Detecting Crop Disease Early

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

By the time symptoms of disease are observable in a crop, potential yield may already be effected. But what if there was a way to be notified earlier about crop diseases? InnerPlant is working with soybeans to detect disease even before they are observable to trained the human eye. Chief Commercial Officer Gary Schaefer says the crop can do the talking, and through genetics and imagery, humans are now able to listen.

Schaefer… “ So the core technology really relies upon our ability to tap into the specific genes in the plant that turn on or are activated when that plant is under stress. So much like you and I for example, if we are going to get a cold, our immune system is already responding before you and I are coughing and sniffling and have a headache, right? And the plant's really no different. We tap into the genes so that the second that plant is infected, those genes are activated to try and fight off this disease and protect the plant from it. Essentially, what we do is we code the plant–by knowing those genes–we code the plant to emit an optical signal that we're able to detect. We could detect that signal from space. We could also do it with drones and we could also detect that signal even at the ground level–so something on a tractor. Or in the case of our CropVoice plots, we actually deploy stationary devices over these plots that image them just about every hour of the day.”

InnerPlant launched the CropVoice insights platform to send alerts to farmers when disease is detected in nearby fields.