A recent trip to Israel as part of a California agriculture delegation’s tour gave a new perspective on applied technology for Amrith Gunasekara, the chief science adviser at the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA).
Israel’s growers are severely constrained by acreage, soil and water. Ag innovation is not optional. As you might imagine, it was an enlightening trip.
Gunasekara shared his cutting-edge ag tech development insights in a lengthy conversation at his executive suite office. He is a UC Davis graduate who joined CDFA Secretary Karen Ross nearly eight years ago from the California Department of Public Health, which deals in food safety.
“We have to think outside plant sensors,” he began. Another surprise — you can start thinking outside the drone too.
And we all thought plant sensors are the cutting edge, didn’t we? These tiny devices provide data from leaf and stem surfaces, or root probes.
In human terms, Gunasekara noted, that’s like being satisfied with taking the patient’s temperature … with one of those new digital thermometers you roll across the forehead.
“We need to sample the patient’s fluids,” he said. In Israel, he saw the first internal plant sensors at work.
Inserted into branches, trunks and roots, the internal sensors measure and monitor electrical conductivity and various substance levels, he said, providing useful data before it surfaces as leaf stress or other external signs.
Makes you stop and think, huh?
Take drones, for example. They aren’t yet extensively utilized and they could be classically leap-frogged. Drones scale-down much better than satellites and provide a much more useful picture than a farmer’s pickup windshield.
Drones, integrated with existing sensors and onboard specialized cameras, provide an unprecedented ag tech platform that is detecting indicative stressors at farms today.
Here’s where we think outside the sensors with Gunasekara.
Integrate the drones with internal sensors, add instantaneous direction for micro-irrigation systems to deliver water, nutrients and some types of pest control. It would provide much faster and finer calibration.
There is a next level. What if there were micro-drones? And these tiny airborne devices could be added to the integrated package. Managed by the big drones, internal sensor data and external signs of stress, the micro-drones could be dispatched to specific areas that merit close-quarters data-gathering.
They exist in Israeli farm fields, and Gunasekara saw them.
Beebots.
Ag tech has no limits. What a great time to be a developer. Go get buzzy … I mean, busy.
“California has 9 million irrigated acres,” Gunasekara said. “You do the math.”
