Upstream Ag Insights - August 7th 2023

Essential curated news for agribusiness professionals

August 07, 2023 • Read Time: 10 minutes

Welcome to the 180th Edition of Upstream Ag Insights!

Index for the week:

  1. Integration of Engineering, Software, and Artificial Intelligence in Precision Spraying: A Follow-up Through the Lens of Greeneye Technologies

  2. Can Microbes Replace Synthetic Fertilizer?

  3. Lindsay Announces Acquisition of FieldWise

  4. ZoomAgri lands $6m from GrainCorp and others to expand AI-powered grain inspection system.

  5. Cloud Computing: Reshaping the Ag Industry

  6. AgMeta — New crop protection and seed data-driven platform that enables commercial teams to plan better, target, and track sales

  7. The Right Net Means the Right Price: The Challenge for Enterprise Scale Ag

  8. Todd-conversations with Walt Duflock on AgTech

  9. The Evolution of Gene-Edited Crops

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Your Competitors Already Are.

The term “Tech Stack” originated in the software development community as a set of technologies an organization uses to build a web or mobile application. It is a combination of programming languages, frameworks, libraries, patterns, servers, UI/UX solutions, software, and tools its developers use.

It has progressed to be a set of technologies an organization uses to build differentiation in its company or products.

In Winning in the Ag Machinery Space: Integrated Tech Stacks and Precision Technology, I touched on the advantages in equipment and precision agriculture of having a fully integrated tech stack to deliver differentiated performance and outcomes at the field level:

This integrated line of thinking was reinforced as I read about Greeneye this week and what they are doing to achieve better outcomes. While Greeneye does not make machines, making them modular in terms of fitting onto various brands of sprayers— their system itself is highly integrated, and it becomes apparent how this integration is essential to deliver better outcomes with precision spraying.

The emphasis is always on cost savings for precision sprayers or spray reduction, which is one component. Still, I believe other important considerations lead to the total performance of precision spraying, such as:

  • Resistance management

  • Total weed control (efficacy)

  • Crop stress management

The integrated nature influences all of these, and I was reminded of that in reading Greeneye Makes Impressive Debut from world-renowned spray expert Tom Wolf.

This week in Upstream Ag Professional I go through how the integration of various parts on a sprayer work to deliver cost savings and performance in the realm of precision spraying.

2. Can Microbes Replace Synthetic Fertilizer? - Chemical and Engineering News

Crop-agnostic, nitrogen-fixing biological products have huge potential in agriculture.

Crops like corn or wheat fixing even a portion of their Nitrogen needs can increase yields and quality, decrease deleterious environmental impacts and streamline logistical costs and time across a farm operation by minimizing application needs.

The agribusiness and venture capital world knows the potential.

The maker of the nitrogen-fixing product ProveN 40, Pivot Bio has raised over $617 million.

Sound Agriculture, the maker of Source, has raised over $170 million.

Kula Bio (a pre-commercial organization) has raised over $74 million.

Corteva Agriscience purchased biological company Symborg in 2022 ( for an undisclosed amount), a company whose most prominent product has the active ingredient Methylobacterium symbioticum, a nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

Developing a crop-agnostic, nitrogen-fixing product is incredibly challenging, though. As early as 1917, scientists attempted to cultivate the rhizobia from legumes and inoculate these into other crop species. However, none of these attempts to transfer the complex root nodule to non-legume plants has succeeded.

For more into what microbial companies are working to overcome, what the science says today and much more subscribe to Upstream Ag Professional.

Lindsay Corporation has acquired FieldWise, LLC, an agricultural technology company focusing on precision irrigation solutions.

FieldWise specializes in providing agricultural producers and service providers with solutions enabling remote monitoring and intelligent control of critical assets around their farm, such as mechanized irrigation applications.

For more background on how this fits the Lindsay strategy and why it can benefit their business, subscribe to Upstream Ag Professional.

ZoomAgri has raised a $6 million series A round for its hardware-software system that digitizes the inspection and traceability process for agricultural commodities. The round brings ZoomAgri’s total funding to date to $11 million.

The compelling part about ZoomAgri is that they are operating in an area with a major challenge: consistency.

To learn more about their business model, target customer base and background on why they are operating in a space with plenty of opportunity, check out Upstream Ag Professional.

Cloud computing has revolutionized the technology landscape by providing numerous benefits that drive innovation and accelerate technological advancement. One key advantage is the cost savings it offers. By leveraging cloud services, businesses and individuals can reduce upfront infrastructure costs as they no longer need to invest in expensive hardware and software. Instead, they can access computing resources on-demand and pay only for the resources they use, resulting in significant cost savings.

Kynetec’s recently launched first-in-class SaaS platform ″AgMeta″ helps sales managers overcome the ever-challenging problem of accessing useful forward-looking data to enable them to confidently manage their teams at sales territory level.

This week in Upstream Ag Professional I highlight integration opportunities and the upside in this new offering from Kynetec.

This article nails it in terms of challenges surrounding the execution around programs— and optimizing the information flow to maximize the outcomes for retails surrounding programs.

It’s impossible to listen to or read anything from Walt Duflock and not learn a ton about agribusiness.

I recently listened to him on this podcast where he shared his vast array of knowledge and insights regarding the venture investment landscape, robotics and labor, CEA and much more.

Notably, this podcast host is very knowledgable (and brings personality) as well, which made this a great listen.

I recently listened to the above Bloomberg podcast with the CEO of Cibus that was well done.

I think gene editing is a huge value unlock for agriculture when it comes to navigating many of the challenges of crop production— pest control, water use efficiency, nitrogen fixation, and more.

I consider it core to enabling regenerative agriculture practices at scale. There are still apprehensions among U.S. adults, but overall the perception is much more positive than “GMO”.

Non Ag Article

Big Ideas 2023 - Ark Invest

If you are interested in novel technologies, Ark Invest goes through a swath of them in their 2023 Big Ideas report.

The topics include:

  • technological convergence

  • digital wallets

  • artificial intelligence

  • Smart contracts

  • Molecular diagnostics

  • Precision therapies

  • Robotics and 3-D printing

  • Aerospace

and more.

Other Ag Articles