Organisation Name: MPT AgTech
Name: David Finlay
Website: http://www.mpt.ag
Category:
Precision Agriculture & Predictive Data Analytics
Pitch:
This ‘Smart Seeder’ technology measures the properties of the soil in real-time while seeding, and using on-board Edge-Artificial Intelligence, is able to optimise itself for best seed placement. This helps overcome the challenges of soil quality variations across a property, which sees a third of seeds placed too deep and a third placed too shallow on the average farm.
The Problem And How You Are Solving It:
Natural variations are inherent to agriculture. When it comes to soil moisture, a whole raft of variables affect the outcomes: Rainfall, Soil Type, Aspect, Wind, Sun etc. Standard seeding equipment doesn’t know where these changes are either, meaning potentially a 3rd of the seeds are placed too deep, and a 3rd are placed too shallow.
This means that a 3rd of the crop will suffer from late emergence, and another 3rd may not emerge at all. Our ‘Smart Seeder’ is measuring the properties of the soil in real-time while seeding, and using onboard Edge-AI, is able to optimise itself for best seed placement.
Business Description:
We have been designing Ag equipment for around 20 years. Recently we have seen this equipment getting much bigger, and breaking. So we went looking for a better way, and when we spoke to farmers, they told us stories of not only the huge fuel burn but also the variations they knew of within the soil. We were on a mission to resolve these issues, and not only did we find this smart
solution, but we also found research papers that suggested we could potentially increase crop yield by around 10% by doing do.
