The Internet of Plants

As part of our “Back to the Future” project, we’re asking Agri-TechE members to reflect on how the agri-tech industry has evolved over the past decade and to share their vision for the next ten years. By compiling these insights, we aim to create a powerful outlook on the future of agriculture, a compelling call to arms for the industry driven by the diverse perspectives of our community.

This submission is part of the collection of reflections and predictions from our members, offering unique perspectives on the industry’s past milestones and future directions. Each contribution adds to a broader dialogue about the innovations and challenges that will shape the next decade in agri-tech.

Precision agriculture and utilization of “big data” has been spearheading the farming revolutions of the 21^st century. For example, John Deere tractors have been collecting and streaming soil and crop condition information in real time for over a decade. Similarly, the use of environmental condition sensors (e.g. soil moisture, relative environmental humidity, and temperature), is a common and essential factor in modern agriculture.

These technologies can be broadly considered to be the foundations to a future Internet of Plants (IoP). The IoP aids in the understanding of real-time, real-world crop health conditions, improving farming decision making, enhancing yields, and reducing input costs.

Traditionally, understanding soil, plant tissue, and irrigation water nutrient conditions have required physical sample collection and 3^rd party, laboratory-based analysis. This can often be labour intensive, time-consuming, and costly. More importantly, in the case of soil analysis, this provides mainly inferred information on the health status of crops.

To bridge this conceptual gap, and further contribute to the future of the IoP, PlantMetrics have developed a novel in-vivo plant health sensor, able to monitor stress and nutritional requirements in real-time, directly from the plant itself. Agri-TechE assisted greatly in facilitating our relationship with Russel-Smith Farms, better enabling us to develop our technologies in line with practical advice on sensor requirements.

We predict that sensor technologies and IoP networks will be increasingly utilized in agriculture, with sensor technologies maturing and evolving based on valuable real-world data. Ongoing advancements in the field aim to optimize crop yields, resulting in customized agricultural sensor solutions and increasing sensor adoption for reliable and sustainable food production in the future.

As technology developers, it is essential that our product design, testing, and developmental meets the requirements of farmers and growers, and Agri-TechE is an invaluable organization to facilitate these relationships.