EarthDaily. “We have a yellow band imager on ours that we’re pretty excited about moving forward, because obviously yellowing is a key indicator of a lot of plant stresses.”

Ohrtman adds the company has yet to get out and ground-truth the yellow-band imagery in the field, but the potential to catch more yield-robbing agronomic issues on the front-end and alert retail agronomists before crops really take a hit is intriguing.

Intriguing, yes. But Ohrtman, a former Iowa farm kid himself who still helps with the family farm when he’s not working in Minneapolis, says it still serves as just a complement to the traditional scouting pass. Nothing will ever replace farmer and/or agronomist boots-on-the-ground, he adds.

“You can’t be in every field every day, walking crops,” Ohrtman says. “But if you are in the field, you’re probably going to know better than I am from a satellite.”

Main takeaways, per EarthDaily:

The EarthDaily Constellation is purpose-built for broad area change detection, with 16 imagers on each bus capturing 22 spectral bands at the same time each day.
The system will be able to deliver AI-ready data that brings speed and accuracy of insights to today’s EO analytics market.
The full constellation will be operational in 2026, though the robustness of the data will not fully align with the crop season until then.
Among its 22 spectral bands, the yellow band, unique to EarthDaily, is valuable for detecting early signs of crop stress.
EarthDaily’s offering begins with data capture, which is then transformed into downstream analytics purpose-built for agriculture.
For farmers, the technology pinpoints when and where attention is needed in the field, predicting crop health and providing actionable insight without constant boots-on-the-ground monitoring.

Your next read: Could USDA Raise Corn Yields in the Report? Is China Buying U.S. Soybeans?

Farm Drone News: AgEagle Multispectral Sensor, GPS Satellite Launched and Rantizo Spins Off Software

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 20:32:33 GMT

AgEagle Aerial Systems Unveils New RedEdge-P Green Camera

(AgEagle Aerial Systems)

AgEagle Aerial Systems announces the launch of its new RedEdge-P Green, a multispectral camera designed to enable precision agriculture from planting to harvest.

AgEagle says farmers that use the new sensor payload can achieve higher yields through quicker interventions both early on and late in the crop cycle. Operators can reduce fertilizer and irrigation inputs and engage in smart harvesting techniques using optimized indices and targeted indices like the Plant Senescence Reflectance Index (PSRI).

Available as a standalone camera or in paired configurations with the original RedEdge-P and the RedEdge-P Blue, users can leverage up to 15 noise-resistant, data-rich spectral bands essential for large-area precision agriculture.

The RedEdge-P Green camera is NDAA-compliant and integrates with multiple drone platforms. Each camera kit includes a Calibrated Reflectance Panel (CRP) and a Downwelling Light Sensor (DLS2) for radiometric calibration.

Production of the RedEdge-P Green camera is underway, and the first units are expected to ship this week. For more information about the RedEdge-P Green visit ageagle.com.

Dutch Startup Launches Largest GPS Network for Drones, Tractors

(Lindsey Pound, iStock)

FreshMiners, a Netherlands-based IOT firm, launched a GPS service that enables accurate positioning for agriculture, construction and drone navigation, according to AgriMarketing.com.

AgriMarketing.com writes that the Dutch company is launching a service for extra-accurate GPS. It is intended for drone pilots, farmers and others. With this new technology, users can correct their GPS positions down to the centimeter. Real-time correction signals are sent to the user’s GPS receiver via a global network of base stations. This correction is essential for applications in agriculture, land surveying and drone navigation, among other things.

A subscription gives users access to the GEODNET network, which, with more than 19,000 base stations in over 140 countries, is now reportedly the largest RTK network in the world.

Read more at AgriMarketing.com.

Missouri Doctoral Student Says Drones Are Fine Tool for Crop Scouting

(Photo by Abbie Lankitus)

Researchers at the University of Missouri have discovered a mix of drones and AI can help farmers measure the health of their corn more efficiently.

Instead of relying on handheld devices, which are slow and impractical for larger fields, the researchers surveyed corn fields in mid-Missouri using drones equipped with special cameras to capture images and data.

After combining the drone images with soil data, the Mizzou researchers used a type of AI known as machine learning to quickly predict the chlorophyll content in the corn leaves of the entire field with great accuracy.

The study was led by Fengkai Tian (pictured above), a Mizzou doctoral student who works in the lab of Jianfeng Zhou, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.

Read more from the University of Missouri here.

Rantizo Spin-Off American Autonomy Inc. Says It Can Close the Spray Drone Data Loop

Rantizo is now connected with the John Deere Operations Center through John Deere API services.

(Rantizo)

Ground rig as-applied data has been around for decades, and it comes in handy when you’re tabulating your end of year scorecard to find out which treatments boosted yields and where a spray might have fallen short.

Yet even though spray drones treated over 10 million crop acres in 2024 alone, there’s still a gap that exists in capturing that data and integrating it into your farm management software.

Former Rantizo CEO Mariah Scott, who is now the CEO of a spinoff operation dubbed American Autonomy Inc., says her new outfit’s AcreConnect platform can help close that gap with API connections into John Deere’s Operations Center and more major FMIS platforms.

“We talk to farmers about getting that complete view of your field management, by closing the loop so you understand what’s effective or what’s not,” Scott says. “Most of the farmers we talk to use spray drones and a ground sprayer, and that (as-applied) data from the sprayer goes right into their FMIS account, but with the spray drone it doesn’t always work like that.”

The deal to divest the spray drone operations side of the business was quietly announced on Aug. 1. The Rantizo name, the startup is a pioneering spray drone service provider, still lives on, but now there’s a clean break between the spraying operations and the software on the back end that enables it.

Learn more about the Rantizo-American Autonomy Spinoff over at PRNewswire.

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Meet The Forge: Kelly Hills Unmanned Puts New Spin on Ag Tech Field Testing

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 21:37:17 GMT

Over the weekend, Kelly Hills Unmanned, a company that says it is dedicated to accelerating multimodal technologies in agriculture and autonomy, announced the launch of The Forge.

It’s being described as a deployment-centered program designed to meld best-in-class ag technologies into new tools that farmers, ranchers and service providers can trust and use for decades to come, according to a press release from the group.

The Forge’s inaugural cohort hopes to bring together a “powerhouse group” of innovators and operators from across the ag technology landscape into a coordinated, systems approach to help growers identify and overcome agronomic issues before they become yield robbers.

The cohort members, or pillars, are:

Precision AI: Developers of real-time drone-based precision spraying systems that reduce chemical inputs and deliver hyper-targeted agronomic action.
Pyka: Builders of autonomous electric aircraft designed for aerial applications, logistics and mission-critical crop operations.
ScanIt Technologies: Experts in using early detection of airborne pathogens to maximize yields and minimize costs.
Heinen Brothers Agra Services: One of the nation’s largest aerial applicators and ag services companies, offering deployment scale and deep field expertise.
Yamaha Precision Agriculture: Pioneers of robotic and aerial technology for small scale, high-efficiency farming.
Drop Flight: Providers of droplet characterization and aircraft calibration tools to optimize spray accuracy and compliance in real-world operations.
Taranis: Global leaders in ultra-high-resolution aerial scouting, delivering precise field-level insights to boost agronomic decision-making.

For more information, head to www.kellyhills.us/the-forge .

Farm Journal reached out to Lukas Koch to pick his brain about this new, novel entrant to the ag tech ecosystem. We first met Koch last year during the Kelly Hills Unmanned summer field day near Seneca, Kan., where his group unveiled the Pyka Pelican Spray drone — at the time the largest, highest-capacity ag spray drone on the market (280-liter capacity). This year Kelly Hills is integrating the Pelican 2 (300-liter capacity, up to 222 acres per hour at 60-foot swath rate) into its aerial application arsenal.

Farm Journal: Would you call this an ag tech incubator or accelerator type of program, and if not, what’s makes The Forge different?

Lukas Koch (LK): “(The Forge) is neither of those, because we’re not taking a cash influx to create an R&D program. What we’re doing is creating new tools with existing technology — if they’re part of plug and play that’s fine, but we don’t care about that. We want to know if the tech has merit and does it fit on the acre, but maybe something with it is not fully there just yet? So, what are we supposed to do with it then? You have a technology and, for example, it can take high-res pictures and identify areas of your fields that need attention, but today the most likely options are using a ground rig or hiring an airplane to manage that in a meaningful way. For that example, we think there’s an opportunity to do that with a small spray drone, but then again the logistics are tough; you have to come back and land and swap out a battery or refill the tank so often. We’re going to take a bunch of existing technologies that already exist, ask them to change nothing and put them to the test — and we’ll push the bounds of what they can do, to make these all work together in a system.”

FJ: How will this all kind of come together and take shape this summer as the program rolls out?

LK: “We have a few drone companies (in the cohort), and there’s a droplet analysis program involved — I thought that was an important piece in analyzing the spray coverage we get. Right now, we have the in-field sensors out in the field to help us ground truth the data we get from overhead. And then the remote sensing piece gives us situational awareness; it tells us where we should be focusing our efforts. And overall, I think, OK, that’s great, but now you still have to make a treatment with either a ground rig or hire an airplane.

(www.KellyHills.us)

“But with our FAA test range (pictured above) that we were approved for last summer within Kelly Hills, now we can autonomously fly to those spots with a drone, either in line of sight or Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), and we can make those treatments autonomously. This year, the tool we’re focusing on is true spot spraying BVLOS in corn and soybeans, and then next year hopefully we can make more tools or take that technology that already exists and make it into a tool for a grower, who can sign up for this subscription and buy one of these drones, and now I have a full encompassing suite of tools and I can know for sure what works and what does not work.”

FJ: How can farmers in Kansas learn more and possibly sign up to work with you guys?

LK: “There’s really two ways right now. For anything specific they might want to do, maybe there are some projects they are thinking about, go ahead and ping us on the website , and we’ll get back to you. And the other way is, once we’re done with a set tool or we wrap up our summer series of projects, we plan to make the results and findings available online, kind of like Beck’s Hybrids does with its farm applied research studies. We want people to see what we’re doing and to reach out with their ideas on how we can make better tools inside of The Forge and showcase some of these technologies together in one new product, and growers are very interested in this and would love to understand if they can package these technologies together and make an ROI.”

FJ: You already have this inaugural cohort in place, but are you already thinking about what’s next?

LK: “I have a couple companies that I need to further engage with now that they can see what The Forge is all about. A couple of those are involved in year-over-year (data) modeling technology that can say, OK, help me start to determine this is my pattern, and this is what I did last year; now can you tell me what to do next year and how to create more ROI? And then I think soil is a huge key right now, too. I don’t have any any soil type products in there, and soil sampling is great, but there are some neat companies that are focusing on soil-sensing technology that I think would be interesting to package in there, too. You know, in due time I think we’ll get there.”

Koch says the plan is to unveil many of the insights and results from The Forge at this summer’s Kelly Hills Unmanned Field Day. That event is set for Aug. 19, and you can get registered for it here.

And, just for fun, here’s a video breakdown of the Pyka Pelican 2:

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Why U.S. Agriculture Needs More AI Investment to Stay Ahead in Global Crop Innovation Race

Tue, 20 May 2025 18:15:48 GMT

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a key tool in accelerating the discovery, development and manufacturing of new crop protection molecules to fight yield-robbing weeds, pests, and diseases in U.S. farm fields.

The technology helps researchers shorten the discovery window and find new and novel active-ingredient molecules that are much more difficult and expensive to uncover using traditional research methods.

That was among the talking points that emerged from Tuesday’s congressional hearing on AI in farming, held in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Science, Space, and Technology Committee in Washington, D.C.

Related: The New Space Race: Why America Must Focus On AI

At the hearing, key agricultural stakeholders advocated for increasing government investment in AI technology and infrastructure. The group warned Congress that America’s status as a world leader in AI has been usurped by Japan and China, while other rival countries are also gunning for top positions.

Testifying on behalf of U.S. agriculture was Corteva Vice President of Agricultural Solutions Brian Lutz, University of Florida associate professor Chris Swale and University of Illinois assistant professor Boris Camiletti.

“AI is without a doubt one of the most profound technologies ever to be invented,” Lutz said. “We believe there is tremendous opportunity for our government to support and incentivize advanced innovation — including by leveraging the benefits of AI — to benefit American farmers. If we want to win, we need to move smarter and faster than our competition. Corteva believes with the support of our government, we will do exactly that.”

Lutz said researchers at Corteva recently used AI to model how 10,000 different molecules might be used in crop protection, all within a matter of weeks. The Corteva model was able to identify dozens of new potential crop protection molecules that its overworked chemists could not have found otherwise. He said the company is currently testing a handful of these molecules and AI will also play a role in moving the testing phase along more quickly than traditional lab-based methods.

Lutz also told Congress how Corteva scientists have deployed AI technology in its fermentation processes, which the company uses to create what he called “molecules of interest” for evaluation. Over the past few years, Corteva has used AI modeling to engineer various bacterial strains that drive fermentation reactions and optimize reaction conditions, allowing the company to run a manufacturing operation that is as efficient as possible. This application of AI helps Corteva maintain a strong U.S. manufacturing base in the Midwest, Lutz said.

“This is the new face of ag innovation,” he added. “We can accelerate discovery of new classes of crop protection products, like biologicals — nature-based solutions that help farmers grow more food by working alongside traditional crop protection products. With AI, we can begin to predict the incredible diversity of biomolecules and metabolites that are produced by microbes and other organisms, with the goal of unlocking the secrets within plant biology to develop the next generation of safe, highly targeted, nature-inspired products.”

Swale testified to AI’s role in helping researchers on his team find and develop biological-based treatments to combat Asian citrus psyllid, an invasive pest that has left the Florida citrus industry — valued at almost $10 billion just five years ago — teetering on the brink of collapse. Effective synthetic chemicals to manage the Asian citrus psyllid exist, but the regulatory hurdles to get those products onto the market are too high, he said

“We have turned to using AI to help discover chemicals of the natural world because the registration requirements are significantly lower when compared to synthetic insecticides,” Swale said.

Camiletti leads a team of researchers combining plant pathology, remote sensing and AI to help U.S. soybean farmers overcome red crown rot, a soil-borne disease first detected in Illinois soybean fields in 2018.

Illinois has been hit the hardest by the yield-robbing disease, Camiletti said, and the pathogen is spreading rapidly to Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri. The disease is difficult to detect visually, he added, and once symptoms appear it’s often too late for successful remediation.

“My team uses satellite imagery and machine learning to identify red crown rot hot spots, and we train the models with high resolution multi-spectral data to near-infrared bands and use ground observations to teach the algorithm what diseased plants look like,” Camiletti said. “This technology has real on-farm impact. We are building tools that generate prescription maps so instead of applying fungicides across entire fields farmers can target only the affected areas.”

After key witness testimony concluded, the committee opened the floor to questions from members of Congress. Watch the full hearing via the video embedded below:

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How Satellite Sourced Data Layers Can Identify Agronomic Issues

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 16:14:05 GMT

Tech company Hydrosat is developing a data platform with satellite sources imagery to provide agronomic insights.

Specifically, it’s aiming to give farmers and growers recommendations on irrigation and water usage for crops.

Its IrriWatch software is available on desktop and a mobile app to give growers an irrigation advisor with data and imagery updated every day. The goal is to advise on when and how much to water.

CEO Pieter Fossel says its proprietary insights are especially helpful where water is scarce or highly regulated. This includes California almond crops.

“We give practical, usable information updated on a daily basis,” he says. “With new imagery and data in the system and launching our proprietary satellite last year, we are now collecting a lot of imagery of the earth in several different spectral bands.”

(Hydrosat)

He says in addition to NDVI, Hydrosat is also collecting thermal layers to identify heat stress or water deficiency. The imagery is provided at a 10 meter per pixel resolution. This is possible with the company’s launch of its VanZyl-1 satellite aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-11 mission.

“Think of NDVI as a lagging indicator, because if the crop is showing a color or density change, the stress has already occurred,” he says. “Whereas with thermal land surface temperatures, that’s a leading indicator one to two weeks before you’ll see the stress show up in the vegetable index.”

Fossel says it’s up to the grower to ground truth the source of the stress, but having the data insight to take action allows growers to identify the filed and the areas of the fields where there are problems.

“Irrigation is at the core of what we do, but our customers do use the products for other things—tracking the growth of biomass, identify stress spots, and more,” he says.
IrriWatch includes evapotranspiration mapping to measure plant water use and help growers fine-tune irrigation strategies.

Pricing for the technology is geographically based and does decrease with the larger number of acres included in the subscription. Past and current customers include agribusiness, agronomic consulting groups, and farmers.

Hydrosat’s business is global, with only 40% of its current customers in the U.S.

“We are just at he beginning of satellite imagery. There are lots of solutions for the global ag market that can based on existing imagery. But if you think beyond NDVI, beyond the publicly available data, there is so much more we can do, especially with thermal and moving from lagging indicators to leading indicators.”

New Partnership Automates Delivery of Customized Planting Prescriptions

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 16:43:02 GMT

A new partnership between Corteva and John Deere is making planting season a more enjoyable, seamless process for some U.S. corn and soybean growers in 2025.

The companies are automating a process many row-crop growers historically jotted down in a notebook or, more recently, stored on a USB flash drive – their planting prescriptions.

The partners, who are integrating the digital and onboard capabilities of the John Deere Operations Center with the agronomic expertise and analysis of Corteva, can deliver field-by-field planting prescriptions direct to farmers’ equipment via the cloud and a wireless connection.

Andy Fabin, second from left, says he was able to improve the planting accuracy on his farm ten-fold last season because of automating his hybrid and variety placement in the field.

(Rhonda Brooks)

Andy Fabin, who participated in the partners’ 2024 pilot program and signed on again this season, says when he or an employee drives into the field boundary, the display in the tractor cab will pop up with the work plan for that field. The farmer accepts the work plan, and all the information will populate into the display and they are ready to plant.

“That’s one of the beauties of this – I don’t have to rely on the operator to know anymore exactly what hybrid is supposed to go into that field,” says Fabin, who’s based near Indiana, Pa. “That information has been preplanned and put into the computer. I don’t have to worry that, ‘whoops, I keyed in the wrong information.’ I know it’s going to be correct.”

Correct Data From The Get-Go
Good data about which hybrid or variety is going into a field sets the grower up for season-long success from the start, notes Trenton Brisby, North America agronomy innovation manager for Corteva .

“We’re able to auto-create a work plan for the grower now, something we had not been able to do before,” Brisby says. He adds that the work plans can be based on a flat seeding rate or a variable rate prescription. Either way, the goal is to place every seed where it can perform up to its maximum yield potential.
Lindsey Pollock, agronomy collaboration manager for John Deere, says information the work plan delivers helps streamline the time and effort it takes for growers to start planting. “We know they’re in a hurry, that they want to get that seed in the ground. The [technology] is reducing the time and mistakes that could happen within those work plans,” Pollock says.

That was true for Fabin, who says the work plans improved the planting accuracy on his farm ten-fold last season.
“Having the information delivered wirelessly really made a difference,” he reports. “If we had to travel 15 miles back to the office to get something and bring it back to the field, I mean, that’s hours that the planter could be sitting. And to be honest, it wasn’t going to happen. We were going to go into the field, plant and fix it later.”

A lot of farmers find themselves dealing with that same issue or a similar one during planting season, says Corbin Crownover, Pioneer sales representative.

“Every year we’ve had cases where the same seed corn hybrid could be named three different ways in the monitor, so we’d have to sort that out and get the information adjusted at the end of the year before we could do anything with the data,” Crownover recalls. “When we can make the [hybrid] numbers all accurate the way they should be, it makes things easier for all of us in the post-harvest review and analysis.”

How The Process Works
The basic process of building the work plan involves a handful of steps, according to Brisby, who outlined the steps for Farm Journal in a brief discussion.

First, the Pioneer sales representative works with the grower to develop a hybrid and variety placement plan for each field, Brisby says.

Next, the representative then connects with the John Deere Operations Center to make a work plan for each field, using either flat or variable seeding rates. Then, the grower is contacted to review the plan.

“Once they give the representative permission, the rep can then push the work plan direct to the equipment monitor,” Brisby says. “When the grower goes to the field to plant they get a pop up on their monitor screen that says, ‘You have a new work plan. Do you want to accept this?’ The grower can say ‘yes,’ and then start planting.”

The grower can also answer no, in case he needs to use a different hybrid or variety in a field. If needed, the operator can load the new seed information into the system manually.

However, Crownover says the grower’s seed sales representative can load multiple varieties and hybrids into the system, so they are included in the original work plan. This gives the farmer the ability to switch between seed products without having to go through a manual step. “We’re able to fine-tune seed selection and placement so farmers can feel more confident that their fields are going to be planted as prescribed,” Crownover says.

Technology Needed To Participate
In some cases, farmers who might want to participate in the partners’ program lack the equipment or are unable to wirelessly send and receive data.

“This is where we really believe strengthening the relationship and collaborating comes into place between Pioneer and John Deere,” Brisby says. “Working together, we can make sure the customer is able to get what they need.”

Fabin says he appreciated being able to work with Corteva and John Deere in the pilot program. “I appreciate all this technology, as a small business owner,” he says. “Capital is something we really have to manage, and these partnerships are a way for me to leverage the equipment we’ve already got. If we can reduce inputs whether seed, fertilizer or chemicals it’s good for us and is why I partner with these two companies.”

For 2025, John Deere and Corteva are expanding the pilot program to additional U.S. farmers before rolling out the program on a more widespread basis, which the companies anticipate for 2026.

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Mineral: Applying Silicon Valley ‘Superpowers’ To Agriculture

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 01:13:27 GMT

For the past five years, the team at Mineral have been working inside X, the moonshot factory of Alphabet (Google’s parent company).

Today, Mineral graduates as the business is made a standalone company within Alphabet.

What’s the first thing to come from Mineral to the farm?

The company has been working through established ag partners (more than a dozen currently) to develop tools with machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics and geospatial technologies.

“We are hoping to bring a new perspective as an outsider by partnering with those who have deep expertise as existing players in the industry,” says Mineral CEO Elliott Grant. “If we are successful, we will help build a fundamental step change in capabilities with a set of tools that are incredibly powerful.”

Grant shares Mineral wants to apply its expertise a large scale, while respecting the details and anomalies inherent in agriculture. Farmers won’t buy technologies direct from Mineral, but the company’s goal is to have its tools embedded in the inputs, equipment and decision-making tools used by farmers.

“Every farm looks a little different, and every plant looks a little different. We know the models we build have to work across 100,000 different environments, but our strength is in steadily investing in the diversity of data. Technology can handle all these situations when the model built are robust and are built to handle the complexity and analyze the diversity of data in agriculture. It’s our job to bring the user along the ride.”

He says the first product a Mineral partner is likely to bring to market will be around weed detection tools. The team at Mineral says their work spans scouting, identification, mapping, and application.

“One of the areas we’re already seeing a lot of demand for our partners is our ability to identify and model weeds,” says Greg Chiocco, Mineral growth lead. “It’s an area we spend a lot of time and energy on as the implications of weed modeling are endless.”

The data Mineral is collecting is another of its core competencies.

With its work, Mineral has developed an image database of more than 17 crops in every stage of growth in multiple environments. It’s being used for modeling and can be used in many projects with partners.

“Much like an Android model, we aren’t one fully closed ecosystem. We have an open ecosystem,” says Mineral Chief Operating Officer Erica Bliss. “We think about how ag is evolving, and it’s not about just one set of tools. We think it’ll take this open approach to tackle to the nuanced and local challenges.”

A visual example of the work Mineral is doing is the rover platform.

The rover is a four-wheeled semi-autonomous platform Mineral has developed over four years. There are multiple configurations of the machine from narrow row configurations to high clearance. The core functionality of the rover is as a data collection machine.

“Think of this as our Google Streetview car,” Grant says. “It’s not a final product. It’s a research tool.”

The rover can collect 1 million image a day to measure characteristics of plants. For example, in one 24-hour period one rover collected nearly 6 million images measuring a dozen plant traits for R&D purposes.

One company Mineral has said its partnering with in the input space is Syngenta.

Another partner in the specialty crop business has yielded multiple projects moving forward.

Driscoll’s has been a partner of Mineral to help it solve two problems: in-field harvest analysis for its berry crops and post-harvest crop condition ratings.

While harvesting strawberries and raspberries comes with challenges on assessing crop condition, a specific technology has been developed to monitor the crop in the field.

“It wasn’t just that we increased the yield harvested, the human experts got better,” says. “They got better insights on yield forecasting so they learned why the machine was making the prediction.”

Grant adds, “It may surprise some people that artificial intelligence isn’t replacing people. Rather, it’s a co-pilot to help decision making by pointing out anomalies.”

The second project illustrates how artificial intelligence is used to assess the conditions of harvested berries including color, size, bruising and more.

This application can be run on a mobile phone. It only requires a blue background and a color key card for calibration.

One focus for the team at Mineral is to make its technology easier to use in the field.

With its partners at Alphabet providing proprietary chips, Mineral is excited to accelerate the use of Edge Computing—meaning there doesn’t have to be a strong, consistent internet connection to run computer applications, collect images, make maps and make decisions.

Grant shares how the devices have gotten smaller and smaller in the past five years.

“Something that can be held in two hands is able to provide stereo imagery, its own lighting, computing power, GPS and power management for the rover,” he says. “It’s getting lighter, cheaper and more powerful every year.”

In fact, they are working to build products for situations without connectivity.

“We shouldn’t assume high bandwidth is available,” he says. “Doing this work on The Edge for the next decade is critical.”

What about other well-known Google technologies?

When asked about geospatial, Grant says the team at Mineral benefits from the work done at its sister company Google Earth. He adds Google Earth has been an amazing tool for researchers and has moved the needle for the GIS system.

“We benefit from generating data from the Google Earth engine and built a layer translated to ag specific with field boundaries, crop types cover crops and tillage,” Grant says.

Mineral has analyzed 10% of the total farmland—which means of the 4 billion acres on Earth for farmland. 450 million acres of farmland are in the Mineral platform.

“Scale is in our DNA, and one our superpowers is scale,” Grant says.

While Google Glass has so far been taken off the shelf for the consumer market for more industrial applications, Grant doesn’t rule it out as a future platform for innovation.

“I think there’s a future in which the interaction isn’t intermediated by a phone. Perhaps it’s headworn. The computing power is there. But if it will be a face worn AR device, I don’t know. But the fundamental tech is there,” he says.

So what’s Mineral’s vision for the future of agriculture?

Grant says, “Five years from now, I would hope the tools we imagine, a machine learning enabled co-pilot for example, is no more remarkable than using Google Maps for navigation.”

The Scoop Podcast: Insights From Artificial Intelligence Have Arrived

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 21:04:11 GMT

What if you could transform a task that used to half of your day to just a few minutes? For agronomists looking to streamline their crop scouting and gain efficiencies in their day as well as agronomic recommendations, artificial intelligence is offering such a solution.

And while the technology exists, Jason Minton, chief commercial officer at Taranis says retailers to let go of any fear they have about AI, start using it, and get excited for the future.

You can hear more in The Scoop Podcast:

Minton will be joined by Bushel’s Ryan Raguse for a panel discussion about AI Applications in Agriculture at the 2024 ARA Conference and Expo, which takes place Dec. 3 to 5 in Houston. Register now at ARADC.org/conference

Today, Taranis offers scouting missions six times a year starting with emergence through the growing season to identify yield threats and monitor crop health.

The goal is to help retailers and farmers understand every decision through the crop year with these analytics and insights.

And he says there are two key benefits to use the technology:

1. Timeliness and time savings.

“If we fly a mission right now, for sure, the next morning, there will be mission insights delivered to that retailer,” he says. He also highlights how a trip to the field could be 45 minutes one-way plus an hour-long scouting mission and then a 45-minute drive back to the office.

“In that case, half your day is gone on one scouting trip,” he says.

The remote image collection and analysis bring new levels of efficiency.

2. Improved agronomic recommendations

Taranis is testing its next generation of AI tools, Ag Assistant, which will combine the Taranis insights currently available with additional data layers: weather, machinery, university research.

“With the click of a button, retailers will be able to identify a problem and have a set of solutions,” Minton says.

This type of application would help narrow down and focus agronomic recommendations to be offered by a retailer.

Your next read:

Can A Scouting Technology Increase Farmer Trust?

Harvesting Insights: How AI Crop Scouting Is Driving Decisions

Inside InnerPlant’s Farmer-Led Investment Run and Why It’s Better Than Traditional VC

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 15:34:02 GMT

InnerPlant, a seed technology startup with a transgenic, early stress alerting seed trait in soybeans, recently raised $30 million in Series B funding. About half of the funds came from a group of farmer-investors headed by Coutts Agro. Saskatchewan grain farmer Matt Coutts is Coutts Agro’s Chief Investment Officer.

How did InnerPlant set itself apart?

Coutts’ experience with InnerPlant thus far has been unique and a refreshing departure from the typical venture capital funding cycle, he says.

The company was not the least bit shy about trekking up to Canada’s vast western plains and putting boots-on-the-ground to breath the fresh prairie air and take in his operation to gather how the two could potentially work together. And, funny enough, it all literally got off the ground by Coutts filling out one of those online “Contact Us” forms.

That’s one lesson Coutts has picked up from his relationship with InnerPlant that he wants to share with other farmers: don’t be shy about going online, filling out those forms and throwing your hat in the ring if it seems like something that would be a good fit. It might seem like a futile exercise at the time, and that nobody will respond, but you’ll never truly know until you give it a go.

“We’ve trialed so many different products and met with so many different companies,” Coutts adds. “InnerPlant has shown us a much different level of dedication to farmers, at least that I see. Shelly and her entire team were engaged right from the start, coming up to the farm and delivering the pitch right here in one of our barns. It’s hard to find companies as farmer committed as InnerPlant.”

What did InnerPlant learn from working with farmer-investors?

For InnerPlant CEO Shely Aronov, her journey with Coutts and his group cemented a strong conviction in working with farmer-led investment groups over traditional venture capital firms. She believes the shift helped accelerate InnerPlant’s journey from startup to a “real company with customer-centric values.”

“We have the retailers and growers engaged, and we have a technology that is meaningful and moves the needle. Now we must work with farmers to get the point price right, because this is not the time for expensive products,” Aronov says.

Over the last handful of months, InnerPlant has undertaken a pilot program with Illinois-based retailer Growmark FS’ Sentinel Plots to ground truth its technology. Soon you will start to notice the company launching its futuristic seeds with select farms in Illinois and Iowa as it fires up its technology and starts to “scale up”.

“We’re building a team of agronomists and crop specialists in the Midwest right now to support the rollout,” Aronov says, noting its technology remains most effective “with the help of an agronomist.”

Another thing she has learned is if you want to be successful with ag tech, you need to be on the ground and connected to your potential customers.

“We have to train the trainers, and they have to train the farmers, and in order to make that happen, we need to be there alongside them,” Aronov adds.

Why are farmers attracted to InnerPlant?

InnerPlant soybeans emit different wavelengths of light if they are stressed, hinting at possible disease pressure in the field.

(InnerPlant)

“It gets us a data layer into our crops that we don’t have today,” Coutts says. “Being able to manage stress days and weeks ahead is a game changer. If you’re reacting to plant disease you can already see, you’re too late. Of course, you’re hoping that it’s not that bad, but at that point you are probably way behind the ball.”

Coutts and his family oversee 120,000-plus acres of productive, cereal-producing cropland in Saskatchewan, Canada. The group grows lentils, canola, and wheat.

Once a farmer hits that type of acreage level, technology must return profits rather quickly to be valuable, he says. The other side of the coin is, that type of acreage also paints a big, shiny red target on your back at many technology companies. They see that acreage and the little dollar signs start dancing around in their heads before they’ve even pulled up to the farmgate.

According to Ag Funder News, the rest of the funding outside of what Coutts Agro put in came from climate investor Systemiq Capital as well as Deere and Company and Bison Ventures.

What is InnerPlant technology?

InnerPlant’s seed traits signal plant stress – the signals will be able to be picked up optically by satellites once the seeds are widely distributed. For now, the company is using stationary detection towers to scan the invisibly fluorescing plants.

To get there a transgenic gene is edited, or inserted, into the soybean plant’s genome – like inserting a new line of code into a computer program. This enables optic scanners to see what our human eyes cannot: where stress is taking hold in a farmer’s field at a plant-by-plant level.

The plant data is then correlated to areas of the field via the companies’ new CropVoice software program and can pick up stressed plants within one or two days of the initial infection, Aronov adds.

Previous InnerPlant coverage:

InnerPlant - Tech That Visualizes Plant Stress - Names Germplasm Partner

GrowMark To Pilot InnerPlant’s Fluorescent Soybeans

Plants That Talk: Coming Soon To A Field Near You

Landus’ Secret Weapon: Military Grade AI Tech Connects Farm Data Dots

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 19:35:26 GMT

Farmers and agronomists today are virtually drowning in data, but one Midwest cooperative has a new secret weapon up its sleeve.

Landus (Des Moines, Iowa) has seemingly struck digital farm data gold and, as with all things Landus of late, farmers themselves look to be the big winners here.

Landus and American invention company Tesseract Ventures have joined forces to bring military-grade, predictive data analysis straight from the high-tech battlefield of today to a new digital decision support platform for farmers and Landus agronomists. The cooperative is calling its new software offering Synthesis.

What is Synthesis?

Synthesis automates the collection and combination of data across an incredibly wide swath of sources – everything from satellites and drones to on-farm sensors, weather stations, and even disparate farm machinery brands.

The Synthesis system leverages algorithms originally designed for advanced military intelligence applications to literally synthesize all the relevant available data for a select field or operation into three different modules (Plan, Perform, and Prove) that farmers and their agronomists can use to make digital twins, or virtual simulations, of their fields.

By using these digital twins of their real-life fields, the farm management process goes from an inexact, multiple-variable guessing game to a laser-sharp predictive level. There is no more guessing, for example, what would happen to yield and the farmer’s bottom line if Farmer Joe were to put on this generic fungicide at V5. The platform is able to wormhole its way into the future, visualizing in real-time the impact of various management decisions for the farmer before any action is taken.

“It’s a radical way to reimagine information exchange and how to action it,” says John Boucard, Tesseract CEO. “We are creating and deploying 21st century human machine interfaces that can navigate the past, present, and future – today, we now can visualize the past and the present with real-time and edge data, and then envision future events and their impact before they happen.”

In developing and releasing Synthesis to the greater farm universe, Landus and Tesseract have essentially unlocked one of ag tech’s previously unsolvable quandaries: how to take all these different data layers and previously incompatible file formats, and combine them in a single platform where the farmer can have a complete 360-degree view of everything that is happening as well as everything that could happen in the field?

“Agriculture has great data,” says Matt Carstens, CEO of Landus. “But we have never been able to get it into one spot and then let the farmer analyze the data in real-time to create a digital twin that can visualize virtually any scenario. Now they can go out on the farm and be confident.”

Data visualization details

Having viewed a pilot version of Synthesis during our visit to Landus’ Innovation Connector, the platform’s data visualization capability leaps through the screen and grabs your attention. Many digital platforms lay out data in a two-dimensional, color-coded view across a field, but Synthesis has a unique three-dimensional approach to displaying different areas of the field.

Bear with me, as it’s tough to describe it here in words, but it’s a tiered, graphical representation of your real-time and future yield potential: vertically climbing spikes in green are healthy, high-performing areas of the field, while lower-lying, red colored bars show areas in the field with lower yield potential. The software doesn’t break down fields into management zones, it actually visualizes the entire field as one entity.

Farmers and their Landus agronomists can run endless scenarios through the digital twins of their various fields to benchmark management practices and what effect they will have on the crop, kind of like how a high-ranking general in the United States Military would use Tesseract technology to wargame various battlefield scenarios before finalizing a mission plan.

The digital platform today remains in development, but the partners are getting very close to releasing the first iteration, and several Landus farmers have been involved in field tests. Illinois farmer Kevin Kennedy is one of a handful that have been granted early access to the Synthesis. He is convinced Synthesis will be a seismic leap forward in farm management information system innovation.

“Having a platform that I can bring all of the different types of data sources into one centralized location, it gives me the foundation I need to use AI toolsets to build these really detailed analyses around so many different scenarios in production,” he says. “We’ve never been able to have enough of our data in one location and have it in a format that we can access and do this type of predictive analysis.”

Leveling the data playing field for farmers

Landus’ SkyScout drone-enabled scouting service is one such data platform that smoothly integrates into the Synthesis platform. Instead of having to log in and run analysis in both platforms, or export huge data sets from one platform into another, all of the data that comes from SkyScout’s flights flows automatically into a linked Synthesis dashboard. The rubber really meets the road where fresh scouting data is combined with the historic field level data that Synthesis also pulls in automatically.

“In Iowa right now a lot of the fields don’t have an average stand, so you’re probably looking at an average crop at best,” Kennedy explains. “This just allows me to have more confidence in my real-time decision-making process.”

According to Boucard, that is exactly what Tesseract set out to do when it started ideating what could happen if it placed its AI-based military wargaming technology in the hands of Midwestern farmers: provide an instant common operating picture for farmers and agronomists to use to immerse themselves in the data and make critical decisions really fast, and really accurately.

“To be able to unlock the power of that farmer-agronomist collaboration and let the farmer share that data intelligently with whomever it makes sense to share it with – the farmer should own all their own data, so we’re giving them the power now,” he says. “That will force multiply and create a market that’s truly competitive rather than dominated.”

To learn more about how Synthesis can help you harness the power of past data, current data, and future outlook data and apply an analytical approach to your farm, get in touch with Landus.

Harvesting Insights: How AI Crop Scouting Is Driving Decisions

Wed, 29 May 2024 20:42:02 GMT

Artificial intelligence (AI) remains light years away from displacing the farmer or agronomist in the agronomic decision-making process, but when it comes to crop scouting, AI is proving to be useful.

Today there are a handful of mobile-based crop monitoring programs that use AI and machine-learning algorithms to convert data sets into actionable insights — and there’s more on the way.

Last year, Ethan Noll’s team at Ag Partners Cooperative, a retailer in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, alerted its growers to potential yield robbingsulfur deficiencies in corn. They also used weed mapping to direct spot-applied herbicide treatments based on weed type.

“AI and drone scouting has provided a level of transparency I don’t think agriculture has ever seen before,”
explains Noll, who serves as the digital ag team lead. “It just brings a higher level of trust to our conversations with the producer.”

Drone scout methodology

AgCESS, the co-op’s precision ag program, offers Taranis as part of its crop scouting services. Taranis has a network of drone operators who capture in-season, field-level data that retail partners can analyze alongside growers.

Since most AI scouting programs are only offered through the retail channel, the price per acre will often vary based on retailer. Grower sources have told Farm Journal to expect to pay anywhere from $10-$15 per acre and up for AI directed scouting services.

According to market research conducted by Taranis, the first-year ROI for using an AI digital scouting tool in row crops is three times (3x) more than traditional efforts.

Noll explains the process to his farmers in this manner: The drones are like a nurse; they collect a multitude of data points that are provided to the doctor, which could be a farmer or an agronomist, who then uses the data to make in-season management recommendations. The AI itself serves in a complementary role, helping the farmer or agronomist then generate a fact-based recommendation quickly and accurately.

“Once we have their planting dates, we set up a five-pass scouting program,” Noll says, noting different retail programs will offer more or less than five passes. “We plug those into the system, and then based off growing degree days, we can schedule the passes.”

Kerrick Griffes, a seed sales rep with Nutrien Ag Solutions in central Michigan, is excited to put AI-directed, digital crop scouting in front of his growers.

It’s a clear win-win for agronomist and farmer alike.

“These AI-based programs are going to make life easier. I can pull up my iPad, scroll through the dashboard and get a handle for what’s going on with my customers’ fields, and it will tell me where to go first,” Griffes says.

Jeff Schluckbier, a partner-owner with Zwerk & Sons Farms just outside Bay City, Mich., is locked in for a six-pass program on 1,600 acres of sugar beets.

His first flight this season, taken 21 days after planting, revealed an initial thin crop stand and some frost-injured beets, but it was too early to make significant changes.

After his next flight, Schluckbier and Griffes will analyze data before locking in his fertilizer and herbicide programs. The AI will tell them where to push fertility for higher yields, as well as what percent of weeds in each field are broadleaf versus grasses. It even tells them what type of weeds are present.

“The thought is you can see weeds with a drone quicker than walking the field, and the same goes for insect and disease pressure,” Schluckbier explains. “It’s about being more proactive than reactive.”

Generative AI coming soon

Taranis is diving into Generative AI later this year, according to Katie Staton, director of customer success.

Generative AI combs through huge amounts of external data to generate insights that would take humans days, if not weeks, to parse on their own. The as-yet-to-be-named Taranis product will aggregate massive amounts of agronomic and other farm data for users to access.

“Kerrick can make recommendations based off all the data plus his knowledge,” she says. “Taranis takes the trusted adviser role to a whole new height. That will never be replaced by AI alone.”

Griffes seconds that notion as he heads into another season guiding growers in Michigan.

“The drone imagery, the AI insights and the dashboard, they’re not silver bullets, they’re more so another tool in the toolbox,” he says. “For me, it’s like using a laser scope versus iron sights on a hunting rifle.”

More On Scouting And Agronomics

10 Easy Ways to Take Your Crop-Scouting Practices to the Next Level

2024 Is Shaping Up To Bring Out Corn Rootworm

How to Calculate Growing Degree Days (Simple Formula)

Ferrie: How Long Can Corn Survive After Being Under Water?

Intelinair Now Integrates With CNH Brands

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 16:26:22 GMT

With the goal of improving access to timely agronomic insights for the entire 2024 crop season, Intelinair announces its AGMRI product integrates with CNH equipment and its operating platform. This includes Case IH Brands and the AFS Connect platform and New Holland brands and the MyPLM Connect platform.

The announcement means more streamlined use and experience for farmers, which can lead to more data-driven decision making for farmers and ag retailers.

This includes easy export of field boundary data, as applied, and yield data to AGMRI.

AGMRI Analyze monitors nine yield-limited factors. AGMRI’s agronomic insights include:

Emergence
Weed pressure
Crop health
Variable dry down

“Increasing connectivity options for farmers provides more ways to use technology to help improve efficiency on the farm and protect yield potential,” said Kevin Krieg, Director of Business Development at Intelinair. “This new connection is one more way farmers can efficiently get insights to make real-time data-driven decisions and inform the next year’s crop plan.”

Dan Danford, Precision Technology Partner Manager from CNH, said: “By establishing connections with important partners like Intelinair, we aim to drive interoperability between the various systems and services our customers use to maximize the value of their data and actions in the field.”

John Deere Announces 2024 Startup Collaborators

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 14:35:21 GMT

Deere & Company announced the names of six companies chosen for its 2024 Startup Collaborator program. The John Deere Startup Collaborator program was launched in 2019 to enhance and deepen the company’s interaction with startup companies.

“The program is based on finding benefits for our customers,” said Dennis Muszalski, VP, Module & Electrification Systems Engineering. “The goal is to learn together and explore new ways to help customers unlock more value in ways they never thought possible.”

The companies participating in the 2024 Startup Collaborator include:

Constellr – a company measuring land surface temperature and water from its own satellites at unprecedented accuracy levels to enable insights for a more sustainable future.
Geminos – an artificial intelligence company empowering businesses to understand and leverage causality for enhanced decision-making.
SB Quantum – a quantum sensing company focused on navigation based on a novel quantum magnetometer.
Fermata Energy – a leader in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) bidirectional charging platform technology.
goFlux – a Brazil based logistics company focused on digital solutions to connect the ecosystem for freight transactions.
Cloudscape Labs – a production management software company focused on providing job site visibility across the construction team to help meet production, cost, and safety targets.

“The cohort this year represents a diverse group of solutions that are applicable across a range of challenges and opportunities that our customers face,” said Cody Sorge, Business Development Manager for the John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group.

A Unique Gift the Whole Farm Will Want

Mon, 16 Oct 2023 12:49:39 GMT

Need a gift for the grower, child or farmer-customer in your life? Two companies have thought of a product that caters to the farm kid in all of us.

Aerial Rug and Boundri are using satellite imagery to create custom farm products that allow imaginations to run wild in farmers young and old. Whether it’s a wall hanging for the farm office, a blanket for a client, or their most popular item: rugs that take carpet farming to the next level.

“I’ve got little kids, and I wanted to create something kind of cool for them,” says Nathan Faleide of Boundri. “I bought a rug and made one of a farm field in North Dakota. I brought some old farm toys that I had as a kid out and they really seemed to enjoy it.”

Faleide, who has a nearly 30-year background in satellite imagery, saw his product quickly go viral on Twitter.

Susan Stroud’s company, Aerial Rug, was built from similar inspiration. Her son’s love for farm toys sparked the idea of farm landscape rugs.

“We created all sorts of different already laid out landscapes like a feed yard in Kansas or a gold mine out west,” Stroud says. “We quickly realized it was a market for something custom and people wanted their own farms on rugs.”

Though both companies started with carpet farming in mind, they recognize their custom items are meaningful for anyone with a passion for agriculture – no matter the age.

“I had one customer who got one of the farm for his dad. His dad is retired and lives in town but it’s in the front door of his house,” Faleide says. “They don’t even own the farm anymore so it’s a nice memento.”

Faleide shares other customers have placed the rugs in their offices or used them for farm safety demonstrations with local schools. Stroud has also had orders from real estate brokers who give them to clients.

How to Bring the Farm Indoors
To get these customized gifts under the Christmas tree, the process varies slightly between the companies.
Aerial Rug uses customer-submitted photos, screenshots, addresses, etc. as a guide to know where to pull satellite images. And according to Stroud, they’re able to work with just about anything.

“Someone sent me a photo of one of those old flyover pictures that were popular in the 80s and 90s,” she says. “We were able to use image enhancing and we printed that old school image on a rug.”

Boundri customers use a free mapping program on the company’s website to build their own product, which the company hopes will save time and improve accuracy. They input their address or zoom into a specific area and manipulate the map view or layers to their liking. Customers can also upload their own drone or logo files to the program.

Both companies are able to use a few different years of satellite imagery if the customer has a preference to the time of year the photo was taken, but there are limitations to what is available in rural areas.

Things to Know Before Ordering
Rugs from either company are available in multiple different sizes, depending on the customer’s needs and price point, and are made from a woven polyester material similar to an outdoor rug.

As for their durability, Faleide has put one to the ultimate test.

“I had an extra rug and gave it to my local daycare where my kids go,” he says. “It’s been played on nonstop for the last year and still looks good. I call that probably 10 years of experience in one year for being at a daycare.”

The size of the farm that will fit on a rug depends as well. Some customers are looking to achieve a 1/64 scale to match the size of farm toys (which according to Stroud would fit 20 to 25 acres), some prefer to have the farmstead prominent, and some just want to include as much land as possible.

Rugs from Aerial Rug take about 10 to 14 days from the time the order is approved by the customer and Boundri will need seven to 10 days from when the order is processed.

If a custom farm rug sounds like the perfect Christmas gift for someone on your list, both companies have set the first week of December as their cutoff to guarantee it makes its way onto Santa’s sleigh.

Is Satellite Imagery the Answer For Better Crop Production Estimates?

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 13:18:53 GMT

About this time of year, there is often a change in the farm atmosphere. The relative inactivity of late summer gives way to serious preparation for harvest, and the size of that harvest is frequently on our minds – like constantly. Early hints of what is in our fields are the hottest gossip items whenever farmers gather.

During my career, and especially the last few years, official estimates of the products of this growing season have been viewed with increasing skepticism. Some doubts are based on the age of traditional methodology, some on suspicions of deliberate tampering and some on theories of interference from outside factors.

One idea that has gained traction is that surveys may not be as accurate as current technology – especially satellite imagery. This could be true, especially since the number of satellites has ballooned as the price to put them in orbit has plunged.

The technology packed in those satellites has improved vastly as well. Satellite maneuverability now makes it possible for real-time stationary overhead observation with everything from sophisticated radar to multiple light wavelengths to astonishing optics.

One popular idea with farmers is sophisticated technology could create better, more frequent crop estimates than in-field surveys like USDA surveys or even our Pro Farmer Crop Tour . Maybe so. Technology also seems to offer less human intervention to counter growing distrust of official institutions of all kinds in the United States.

For crop reports, the USDA struggles with public misunderstanding about the need identical methods to generate data comparable to the past. Much of agriculture also operates in years, not quarters or months. While the agency is cautiously introducing alternate technology, it could be a long time before that’s how crop production reports are routinely generated. Not only do you need several years of side-by-side reporting to assure the new technology actually is an improvement, the same big problem remains: how do you know the right answer?

There is no substitute for an annual calculation of grain sold and bought, and stuff stored on the same date each year – the famed January 31 report. Right now, the least statistically reliable number for this definitive report is farmer-held stocks.

Better crop reports will need first more farmers sending their most accurate numbers, not just different politics or hardware.

(John Phipps’ commentary from 8/26/23 U.S. Farm Report episode)

Sentera Analytics Show Effect of Extreme Weather on Crops

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 20:56:46 GMT

Sentera, the industry-leading provider of ag analytics, today announces the launch of its Crop Damage analytics to empower researchers, product developers, retail ag advisors, and crop insurance professionals to make critical decisions about mitigation strategies for key weather events.

In the world of agriculture, unforeseen events such as storms or other damage can have a significant impact on crop health and yield potential. The American Farm Bureau Federation reports that 2022 was the third-costliest disaster year event in history, with more than $21.4 billion in crop and rangeland losses.

“We can’t regulate the weather or many other events that can damage crops, but we can control how quickly we can respond to losses,” said Eric Taipale, chief technology officer, Sentera. “Crop Damage analytics offers customers fast, precise, and accurate insight into the location and extent of damage. Customers can use this information to inform mitigation and update management strategies to optimize profitability or an agronomic outcome.”

Leveraging its advanced data science ecosystem, Sentera translates high-resolution aerial imagery into actionable plant-level measurements and insights, empowering stakeholders throughout the agricultural value chain to make better decisions.

Sentera’s Crop Damage analytics works at any scale, from small plot trials to field-scale production. It can serve as a tool to determine resource allocation for boots-on-the-ground scouting while also helping to inform key decisions on replanting and crop management. Further, it can help to support the crop insurance assessment process, leading to informed claim processing efficiency and better visibility into storm impact on the field.

“Our Crop Damage analytics continues to demonstrate the power of our advanced data science ecosystem,” said Taipale. “With our versatile and flexible data capture options, we’re excited to lead the industry in providing analytics and insights that can move the needle on managing – and mitigating – crop loss.”

Geospatial Company Forecasts Yields, Announces Irrigation Software Acquisition

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 13:22:43 GMT

While the technology is up in space, Hydrosat is on a roll back on Earth. Hydrosat is a geospatial technology company that uses satellite based thermal imagery and its own proprietary machine learning and analytics to forecast yields across the world. Earlier this year, the company announced it’s a $20 million fundraising round and a grant from the U.S. Air Force, and then in June the company announced the acquisition of IrriWatch, a Netherlands-based irrigation software company.

This past year was the pilot year for the Crop Yield Forecast product. CEO Pieter Fossel says the company’s results were within 0.75% and 1.01% of the USDA’s final corn and soybean yields, respectively. He says the team is working toward the goal of using the insights from the imagery to help farmers increase yields by 50% and reduce electricity and water usage by more than 25%.

“We are working to provide an extremely scalable, low cost set of solutions,” Fossel says. “Everything we do is based on satellite infrared images which are indicating crop stress—and water stress in particular.”

The company currently works through agribusinesses to assess crop growth stages and make its yield calculations. Most of its work in row crops so far has been for seed production and in potatoes. The product is priced per acre for the entire season. And while the product can be used for growth and yield assessment it can also be used for in-season decisions.

“We’re continuously updating the product. It’s not a delivery of an image—we are providing access to daily insights the entire growing season,” Fossel says. “We are working to provide the best possible tools so growers can make best possible decisions.”

As an example, he shares the tool can be used at planting time by monitoring soil moisture.

Currently, the company provides its services in the U.S., Canada and Europe, but has expanded to offer its software platform globally. Their insights can be used on a field, farm, county or national level.

In early June, the company announced the acquisition of IrriWatch, a Netherlands-based irrigation management software company.

“We aren’t telling growers what to do but we are empowering them with daily data to make their own irrigation decisions,” Fossel says. “Our goal is provide the best possible information for their decision.”

IrriWatch was founded in 2019, and has customers in 62 countries. The goal with the acquisition is to further build on the ability to share water-use insights with farmers.

“We’re in an interesting time to be working on this—the pace of extreme weather events, drought brought on by climate change, they are all having a great impact on growing food,” Fossel says. “At the same time, we’ve never had more access to these analytical capabilities to mange through natural constraints to continue to increase yields.”

In 2024, Hydrosat is launching its own dedicated constellation of satellites.

“This will give us higher resolution and we’ll be less impacted by clouds,” Fossel says. “Otherwise, our images are a product of the whims of what’s publicly available from NASA and other space agencies. Currently, our biggest limiting factor in the data we use is frequency. Having more frequent data will continue to allow us to deliver high-resolution products at an affordable cost.”

Fossel says satellite-based thermal imagery is a good fit for row crops.

“Right now, 95% of the market is an opportunity because it’s too costly to provide high-res data at the frequency required by aircraft or drones,” he says. “We are working to democratize geospatial insights for farming everywhere.”

John Phipps: What the Crisis in Ukraine is Revealing About the Essential Use of Satellites

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 23:16:22 GMT

Necessity is the mother of invention, it is repeatedly said. And nothing helps clarify what is really necessary like war.

In contrast to the previous century, major conflict between developed countries is only a vague historical concept for most people today. Similar to the world wars and variously labeled conflicts like Korea and Viet Nam, the longer the Ukraine War drags on, the more comparisons we can make between memories of war and the realities.

The battle is upending global economics, trade, and geopolitical alignment. I would venture more national defense strategic plans are being revised with greater urgency that ever before as non-combatants watch and analyze not computer models, but real-world battlefield outcomes. The smaller adaptations being made by the citizens and militaries involved may have a more lasting effect.

For example, the cities of Ukraine are being demolished by a staggering bombardment level. So much so that experts around the world are debating when this year Russia will deplete its arsenal. There are indications it is already rationing artillery rounds and may consider using 40+ year old ammo. Even with careful storage, explosives that old won’t be popular with gun crews.

For Ukrainian civilians, one workaround that has proven its value in this devastation has been Starlink. As Russian barrages destroy cell towers and blow up landlines, bypassing them with an easy-to-use satellite internet connection is not just an option but a lifeline.

Starlink, about which I have spoken perhaps too often, can leapfrog shattered communications infrastructure using just the small dish and a little electricity. The same device that allows campers to get online can keep villages in rubble on the communication grid reliably. This visible proof could be a serious blow to efforts to bring cable and tower internet to remaining sparsely populated regions of the world, and especially US farm country.

Extending urban infrastructure never made economic sense, and as Ukrainians are showing us, the future outside metropolitan areas appears to be the rapidly growing armada of low earth orbit satellites, and soon more Starlink competitors. Maybe instead of billions for optic cable which will be routinely sliced by backhoes, our government should hand out Starlink vouchers.

New AGMRI Product Features Ready for 2023 Growing Season

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 22:12:19 GMT

Intelinair announced the addition of several new features to its AGMRI® flagship platform for 2023. These features will help Intelinair continue to deliver enhanced crop health imagery and analytics that more efficiently manage farmer and ag retailer businesses all season long.

“We’re excited to roll out new features in the next several months in advance of the 2023 growing season,” said Kevin Krieg, Director of Business Development for Intelinair. “These features are based on feedback from AGMRI customers, field scouts and advisors on how we could improve our platform. As we launch and use the new features in 2023, we look forward to learning more and continuing to elevate the AGMRI user experience.”

Building on the platform, four categories of new product features for the 2023 growing season for the iOS and web app are planned:

Personalization – Organize and personalize information to quickly drill down to the details the user needs.

Configurable dashboard – Arranges the AGMRI homepage widgets to allow users to prioritize what matters most in an easy-to-use format.
Customized alerts – Users can snooze specific alerts or update them based on size or timing, which can be useful for alerts around weeds, replant and low emergence.
Advanced filter – Allows users to filter by users’ needs, including precipitation, growth stage, crop type and more.

iPhone Updates – Puts information in the hands of the user, creating a more seamless experience.

Two-minute field scroll – Only have a few minutes? Quickly browse fields in a thumbnail view and swipe left or right to change the field layer.
Field card and grower card – Efficiently get scouting trips, alerts or details for individual fields or growers with this new feature.

Scouting Management – Manage scouting programs more effectively with the new management features.

Offline scouting – Leverage the scouting capabilities of AGMRI – even in an area with limited or no internet connectivity.
Assign fields – Efficiently deploy field scouts for assigned activities by specific field through the app.
Track and review reports – Allows for the user to track and review field activities and reports.

Weather Widget Overview – Review field conditions for potential action plans.

Weather conditions - See past, current and future weather conditions at field and regional levels.
Soil moisture - Displays a range of precipitation amounts over a given time period.
Infield application insights - Pinpoint areas to take action.

“We believe these new features will continue to help farmers and ag retailers efficiently make management decisions all season long,” Krieg adds. “We’re looking at saving time and helping everyone prioritize what matters most, which in the end impacts productivity across the board.”

Agriculture As Seen From the Heavens–Yesterday and Today

Wed, 28 Dec 2022 15:28:14 GMT

You may have seen in the news recently that NASA sent a spacecraft capable of carrying hu-mans back to the moon. On November 16, 2022, the Artemis I spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral to return to the celestial body where we as a nation left our last footprints 50 years ago.

The Apollo 17 mission, in December of 1972, was the swan song of NASA’s Apollo program. It is astronaut Gene Cernan who still holds the distinction of being the last person to walk on the moon. Hopefully, history and programs like Artemis will change that in the next couple of years. If we’re reminiscing about space milestones, we must recognize another historic space program that also dates back to 1972. This program changed how we look at planet Earth and the agricultural system that feeds the people that inhabit it.

After the cancellation of the Apollo program in the 1970’s, NASA pivoted to focus its efforts back to missions that would serve humanity and planet Earth itself. One of those missions also recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. The program was called Landsat and it revolutionized what it means to monitor agriculture, analyze crop conditions and estimate crop yields on a global scale.

As of January 2022 there were over 1,000 satellites in orbit that fall into the category of Earth observation. Earth selfies have gone so mainstream that in many cases they are now free. Google Earth is probably the best known free eye-in-the-sky example. Admit it, what farmer doesn’t want to take a look at their own farm from space — or don’t tell anybody, their neighbor’s farm — all the while browsing from the comfort of their favorite easy chair. Sure beats sitting on those un-comfortable ones down at the FSA office.

Don’t let the free selfies fool you.

Earth observation imagery and data services is an enormous business. According to a Straits Research report, in 2021 the global satellite Earth observation market was valued at $3.58 billion. By 2030, it is projected to more than double at $7.88 billion.

Given what is trending today in economics, society and politics, the industry may hit those numbers much sooner.

First, we had a global pandemic that impacted production and supply chains around the globe. It was Earth observation satellites watching the disruptions in the fields, factories and shipping ports as the Covid-19 lockdowns spread from country to country.

Second, when Russia invaded Ukraine it put the bounty of the “Breadbasket of Europe” at extreme risk. Losses of both production and actual commodity exports have sent societal shock-waves far beyond Kiev and Moscow. Because of satellite imagery we know about one-third of Ukraine’s current corn crop may not be harvested. We will also know the status of whether the grain that was harvested ever makes it on a boat and makes it out of the Black Sea to Lebanon or Egypt. Otherwise, we will watch a global humanitarian crisis unfold before our eyes.

Finally, you have subject of climate change. Translated to government and corporate business speak, that means using the three letter acronym ESG. For us common laymen, that’s short for Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance. ESG criteria is basically a set of standards that serves as sustainability “scorecards” for governments and corporations. Remotely sensed Earth observation is key to monitoring environmental criteria (the “E” in ESG) including identifying sources of water pollution and measuring progress toward sustainability. Farmer translated, the “eyes-in-the-sky” now know whether or not you planted your cover crop for your carbon credit.

From a technology and timing standpoint, satellite imagery is basking in its moment in the sun. Dramatically reduced launch costs thanks to private vendors like Space X, the miniaturization of satellites like Planet’s groundbreaking shoebox-sized “Doves”, plus quantum leaps in cloud computing and artificial intelligence are propelling the earth observation business to deliver capabilities that are far better, faster and cheaper than even just five years ago.

What is becoming clear is that Earth observation satellite technology and related services are quickly extending its lead in the imagery horserace between satellites and drones.

In what seemed like a close race just a few short years ago, satellites have pulled ahead partly because of onerous FAA regulations that have grounded most advancements in agricultural related drone technology. Plus, you can cover a lot more ground at 400 miles up than you can at a maximum altitude of 400 feet.

There are so many names, both new and old, in this space it is hard to keep track of them all. Names like Pixxel, Iceye, Orbital Insight and Planet Watchers are considered the new kids on the block. In particular, Planet Watchers, is noteworthy because of its AI capabilities in estimating crop losses and crop yields. They have already lined up clients ranging from ProAg crop insurance, Nutrien Ag Solutions, The World Bank, and even the EPA.

Tomorrow’s demands for a close eye on agriculture and the health of the planet are likely to only grow.

Plus, every farmer knows that Mother Nature does not rest. Droughts, floods, and derechos are part of the annual song and dance. Add supply chain hiccups and carbon credit verification to the mix and you’ve got a lot more high altitude picture snapping to do.

To appreciate how important Landsat’s technology is, you must consider what also happened in 1972. Ironically, Landsat was launched on the heels of the Soviet Union’s greatest grain crop failure. Although the crop failure was widespread throughout the USSR, the sheer magnitude of the shortfall remained unknown to U.S. governmental officials until months later. The lack of timely global production estimates lead to the USSR being able to purchase massive quantities of U.S. wheat at substantially lower prices than the true market value.

It became known as the great Soviet grain robbery. The Kremlin bought one-fourth of the United State’s wheat harvest in 1972. Domestically, farm prices and consumer food prices skyrocketed. Was this the match that lit the fire of runaway inflation for years to come? That’s one for the eco-nomic and political pundits to debate until the cows come home. Such a global grain failure will not be hidden in darkness like that ever again. With 1,000 eyes-in-the-sky, we can now count every cow and every corn plant in every county, country, and continent in the world. Imagine what might be possible in fifty more years.

Lindsay Corporation Announces Partnership with Ceres Imaging

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 16:18:13 GMT

Lindsay Corporation, a leading global manufacturer and distributor of irrigation and infrastructure equipment and technology, announced a strategic partnership with Ceres Imaging, an Oakland, Calif., provider of high-resolution imagery analytics with support for precision agriculture.

The Ceres Imaging technology will populate high-resolution images in Lindsay’s industry-leading FieldNET platform, which enhances growers’ ability to remotely monitor, control, analyze and apply irrigation recommendations. The addition of Ceres’ imagery and access to its analytics platform will allow growers to monitor and adjust operations based on key indicators of crop performance such as emergence, canopy density, soil composition, water stress and nitrogen content. These indicators will provide valuable insights into crop health in alignment with Lindsay’s smart pivot innovation roadmap and enhance the ability of growers to choose solutions uniquely tailored to their needs.

The data connection between the FieldNET and Ceres Imaging platforms will be two-way, with Ceres imagery provided and shown in the FieldNET platform. In-depth analytics and recommendations, powered by FieldNET data, will also be accessible within the Ceres Imaging platform. Sharing encrypted data with permission of the grower allows the two platforms to work more efficiently and provide custom recommendations for optimal yield while supporting growers’ sustainable farming practices.

“Lindsay is committed to providing the latest technology to growers to help scale their organization and maximize yields,” said Gustavo Oberto, President of Global Irrigation at Lindsay. “The Ceres Imaging offering is a natural addition to the toolkit we provide growers. We are excited about the work Ceres Imaging is doing with high-resolution thermal imaging and analytics today, especially as it pertains to precision irrigation, and the value this partnership will continue to create for our mutual customers. We know that no two fields, no two operations, no two crops are the same, so we are excited to provide our customers this choice among a suite of imaging options compatible with current and future irrigation innovations”

Ashwin Madgavkar, founder of Ceres Imaging, agreed. “Our passion for agriculture and helping growers maximize their potential is at the root of what we do at Ceres. We see that same passion and drive to create innovative solutions and analytics in Lindsay’s product lineup. We’re excited to partner with them and look forward to continued innovation.”

Current FieldNET customers ready to act on this limited time offer should visit www.ceresimaging.net/fieldnet to learn more or to activate their Ceres account.

Intelinair Announces Three Partnerships: Distribution, Features and Technology

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 16:25:00 GMT

Intelinair has made a series of announcements regarding partnerships to expands its AGMRI platform.

To optimize nitrogen use efficiency, Intelinair and Yara North America will pair the nitrogen modeling power of Adapt-N with the analytical power of Intelinair’s AGMRI.

“Through a combination of Intelinair’s AGMRI early season analytics around stand establishment and crop health, coupled with Yara’s Adapt-N science-based nitrogen modeling, we will enhance nitrogen management for corn for the next growing season,” stated Tim Hassinger, Intelinair CEO. “Additionally, through this collaboration nitrogen insights will be automatically generated throughout the growing season and customized to management zones within each field. Farmers can adjust if needed to fit their budget, forecast and management approach.”

Adding tools to its platform has been a focus of Hassinger since he joined as CEO in late 2021.

“Improving economic, agronomic, and environmental outcomes for our customers is paramount at Yara. The integration of Adapt-N with Intelinair’s AGMRI allows automated insights to further refine the Adapt-N model and create improved outcomes for our joint customers,” said Bret Shaw, digital sales and commercialization development manager, Yara North America. “This integration fundamentally changes the way that nitrogen modeling is applied to the corn cropping system, the value this brings to the market will be immediately evident by allowing farmers to adjust their nitrogen needs based on the most accurate and timely data possible.”

With a new multi-year distribution agreement, Aker Technologies and Intelinair are expanding season-long monitoring of every acre. Aker customers will be offered Intelinair high-resolution imagery and analytics.

“Our organization is focused on providing efficiency in monitoring plant health and nutrition. This collaboration adds confidence in the management decisions for our customers by providing more ways to monitor fields with a bird’s eye view,” said Hassinger. “Through this collaboration, customers will gain insights sooner, helping them understand field status and performance, while also providing them the opportunity to take action sooner.”

Aker will offer its TrueCause drone imagery and analytics to Intelinair customers for broader access to full stand and leaf level insights where fixed-wing and high-resolution satellite identify problems in the field.

“Aker’s drone-based digital agronomy tools alongside Intelinair’s satellite analytics is a huge win for farm managers and the industry,” said Orlando Saez, CEO of Aker Technologies. “Growers are looking for easy-to-use actionable tools to improve their farm operations. This collaboration enables a powerful way to inform field task priorities, as well as quantification of stand count, assessment of disease, weed, pest and fertility for better and more profitable crop outcomes.”

The third announcement is that Intelinair plans to use Leaf’s API to better serve its customers.

“Through this collaboration, Intelinair adds more efficiency in integrating with OEM data sets, which allows AGMRI to provide more robust data analytics and insights to our customers,” said Kevin Krieg, Intelinair’s Director of Business Development. “This integration allows farmers and ag retailers to more easily access data and track field performance throughout the growing season which ultimately enables more timely decision making.”

As part of the agreement, Intelinair will use Leaf’s Field Operations and Field Boundary services. The API will help provide more robust and timely insights. The companies say data use will follow user permissioning and agreements.

“We are delighted to have Intelinair join the Leaf ecosystem,” said Bailey Stockdale, CEO and co-founder of Leaf. “It is exciting when a talented team has a clear understanding of how they can use Leaf to deliver new value to their customers and that is exactly what we have seen with Intelinair. We’re excited to see how Intelinair continues to support farmers and their trusted advisors and proud of the role we are able to play with Intelinair and their customer base.”

Syngenta’s New Tool Uses Satellites, Algorithms to Find Nematodes In Soybean Fields

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 20:40:12 GMT

First being launched in Brazil, Syngenta is bringing a new way to battle nematodes, which can cause up to 30% yield losses.

Although nematodes are microscopic, Syngenta has partnered with Gamaya SA (a Swiss tech company) to develop a way satellite imagery can be analyzed using a data algorithm to diagnose infestations.

The digital tool will become part of Syngenta’s Cropwise platform.

“Harmful nematodes that devastate crops are a major threat to farmers and food security, and Syngenta is using cutting-edge digital solutions to help combat these pests,” said Jeff Rowe, President Global Crop Protection. “We are excited to be launching this product in Brazil, and there is great potential to scale this solution to other countries and crops and transform the decision-making capabilities for growers.”

The goal is to use the tool to help farmers not only identify where nematodes are in the field but also dial in field management practices to avoid yield losses and optimize input use.

“At Syngenta, we will continue to invest in machine learning and data science, to develop further breakthrough offers for farmers,” said Feroz Sheikh, Chief Information and Digital Officer of Syngenta Group. “The technology is a great addition to our Cropwise platform, which already digitally connects almost 200 million acres of land, and underlines our commitment to invest in and partner with providers in the AgTech space.”

Syngenta is also launching its next-generation nematicide/fungicide Tymirium. It can applied to the seed and to the soil.

Aerial tech helping California battle drought

Wed, 25 May 2022 13:01:09 GMT

Aerial photography and video have grown in the produce industry. California has begun using aerial technology to achieve long-term solutions to the ongoing drought.

The California Department of Water Resources is using innovative airborne technology to map California’s groundwater basins. The information will help prepare for the future fight for water in the state, according to the department’s website.

Helicopter-based technology scans the subsurface of the ground. It’s been likened to taking an MRI of the earth, a news release said.

The technology gathers information about the state’s groundwater aquifer structure to support the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act . The act created a statewide framework to help protect groundwater resources over the long term, the website said.

The technology will allow scientists to see beneath the ground’s surface in order to give agencies important information in the fight for water in future droughts. The data collected will be used to create continuous images that allow people to see what the underground aquifers look like.

In the Salinas Valley of California, surveys have been completed, said the release. Surveys will be complete in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys in the summer of 2022. And the results will be ready around the end of 2022.

“The data collected during these surveys will provide a better understanding of California’s groundwater systems, and in turn, support more informed and sustainable groundwater management and drought preparedness,” Steven Springhorn, Sustainable Groundwater Management Act technical assistance manager at the California Department of Water Resources, said in the release.

The survey data will create an image of the subsurface to a depth of about 1,000 feet below the ground surface. The image provides information about large-scale aquifer structures and geology, the release added.

Imagery Helps Maximize Limited Fungicide Applications In 2022

Mon, 02 May 2022 21:27:13 GMT

For seven years, the team at Evergreen FS has been exploring and refining the potential to use imagery for agronomic decisions with its Agtrinsic platform. And now after a multi-year partnership to bring advanced disease predictions to row crops in the Midwest, Agtrinsic and Ceres Imaging are bringing forward the Field Disease Risk product as part of the platform.

“We think this is a unique proactive way to assess disease risk and disease developments in the season to change the way fungicides can be applied,” says Matt Free agronomy department manager at Evergreen FS. “We don’t want to ever default to say, ‘you need to apply a fungicide.’ We want to use data, artificial intelligence and boots on the ground to drive decisions---beyond just selling product.”

The Field Disease Risk product on the Agtrinsic platform has four steps:

Agtrinsic monitors for regional disease risk through its network.
When Agtrinsic flags a region as high risk for disease pressure through AI technology, it triggers a field level analysis by Ceres Imaging.
Ceres Imaging combines satellite data and its patented algorithms to assess disease risk at a farm and field level as part of its Field Disease Risk solution.
Ceres Imaging then delivers a fungicide recommendation in the Agtrinsic app. The recommendation includes:

Which pathogens are of greatest concern.
A low, medium or high score based on field level disease risk.
A flat or variable rate fungicide application recommendation for the best return on investment.

The combined solution was deployed on 100,000 acres in Illinois in 2021. As a retailer dealing with tight supply chain inventory, Free says it is especially timely to be able to use this technology across a large geography.

“You may only have one chance to apply a fungicide this year,” Free says, referencing specifically the tight fungicide availability of 2022. “We need to help farmers protect the yield out there and give the plants the best chance to increase yields. With how the weather patterns are already setting up for the growing season, we want to give farmers the best chance for the best outcome. If you can tell 10 days before the disease pressure really sets in, that could be the decision that leads to success.”

Kirk Stueve, PhD, Remote Sensing & Precision Agronomy With Ceres Imaging says this application of technology provides an enhanced view of disease pressure, a possible reduction of input costs, and overall gives a strong example of how technology assists agronomic in-season decisions.

“Imagery has been around ag for a long time, and scientific grade imagery was at the heart of our company’s formative years. Now we are able to transition to a precision agriculture solutions company connecting value to pixels. We are able to now layer data, funnel data sources and provide in-season intelligence to deliver growers actionable information,” Stueve says.

The product can be used on corn and soybeans. At Evergreen FS, Free reports great success in monitoring annual disease problems such as gray leaf spot and rusts, but also Agtrinsic has had success in monitoring and managing emerging diseases such as tar spot.

He also shares that the use of the Agtrinsic app has improved communication with customers.

“The dashboard allows us to communicate with customers differently. Customers get a text when a crop scout leaves a field or when imagery has detected an important issue. And they can communicate back and forth with their adviser on the app,” he says.

In addition to the disease monitoring and prescriptions, Agtrinsic also has functionality with replant decisions via its stand count application.

“This is about helping customers make better decisions and providing additional validation. Our scouts are able to spot issues out in the field, go out and validate the problems. Having strong relationships with farmers is what our business is about. And we want to help them make tough decisions in tough times. This platform allows them to make better decisions and make more money,” Free says.

Scouting Tool, Customer Engagement And Sales Prospecting Rolled Into One

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 14:00:00 GMT

Intelinair has incorporated its ongoing ag retailer research and product development to introduce the AGMRI Enterprise Platform. This enhanced version of the AGMRI platform provides up-to-date and aggregated views of customer fields.

As Kevin Krieg, Director of Product Marketing for Intelinair explains this is a next generation in the offering of the AGMRI product.

“We just finished the in-depth testing with retailers on this product, and as has been our process, their feedback and really helped drive the improvements and new features we are offering,” Krieg says.

New features include:

Dashboard - quick access to all customer fields, a list of the worst fields through a holistic view of all challenges and then ability to filter and see weed pressure, emergence, yield risk and nutrient deficiency.

“The dashboard brings all of the functionality of AGMRI into one location and serves retailers the way they are structured to view,” he says. “So sales agronomists see just their farmer accounts. And sales managers see a rolled up view of all accounts.”

In the dashboard, account holders are able to view alerts for fields as well as assign farmers as “Favorites” to show their alerts in a prioritized order.

“This gives retailers a task list. It’s what needs attention right now, and it helps them keep evolving and developing issues top of mind,” Krieg says.

Virtual Scout - a bird’s-eye view of the field layered with Intelinair technology to see issues before the naked eye could see them.

“This gives retailers efficiency in how they use their in-field scouting,” Krieg says. “It’s not about replacing boots in the field, but rather allowing retailers to send those boots to exactly where the issues are developing before they become even bigger problems. It can give them a head start.”

Another feature available on AGMRI is a prospecting tool that is unlocked at an elevated subscription level. This allows an account holder to switch views from their farmer account fields to be the surrounding fields with third-party farmer/owner information.

“The Prospect Tab is being used by about 35 to 40% of our accounts today. It’s a lead generating tool for that retailer to show how they are monitoring agronomic issues and can take those opportunities to prospective farmer accounts,” Krieg says.

The AGMRI and AGMRI Enterprise platforms are supported by either in-season aerial imagery or satellite imagery. Aerial imagery is available in select areas of Illinois and Indiana, and satellite imagery is available in the U.S. and Canada.

The Scoop Podcast: Layers Of Technology Uncover Higher Yields

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 15:01:58 GMT

Ethan Noll, Digital Ag Team Lead, at Ag Partners Co-op joins the podcast to share how he works to help farmers use technology to raise higher yields and improve input use.

Tell us about your role at digital ag team lead.

It really consists of two things.

One: digital ag. I essentially use technology to solve customer’s problems, make them more efficient in the field, and more productive–all by using technology.

Then there’s the team lead part. What that really is helping to combine the knowledge and skills of each of our team members and bringing that together so the product is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s really just bringing that team together, using their skills and just making it all run smooth. We really have talented individuals that bring a lot to our company and I’m fortunate to get to help lead them in that digital ag realm.

You have a background as a soil scientist and a background in agronomy how does that inform your role in digital agriculture?

For soils, it’s really the basis of everything underground. Whether that’s nutrients, soil texture, water availability, or restrictive layers they are all the foundation of everything we do. An understanding of that really lays the groundwork for everything in agronomy.

But the other thing is spatial analysis. What I learned as a soil scientist out in Northwest Wyoming really directs what we do here. That’s where does water flow, how does the slope and shape affect it, how does water move, what’s the depth of the topsoil? And so all this affects yield.

We can use this knowledge to change things like populations or amount of nutrients applied and which nutrients were applied and where and which hybrids to use, where weeds are going to be, which insecticide touse and where.

Soil is really dynamic, and just understanding how everything affects everything within a soil is similar to what’s happening above ground too. There’s just a lot of cause and effect in agronomy and understanding those causes and effects lends a hand to all that site specific agriculture that we work on.

So you’re really charged with providing like the so what to farmers, right? What technologies are you finding value in today.

We’re using Taranis for scouting. And Taranis is really the basis of what we’re able to do with Rantizo. So Taranis takes a picture every acre on the field. So we can really identify pressures by the nutrient deficiencies, insect pressure, where they are within a field. If we know where they are within a field, we can be site specific with our applications with Rantizo. If we know there’s weeds in an area, we’ll just spray Roundup over that area rather than over the whole field. And Roundup is really expensive right now because of supply shortages. And so that’s a big deal.

We’re also using looking at a company called Sentinel Irrigation technologies. They’re using imagery through drones and satellite imagery to identify where nitrogen deficiencies are within a field under pivot or any kind of irrigation. So by being able to identify where the nutrient deficiencies are, and by how much their algorithms tell us how much fertilizer to apply, when we go to fertigate that crop and they found customers are saving about an average of $29 an acre and in many cases, you’re going to find a lot greater if the customer’s really over applying and trying to push that crop. We’ve found that the nitrogen use efficiency has increased significantly, almost in every case.

What do you share with those who are skeptical about technology?

In the last 30 years, we’ve seen the focus on scaling up to bigger equipment, a centralization of facilities, and that’s made customers a lot more efficient. And really what we’re doing is scaling down–farming by the foot. And so if the customers are really focused in on maximizing their efficiency, my goal is to really scale down to that foot rather than just the whole field of the whole farm. Because the savings are significant, whether it’s variable rate fertilizer, variable rate planting, and then maximizing those yields, maximizing the return on investment. If I really focus on the return on investment that really opens the customer’s eyes to what we’re doing. Because everything we’d really do is about return on investment and money talks. And that’s really how I get to those farmers are skeptical about what we are doing.

What do you think the future of digital agriculture looks like?

I talked about scaling down. And I think that’s going to be the future. And I think we’re going to do that with sensors and autonomy.

Sensors are going to allow us to know what’s going on within our field at any given time and sensors on our pivots, planters and combines. I think we’re going to see more of that. And then just sensors for scouting purposes. That’s going to allow us to farm by the foot.

Then autonomy is going to allow us to get the nutrients and products where we need them, whether that’s through a drone like what we’re doing with Rantizo or whether that’s through some kind of autonomous machine.

You can’t do one without the other. You have to have the scouting to have a site specific application. And if you don’t have site specific application, then what’s the point of having really focused scouting?

You can hear the full interview on The Scoop Podcast . He talks about:

data privacy and usage agreements
challenges in the year ahead
his words for those in the early years of their career in ag retail
and more

Click here to listen to The Scoop podcast.

Intelinair Names New CEO and President

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 17:23:00 GMT

Intelinair announced today that Tim Hassinger has been named CEO & President of IntelinAir, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of Directors, effective January 3, 2022. Hassinger succeeds company co-founder Al Eisaian, who has served as CEO & President of the company and Chairman of its Board of Directors since 2015. Eisaian will continue to serve on the board of directors for Intelinair.

Under Eisaian’s leadership, Intelinair has been recognized for its industry-leading innovation with its flagship product AGMRI®. Over his 30+ year career, Eisaian has worked on a string of startups and most recently co-founded and led Intelinair.

“I am extremely pleased to have Tim assume leadership of our growing agtech company,” said Eisaian. “Tim brings more than three decades of agricultural industry experience and a proven track record in leading global agricultural businesses – accelerating innovation and growth. Tim takes over at an exciting time as the business is well positioned to execute our long-term strategy and drive growth for Intelinair.”

Tim Hassinger Biography

Hassinger brings more than 37 years of experience in the agricultural industry. He has been the CEO of two other companies in recent years – first with Dow AgroSciences, the Indianapolis-based agricultural subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, followed by Lindsay Corporation of Omaha, Neb. Hassinger joined Dow AgroSciences in 1984 where he held a number of sales, supply chain, marketing, and management roles over 33 years. He was named President and CEO of Dow AgroSciences in 2014 and served in that capacity until mid-2017. From 2017-2021, Hassinger was President and CEO of Lindsay Corporation. In addition to Intelinair’s board, Hassinger serves as a Board Member for AGDATA, LP. He was raised on a farm in Central Illinois and earned a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois. He was named National Agri-Marketing Association’s (NAMA) 2021 Agribusiness Leader of the Year.

“I am excited to join Intelinar as its next CEO,” said Hassinger. “I’ve had the pleasure of serving as a member of the Intelinair board of directors over the past 10 months, and I am looking forward to leading Intelinair through its next chapter of growth.”