The phrase “machine learning” has been tossed about more widely these days. But how are farmers benefiting?
There’s a secret farmers know that many outside of agriculture don’t: Agriculture is complicated.
Over the last 12,000 years of agriculture, farmers have tamed a lot of challenges to produce food, fiber and fuel, but the job isn’t getting any easier. These days, however, new tools are coming into play to help farmers overcome these challenges, and a big one is machine learning combined with artificial intelligence.
I feel somedays I’m inside one of my favorite science fiction stories when I attend a media launch of some new machine or crop protection product. The discussion revolves as much around the use of machine learning combined with artificial intelligence as news of what the equipment can do.
But what are the benefits of this new technology where big piles of data are pushed into smarter computers to help make decisions? I’m detailing five, but I’m sure industrious readers may know more.
1. Smarter machines. No doubt the first step is smarter machines that are helping solve a range of issues. We’re automating more processes on a machine, so the farmer is as much rider as driver during some operations. And finally, we’re crossing the threshold to full autonomy where you get the machine where you want it, and send it out to do chores on its own.
But more immediate benefits include smart systems using real-time input to make decisions to adjust combines during harvest as conditions change or run sprayers that shoot only weeds reducing chemical needs. That’s all driven by these new tools.
2. Better equipment management. Ingesting big amounts of information from thousands of machines into an artificial intelligence system can pull together correlations that were invisible in the past. That aggregated machine data can be used for predictive management when correlated with actual failures. This has created predictive maintenance systems where your dealer can alert you to impending doom in time to fix the problem and reduce unscheduled downtime.
And these onboard systems can be upgraded remotely as new, smarter programs become available helping keep the tech on that machine updated with the latest efficiencies.
3. Improving crops. While I write about equipment a lot, machine learning is hard at work with plant breeders and crop protection companies, too. Seed companies have pumped their genetic data into these machine learning systems. This creates advanced models so sophisticated that plant breeders can tell you, with some confidence, how pairing two corn inbreds will work out in the resulting hybrid long before planting. Conversations with mathematicians at major companies (yes, mathematicians) can be a real eye-opener.
For crop protection companies, these intelligent systems are helping find new chemical molecules or biological controls that are more precise with greater results while reducing the environmental impact.
4. Enhancing production. Once those finely tuned hybrids and varieties are available to the market, smarter systems are helping better match them more precisely to your farm. Long have companies worked on that puzzle of the interaction of genetics and the environment, and the results are coming to fruition.
I remember the days when it was big news if a seed company launched three new corn hybrids. Today, the numbers have grown, but those choices are targeted to very specific markets based on weather, soil and other local conditions. And companies are exploring how specific hybrids and varieties respond to different management techniques. Farmers know that some hybrids, for example, respond better to fungicides than others. That’s a growing body of knowledge helped by these new systems.
5. Revealing the unknowns. Even after thousands of years of farming, there are still issues we know little about. That knowledge is growing whether it’s how the microbiome where a plant lives interacts with roots, or a better understanding of how terrain impacts autonomous systems. It’s machine learning and artificial intelligence, fully deployed in agriculture, that will light the way. And we’ll work to help keep you informed of these advancements.
