The First AI Virtual Assistant for Sustainable Farming

By PR Newswire

In the same way virtual assistants help us discover our next favorite song, Biome Makers has developed a software package that uses advanced machine learning to help farmers and agronomists pinpoint what their crops and soils need to boost yield in a sustainable way.

The scientific teams of Bayer Crop Science and Biome Makers tested and disclosed the first application of this groundbreaking technology on bioRxiv, the preprint repository operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The study and resulting scientific paper details the analysis of the soil microbiome to assess effectiveness of Bayer´s biological fungicide Minuet. Specifically, machine learning software allowed Bayer CS to predict potato yield improvement before application of the input. The predicted result was a yield bump of up to 40% in one of the fields tested in Idaho.

“It’s a unique approach to utilize soil biology and optimize the use of crop inputs moving forward towards sustainable and economically favorable solutions to improve crop productivity,” said Varghese Thomas the project leader at Bayer CS.

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