Over 32 trillion data points give growers solid environmental intelligence
Autogrow, a leading global ag tech company, has announced their strategy to use trillions of available growing data points to help their growers’ crop production.
“Due to the unique nature of our architecture, over 32 trillion data points flow through our systems each year which would be one of the most substantial collections for indoor agriculture to date. Data is king when it comes to innovation but what you do with it is the key,” says CEO Darryn Keiller.
“The tricky part is, like most systems, a lot of the data generated contains noise. To date, our processing algorithm has filtered and stored over six billion data points which are then ingested by our state-of-the-art data pipeline, and analyzed by our scientists for our customers.”
“Our strategy is to orchestrate the data to make it meaningful for our growers, giving them deeper insight into their crop environments’, revealing critical factors of crop cycle and seasonality, to enable smarter decisions and better outcomes.”
Data is currently sourced from Autogrow’s MultiGrowTM, AphaeaTM, IntelliDoseTM and IntelliClimateTM control systems and, depending on the system being run, collates microclimate data every 3-5 seconds including air temperature, humidity, light levels, CO2, pH and nutrient levels as well as local macroclimate data.
The richness of the data is enormous spanning a vast array of produce, floriculture and arboreal plant nurseries in greenhouses, urban farms and protected cropping systems in over 40 countries.
Each grower can access their own data via the cloud or the controller at any time with enterprise level security in place, but the biggest challenge for the grower is seeing past the large quantity of data to the quality insight.
Autogrow’s Director of Crop Science and Agronomy, Dr Tharindu Weeraratne notes that information gathered gives a true reflection of how the plants are responding to their environment and what the optimum levels are for increased yields with high quality and consistency.
“All the factors involved including external and internal climate, plant biology, nutrient requirements, technology usage and how everything interacts together is vital. Add in the effects of consumer needs, geopolitical factors and climate change, and those leafy greens or tomatoes are more complex than most consumers realize.”
“There are a few factors that can’t be controlled with crop production but by gaining knowledge and understanding of those factors you do have control over, it’s really the first step to true innovation and business growth.”
Agritecture is also excited to announce that Autogrow will be a featured sponsor of the AgLanta Conference, highlighting their extensive experience with hardware and data for Smart Agriculture. They will headline the Smart Resource Management topic for the event.
AgLanta 2018, on March 27th-28th, will feature two packed days of workshops and panels covering a range of critical Smart City topics—each with a particular focus on the many roles Smart Agriculture will play in making cities more efficient, resilient, and sustainable.
Autogrow #CropsOnMars Hackathon Sees Duckweed Solution Take 1st Place
7 November 2017, San Francisco: Hackathon team ‘Just Food’ and their innovative solution for utilizing the aquatic plant duckweed, took the win Sunday night at the inaugural 2017 Autogrow #CropsOnMars Hackathon.
Photo (above): Back row (L-R) – Judges: Andrew Scheurmann, Dr Ioana Cozmuta, Dr. Nate Storey, Jeffrey Law, Dr Rosie Bosworth, Greg Chiocco. Front row team ‘Just Food’(L-R) Michelle Jia, Wyatt Smith, Zandra Vinegar, Deger Turan and Santiago Perez.
Global ag-tech company Autogrow acknowledged the solution was incredibly well thought out, achievable and original.
“The team did an impressive job researching how they could not only grow duckweed in a challenging environment but how it could realistically sustain life on Mars,” said Autogrow CEO Darryn Keiller.
“The judges all agreed that, while duckweed wasn’t the most appetizing food source, they couldn’t argue with the nutrient value or the innovative prototype of super thin LED lit grow beds they had created.”
‘Just Food’ and nine other teams hacked for two days on software, data or design solutions involving plant biology, controlled environment agriculture and the Mars environment. The judges looked for originality, sustainability, scalability and the potential for reproducibility on Earth.
Teams had the support of mentors and event organizers Autogrow and Silicon Valley Forum over the two days.
“I was privileged to be a mentor covering all aspects of plant biology and lighting. It was also great hackers had access to other mentors from NASA, IBM, Microsoft, Plenty, Orange Silicon Valley and Western Growers to name a few. And of course, the support of event partner Silicon Valley Forum who found a wonderful venue to hack. Like plants, people thrive in the right environment and we had a great growing environment,” said Autogrow Director of Crop Science and Agronomy Tharindu Weeraratne.
The race for the win was so tight that two teams took the runner up slot with one advocating collapsible growth chambers and the other a rapid deployable enclosure to be set up prior to astronaut arrival using robotic technology.
Mr Keiller noted that although teams were competing against each other there was an impressive amount of support for one another.
“The Hackers (predominantly millennials) gave us great hope for the future due to their creativity, their outlook to the future and to put things right for our planet’s ecosystem while meeting the needs of our growing population.”
“As organizers of the event, the most unexpected and visceral emotion of the collective teams was the spirit of unity around the daunting challenge we put in front of them. Here were people from perhaps 20 nations; students, startup founders, academics and business owners, all coming together to do something that was substantially beyond any one of them. The strength of their ideas was in their diversity as people and their willingness to collaborate.”
With the success of the inaugural event under their belt, Autogrow will announce new dates early in the year for the next #CropsOnMars hackathon, likely to be scheduled for late 2018 and held in Silicon Valley.
WINNING TEAM ‘JUST FOOD’
Wyatt Smith
Michelle Jia
Deger Turan
Santiago Perez
Zandra Vinegar
JUDGING PANEL
Dr. Nate Storey, Chief Science Officer – Plenty
Jeffrey Law, Chief Technology Officer – Autogrow
Dr Ioana Cozmuta, Industry Engagement, Commercial Space Partnerships – NASA
Andrew Scheurmann, CEO – Arch Systems
Greg Chiocco, Director of Product Management - Climate Corporation
Dr Rosie Bosworth, Strategic Communications – Sustain Ltd
MENTORS
Bilind Hajer, Data Engenieer - Product School
Tobi Ogunaikee, Software Engineer
Isabel Chamberlain, Compliance Specialist and Grower - Plenty
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Making Urban Ag Happen in LA – A Gathering of Thinkers & Leaders
Agritecture recently had the pleasure to attend an Urban and Indoor Agriculture event in Los Angeles. Hosted by Local Roots and organized by the Larta Institute - we very much enjoyed the evening of networking, touring, and our community manager Andrew Blume even had the chance to speak during the open MIC session about his volunteer work with the Association for Vertical Farming.
We were going to write a recap of the event, but our friend JIM PANTALEO from Urban Ag News wrote such a nice write-up, we figured we would share his words.
ORIGINAL SOURCE HERE ON URBAN AG NEWS
I recently had the opportunity to attend an event in Los Angeles hosted by urban farm start-up, Local Roots Farms. It was sponsored by the Larta Institute, Indoor Ag Con and Autogrow Systems.
The Larta Institute’s mission is “to energize the transformation of technology ideas into solutions that elevate economic opportunities and make lives better for people around the world.” And digging deeper, the Larta Institute’s Global Ag Innovation Network (GAIN) is a national forum of thinkers and leaders in the agriculture innovation community that utilizes the network to stimulate the creation and implementation of solutions to pressing challenges across current food and agriculture value chains.
Dr. Claire Kinlaw of Larta Institute
With over 100 of those “thinkers and leaders” gathered on a balmy October evening at Local Roots Farms, the Larta Institute is certainly capturing the essence of their mission. On this night, Dr. Claire Kinlaw, Larta’s Director of Agriculture Practice, moderated a panel of indoor agriculture experts which included: Nicola Kerslake of the well-known industry-gatherer, Indoor Ag Con and investment adviser from Newbean Capital; Kelley Nicholson of Autogrow Systems; and Local Roots’ co-founder, Eric Ellestad. Together they fielded questions from the audience which crossed a number of spectrums in the indoor Ag world, including everything from the safety of the plastic used in manufacturing NFT’s (nutrient film techniques) to grow plants in to inquiries from those seeking funding for their Ag start-ups.
Local Roots Farms Founders – L to R: Matt Vail, Eric Ellestad and Daniel Kuenzi
Among the notable crowd was Henry Gordon-Smith (see the Association for Vertical Farming and AGRITECTURE), and a student contingent from Cal Poly Pomona’s School of Agriculture, led by Department of Plant Science professor, Eileen Cullen.
Local Roots Farms’ first container (now located with others at their new facility in Vernon, CA)
Claire Fox, Executive Director of LA’s Food Policy Council detailed their mission of acting as “a collective impact initiative working to build a Good Food system for all Los Angeles residents — where food is healthy, affordable, fair and sustainable.”
Claire Kinlaw relayed her pleasure and excitement at the larger-than-expected turnout, “This is about community justice – people want to know where their food comes from.”
Nicola Kerslake was even more vocal. “This is an awesome event with Larta getting it right in terms of the roles of government and economic development.”
Standing room only at Local Roots Farms
Kelley Nicholson from Autogrow Systems noted, “It is exciting to see all the passionate people exploring Urban Ag… for years I have been supporting indoor farmers and it was great to get everyone together to share their experiences and expertise. Working together, we will make Urban Ag in Los Angeles a real possibility!”
Kelley Nicholson (right) of Autogrow Systems sharing knowledge
Eric Ellestad was energized by the “inspiring, diverse and robust crowd” and is “excited that Local Roots Farms is an integral part of the movement” bringing indoor agriculture to Los Angeles and beyond.
Local Roots Farms, in particular, holds a special spot in my heart, and I owe a literary shout-out to their COO, Matt Vail, as he was the very first person to allow me into their initial container for a tour back in late 2014. I remember meeting Matt at the KISS (rock band) restaurant, Rock & Brews in Redondo Beach (his choice) for lunch. I immediately sensed not only was this a smart dude, but that he was going to make a real difference in the world of precision agriculture and indoor farming. The container was housed in an industrial lot around the corner from SpaceX in Hawthorne and my pupils dilated upon entering the inner sanctum of butter lettuce bathed in pink LED lights. Indeed, time has proven me right in that Local Roots Farms has not only grown in employees and containers but they are also supplying produce to the likes of Tender Greens, SpaceX and Mendocino Farms, to name but a few of their marquee customers.
The key themes of this night were about community justice, bringing passionate people together for a shared cause, elevating economic opportunities and making the world a better place. In the view of many, myself included, this is what it’s all about. For this, you’ve got to love LA.
