Drones and Agricultural Sensors In 

United States

With the rise of precision agriculture solutions, the farming industry has become increasingly tech savvy. Many growers and producers have embraced GPS-enabled tractors, variable-rate fertilizer applications, and smart platforms.

Enabled by AT&T’s nationwide, highly secure LTE-M cellular network, the Soiltech Sensor precisely records and transmits data for soil moisture, temperature, humidity, location and impacts that may create bruising while crops are being grown, transported, and stored.

Kicking off the 12th annual Potato Expo, held Jan 14-15 in Las Vegas, the National Potato Council announced the launch of its new podcast, 'Eye on Potatoes'. The podcast in available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Scientists have developed a user-friendly online tool called Uniqprimer, which quickly and automatically designs species-specific DNA tags (also known as primers) for detecting pathogens such as Dickeya dianthicola using DNA testing.

Researchers with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture will lead a new DARPA program of $7.5 million to use potato plants as a new, revolutionary sensor platform to detect environmental threats to deployed troops and civilians.

The problem for North Carolina’s sweet potato farmers is knowing whether the drenching rains unleashed by hurricane Florence will have the same effect as being inundated by a flooded pond or creek. Some sweet potato fields received as much as 30 inches.

Dirk Hays,Texas A&M AgriLife Research plant geneticist: “With Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), we can image the size of the tubers and get a correlation to the actual physical size of the potato without harvesting them. Potatoes are a dream for Ground Penetrating Radar.”

Idaho State University researchers have found high-tech cameras mounted on drones flying 60 meters above potato fields can effectively detect individual diseased and stressed plants.

Agricultural researchers of the Oregon State University will begin testing two small, remote-controlled aircraft this month, flying them over potato fields in the Hermiston area in trials that may help farmers use water, fertilizer and pesticides more ...