PES Technologies – sniffing out biological soil health in-field with results in five minutes
An electronic nose to sniff out soil health that will deliver results to a farmer’s phone in five minutes is being developed by PES Technologies. The company is able to create an aroma fingerprint from gas released by microbes in the soil. These organisms are essential for breaking down organic matter and making nutrients available to plants, but current biological lab tests are expensive and take ten weeks to provide results.
Jim Bailey, CTO and Co-founder of PES Technologies, says: “From REAP, we are interested in meeting end-users – particularly agronomists – as well as collaborators.
Our electronic nose could potentially be trained on more indicators than the ones that we will offer on launch, and we are keen to explore what people are looking for.
We are happy to talk to companies that would want to fund a machine learning dataset for their own market niche and then utilise our hardware and machine learning support in that market.”
Stop press: PES has just announced it has raised £2.4M in a seed fund round.
Andrej Porovic, CEO and co-Founder of PES Technologies, said, “This funding builds on the successful commercial trials PES carried out with large agronomy companies and farm businesses in 2022. It enables PES Technologies to complete product development, power product launch in 2024 and hire the key commercial and administrative staff needed to turn our potential into a commercial success story.”
Find out more at pestechnologies.com.
REAP Conference 2023:
Adaptation Through Innovation; Beyond the Comfort Zone
Wednesday 8th November, 9:30 am – 6:30 pm
Rowley Mile Conference Centre, Newmarket
Surviving and thriving under increasingly extreme and unpredictable challenges is the theme of the 2023 REAP conference. To build a productive, profitable and sustainable agri-food industry, we must move away from the comfort zone and become open to the new opportunities that exist when we ‘stretch’. Be a part of that future – bring yourself and your ideas to REAP.