May 18, 2015

By Gerelyn Terzo

FarmLogs, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based tech start-up, has introduced a product to help farmers identify problem areas and ramp up yields. The company’s latest offering — crop health alerts — comes on the heels of a $10 million capital raise that was closed at year-end 2014, bringing the total tally of capital raised since the company’s inception in 2012 to $15 million.

“The capital just came to us. We weren’t out fundraising. But it was an opportunity to raise capital on great terms from great investors, a lot of whom were existing investors who are excited about the direction the company is headed,” Jesse Vollmar, FarmLogs Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, told Global AgInvesting.

FarmLogs’ crop health monitoring system detects problems in crops that are not otherwise visible to the human eye, pointing farmers to the precise location that commands their attention via high-resolution in-season maps. For instance, farmers receive alerts when a crop is calling for more water or to discover the way a new seed variety is performing.

“Traditionally farmers are out there scouting fields by driving around and paying consultants because there are more acres than they can scout on their own. They couldn’t analyze every acre of the field,” said Vollmar, adding this inspired FarmLogs tech experts to explore ways for farmers to understand every acre of field performance without being required to visit to the field. “We challenged ourselves to develop a product that would do that. That’s what we achieved,” he said.

FarmLogs partnered with satellite operator BlackBridge, which captures the right bands of the spectrum for crop monitoring. “Were not just looking at the visible spectrum; we’re also viewing infrared light,” said Vollmar, adding the satellite fleet, which has 5 meter resolution data, will monitor the entire Midwest growing region comprised of hundreds of millions of acres throughout the season.

The FarmLogs team of experts distilled the data down to just the signal. If there’s any stress, the farmer is notified and shown a map pinpointing the area identifying the problem. The product seems to serve as a disrupter to the technology that’s been available until now. “Competitive offerings just show farmers another rainbow colored map and don’t show the problems. They show all the noise and signals together,” Vollmar said.

The company also gained access to five years’ worth of historical imagery, from which FarmLogs has created a baseline to compare current performance against.

FarmLogs is offering its field alert to farmers free of charge for all of 2015. “Every farmer in the monitoring region has access to this. They only have to sign up, no strings attached, “said Vollmar. “This is something never seen before and rather than tell people how great it is we want to show them.” The company is in the process of doubling the size of its workforce in 2015.

To receive relevant news stories with summaries provided by GAI News, subscribe to daily or weekly service.