New advances in AI and technology and the possibilities that these developments could bring to the produce industry were the central focus of the Produce Marketing Association (PMA)'s webinar “The Transformational Potential of AI in Agriculture”.

This latest installment in PMA's Virtual Town Hall series was moderated by Vonnie Estes, VP of technology at PMA, and featured Dr. Elliot Grant, general manager of Project Mineral at X Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory, as the speaker.

According to Dr. Grant, X set out to develop machines that could perceive plants in the same way that humans are able to.

“If you think about our daily lives in agriculture, everything from planting and growing and picking and breeding, making decisions about pest control,” he said, “These all rely very heavily on human perception, which is something that machines have historically just not been able to do.”

“The plant world is so complex that, you know this is not something that is easy for a machine to do like a human does it naturally. So that was the problem we out to tackle.

This has led to a series of robots around the world with the ability to image crops “from the moment of emergence all the way through to maturity”. 

“What these machines do is collect billions of images and the images become the raw material for machine learning,” said Grant. “So with these billions of images, we can now reconstruct a machine understanding of the plant world and every stage of growth.”

He said that the machines have been used on a variety of crops including small grains such as oats, wheat, and soybeans, as well as produce such as leafy greens and berries.

Grant added that the machines allow factors such as plant volume, growth rate, and biomass to be recorded. Additionally, their location accuracy makes them capable of tracking a single plant even in a densely planted field. 

“I can have a field with a million plants in it, but individually identify every plant and monitor its growth over time,” he stated.

“If you're a crop reader this is very exciting because now you can understand how a plant is responding to the environment and our vision of the future is why shouldn't a grower manages every single plant individually and give each plant what it really needs?”

Dr. Grant stated that X is working to bring the capabilities of this technology to the industry in partnership with other companies.

Reportedly, the goal is to be able to harness the power of perception and run it through the fields at speed via the use of field equipment, opening up an array of possibilities from being able to extract information in real-time. 

Grant added that this technology has the ability to objectively do tasks that historically been done subjectively by experts, ultimately helping the experts to make better decisions.

He also spoke of the potential for applications, posing the question of what would be possible with the ability to download power-of-your-hand plant perception to a mobile phone, so that the holder could scan a field, and extract crop insights without the need for an expert every time.

Grant also expressed the opinion that the capabilities of these new technologies are fundamental for the future of sustainable agriculture. 

“If I could measure crop health, disease pressure, pest pressure, continuously I can act much more quickly,” he said. 

“Our focus with all this really is about sustainability. If I can act more quickly, can I act with a lighter touch? Can I use fewer chemicals? Can I use beneficial pests instead of chemicals? Can I use mechanical effects?”