How Will New AI Systems Impact Agriculture?
March 29, 2023 I remember when I started covering the ag industry back in 2000, the initials “a.i.” always stood for “active ingredients.” Today, however, these same initials are just as likely to stand for the abbreviation for “artificial intelligence” when someone is talking about agriculture. And market watchers can expect more such developments in this latter area, in 2023 and beyond.
Over the past few years, one of the highlights of the ag technology world has been the introduction of “smart systems” for the application market. In fertilizer, this led to the development and market debut of such units as the OmniPower 3200 from Raven Industries. Not to be outdone, John Deere was quick to introduce its See & Spray Ultimate System, allowing self-propelled sprayers to spot apply herbicides during application work by “instantly identifying weeds vs. desired plants.”
And more such systems are on the way. At the 2022 Commodity Classic, BASF announced the company was working in partnership with Raven and Bosch to launch an AI system of its own called Smart Spraying. This system is now being extensively tested in Europe. A few weeks back, CNH Industrial – the parent company of Raven, Case IH, and New Holland – announced that it had completed the purchase of a company called Augmenta. The company’s variable rate application solution uses a real-time sensor to process field conditions and automatically apply the right amount of product for nitrogen, plant growth regulators, and fungicide applications using real-time data collection. The system utilizes camera vision and AI to accomplish this.
Loading ...“Augmenta’s unique AI and vision-based perception technologies add a new, distinct value and scalability to Raven’s industry-leading technologies,” said John Preheim, Vice President of Product Development, regarding the acquisition. “We look forward to adding innovative Sense & Act capabilities to our products.”
So, for fans of AI in agriculture, the next few months and years promise to be some interesting times for the evolution of these kinds of systems. I would imagine many of them will be on display (or at least be discussed at length) at this year’s Tech Hub LIVE event, to be held July 24-26 in Des Moines, IA.
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