Ukko Agro Brings Data to Pest and Disease Forecasting

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

Technology providers are getting better and better at providing data to farmers that can be actionable. Ukko Agro is a predictive analytics company that analyzes data to provide in-season pest and disease forecasts so that growers can make more informed decisions. Ketan Kaushish is the company’s CEO.

Kaushish… “A very simple decision, like, should I go spray for tar spot in my corn on field 45. Right? I mean, you know, it starts with, if I should do it at all. And the next thing is when and where. And a lot of times making that decision and trying to figure out when can I get it done? How do I change my operations? When does my machine need to be there? Do I have the labor to do it? Do I have the product to do it? Those are the kind of questions that touch the farmers. And then it's the exact same question that the ag input retailers would ask as well. Right?”

Kaushish said pest and disease forecasting is just the beginning of their offerings to growers and retailers.

Kaushish… “The vision mission of the company is to build predictive models for crop health. And that would touch not just disease and insect, but we all know soil is a completely different animal when it comes to building predictive models for nutrient topic or irrigation. So we are actively working on that, but I would say we are about a couple of years away before we start looking into building algorithms into nutrient uptake or forecasting irrigation or forecasting carbon. We were looking into those, but what's commercialized today is more on the insect and disease side.”

Learn more at Ukko.ag.