AI is the cream of the crop in today’s tech field, with industries relying on generative AI to improve operations and boost productivity. One sector that using AI with measurable results is agriculture, with vegetable seed companies harnessing the technology to identify the best vegetable varieties out of thousands of options. This facility can help growers in diverse markets who work in very different conditions from one another.
Finding the best vegetable seeds is not just down to yield – growers look for varieties that address unique local climate patterns and growing conditions. The traditional route of variety selection involves several manual processes, including testing and comparing different seed varieties, running field trials, mass data collection, and gathering feedback from growers. Now, seed companies are now turning to AI technology that run alongside traditional selection methods, to analyse such information. This saves time and resources between selection and first crop.
Syngenta Vegetable Seeds and Heritable Agriculture are at the forefront of AI adoption in this sector, and are collaborating to enhance commercial crop portfolios. Heritable is a new company spun out of the innovation lab at Alphabet (Google’s parent company) that develops AI tools to analyse agricultural data. The two companies combine to create software systems that can recommend which vegetable seed varieties should be offered to which growers and where.
Using AI tools with Syngenta’s global product portfolio, Heritable relies on crop trialling and existing data on localised geographical conditions to predict the best-performing commercial seed varieties for different regions. The aim is to forecast how well vegetable seed varieties will perform for growers worldwide yet on a micro-level, accurately predicting the best choices down to an accuracy of around 10 metres x 10 metres.
Matthew Johnston, Global Head of Vegetable Seeds and Flowers at Syngenta, said AI has considerable potential in agriculture. “Planting the right seed is important to a grower’s success. New technologies like AI can help us bring the best innovation to the field or greenhouse.”
Syngenta has already been using AI in its business, in areas like bio-stimulant and fertiliser development. Recently, the company added an AI chatbot called ‘Cropwise AI‘ to its Cropwise digital platform to help growers make informed decisions about crop choices by analysing data.
Ultimately, the goal is to improve food security and ensure growers around the world can produce food that is affordable, resilient, and reliable. That’s particularly important as climate conditions change and become more unpredictable.
(Image source: “Harvesting crops” by World Bank Photo Collection is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)
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