So just what is the state of the ag tech market in California?
Let’s talk through the mall … in our case, represented by AgAlert, the newspaper for California agriculture published weekly by the California Farm Bureau Federation.
In a recent issue in July, right there on page one (both Web and print, BTW) is a prime example of high-tech innovation: targeted grazing by goats!
Wait … what?
Just “kidding” (get it?), but turn to page 3 and we read about drones and the “new options for on-farm aerial imaging.” Back on the ground, a translation for you — drones let the farmer see things she cannot see from the windshield of her pickup.
Drones enable precision agriculture, connecting plant stress sensors with pest detection and irrigation infrastructure to deliver inputs at the plant level at the right time. Ideally … when there is wireless … but that’s another conversation.
Move on to page 7, a simple device called a spore collector. It’s a small metal rod, about the size of a sewing needle, that uses a sticky coating to grab powdery mildew spores out of thin air.
Where’s the tech? This is where ag tech developers come in — finding opportunity in your customers’ newspaper of record. Right now, those microscopic spores have to be taken to a lab for DNA analysis. It takes time and money. What if the spores could be analyzed by the rod?
My favorite is on page 14, for a couple of reasons: It combines existing ag technologies into a single device. It does relational analytics that are immediately useful. It has reduced in price from about $10,000 to the $300-$500 range.
“It” is a mini climate station, and nothing is more essential to a farmer than the climate in his orchard or fields. The device measures evapotranspiration, adds specific crop coefficients and provides the farmer with the water need data to guide irrigation. Not for the whole orchard, or a single row of tomatoes, but for the area the farmer targets.
Add an infrared radiometer to measure the plant canopy temperature, and you’d have a comprehensive field data set … that just needs analytics. Hmmmm. …
California is the ag tech proving ground. It is a planet-leading operating environment with farmers, regulators and researchers — all evaluating your products.
