Technology

Measuring soil moisture levels for research project uses drones

Three Virginia Tech seniors researched how drones could identify soil moisture for a class project in School of Plant and Environmental Sciences Professor Kang Xia’s Monitoring and Analysis of the Environment course. Matt Darrah, Grady... more »

Innovation Icon Award goes to Autonomous Pivot, Bloomfield Robotics

SVG Ventures and Forbes have announced that Israeli-based Autonomous Pivot and U.S.-based Bloomfield Robotics are the two winners of the Innovation Icon Award at the seventh annual Demo Day at the Forbes-THRIVE Future of Food... more »

Joint venture to produce ‘breakthrough’ in controlled environment agriculture

Irving, California-based Aeroponics Integrated Systems, Inc. d.b.a. AeroBloom, and Petro Control Systems Inc. announced a joint venture that will produce an advanced controlled environment agriculture system. Key benefits will include AI-based predictive system analytics and... more »

More than 1,000 new jobs to be added by Brandt

The Brandt Group of Companies has announced plans to make a major investment in staffing and will hire more than 1,000 new employees by the end of 2021. The new positions will span the company's... more »

Data mediation company Centricity purchased by Semios

Semios, a precision-farming platform for permanent crops, announced June 21 it has acquired Centricity, developers of a suite of field data collection applications including ApRecs, a market-leading solution for agri-businesses. ApRecs allows growers to make better process... more »

UC Davis breeders eye strawberry cultivar traits that work with robotics

University of California, Davis, has plans in place to put together a test agreement with advanced.farm to trial strawberry cultivars with robotic harvesting this fall. The cultivars put into the trial will be a combination... more »

US EV tractor maker Solectrac acquired by Ideanomics

Ideanomics announced June 14 it has fully acquired Solectrac Inc., a California-based manufacturer and distributor of premium zero-emission electric tractors that use clean renewable sources of energy, furthering the mission to reduce commercial fleet greenhouse gas emissions.... more »

More value to growers to come with Semios purchase of Altrac

Vancouver, Canada-based Semios, a precision-farming platform for permanent crops, announced June 8 it has acquired Altrac, developers of an agriculture automation platform enabling farmers to monitor and control important agricultural systems required to produce high-value... more »