Agtools
Agtools has recruited more computer science engineers from the rural areas of California and Washington state. All of the company’s engineers come from families in the agricultural industry and have worked at harvesting crops or have worked in packing houses. Agtools now has more than four billion reliable, verified, curated datasets of specialty crops from the United States and around the world. Research teams lead by agricultural scientists from the U.S. and Mexico have reviewed all phenological stages and embedded those stages in Agtools to provide better forecasting for customers. Subscription renewals by customers are always welcome, especially when those customers are from different parts of the world. Boost Biomes is developing high-performance microbiome products sourced from the native biodiversity of relevant natural environments. The company takes biologicals to the next level: ecology. The company believes its unique approach overcomes traditional limitations of microbial and biological crop inputs. Its first product is a biofungicide that prevents diseases like powdery mildew, downy mildew and botrytis. In more than 30 field trials in grapes, the win rate is greater than 85 percent and when used alone it is often as effective as a standard Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practice. The product is expected to come to market late in 2022. To learn about grower trials (especially in grapes) for the 2022 season, contact: trials@boostbiomes.com. Clean Works Inc. has launched a new website, biomaxmicrobes.com. Jim McClain, owner of the company, believes understanding and knowing how the soil works will help growers better understand their crops and what they need to thrive. Soil health gets to the root of the problem, and he says the company’s product will help growers decrease chemical fertilizer use and improve water efficiency. “Our microbes will kick-start your soil and get it back on the right track so your crops will grow in higher quantities and have higher quality,” he said on the company’s website. He said the microbes are essentially feeding the soil and storing nutrients for future crops vs. putting fertilizer down every year for that one crop. He urges growers to reach out to him to start a conversation: jim@biomaxmicrobes.com . Hummingbird Technologies has hired Cody Ruiz as a trials and operations manager. Ruiz brings a wealth of experience in the fresh produce industry. Hummingbird is an artificial intelligence business that provides advanced crop analysis to its customers by using proprietary machine learning algorithms applied to remote sensing captured imagery. Hummingbird generates variable rate fertilizer applications to increase the uniformity of plant sizes across the field before peak nitrogen uptake. These applications are delivered through side- dressers and allow growers to reduce nitrogen usage by up to 70 percent while increasing yield by up to 10 percent. Hummingbird has been working with selected partners in California and Mexico over the past year and is expanding its trials network for 2022.
Boost Biomes
Clean Works Inc. (Biomax Microbes)
Hummingbird Technologies
iFoodDS iFoodDS has launched its new Shelf Life Monitoring Solution. It allows users to capture the data they need to verify that their produce meets buyer shelf life requirements. The solution helps monitor fresh food deterioration and manage variability over time. Available as a standalone solution or bundled with iFoodDS Quality Insights, it is highly configurable to various workflows. The program delivers historical data to predict shelf life of certain commodities, and allows users to further leverage data to improve the quality and freshness of produce. Interested parties can request a demo from iFoodDS.
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MARCH | APRIL 2022
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
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