NEWS

Optimism is a powerful force in agriculture. And thanks to a strong 2020 cropping season, solid grain demand from trading partners over the winter and spring, and a pandemic that appears to be receding nationwide, a long-overdue sense of positivity about the future has lifted a stubborn cloud of doubt and hesitancy that’s held back investment in technology innovation.

As CropLife magazine continues work in the inaugural Tech Hub LIVE Conference and Expo coming up this July in Des Moines, IA, we’re keeping track of the technology trends, products, and companies making moves that will impact retail business through the 2021 season and beyond. In this feature we will touch on some of the key storylines we’re watching through the spring and summer. (…)

Entering the 2021 growing season, it’s a different ballgame. We’ve sloughed off a boatload of ill-fated business ventures centered around drone technology. We’ve seen dramatic improvements in technology, in particular addressing the big pain point of collecting and stitching imagery efficiently.

Most importantly, drones are being inserted into in-season regimens where they can provide the most benefit, from pest detection to damage assessment to stand count. It’s not strictly about the drone and the data, it’s about the value provided to the end user for incorporating the drone application. Very little in ag technology can stand alone. (…)

Ag Partners Cooperative in Kansas is thinking about the big picture with technology advances and heading to the field with a smaller sized application technology. 

Rantizo CEO Michael Ott and Ethan Noll who heads up the digital ag efforts at Ag Partners, joined The Scoop podcast recently to share more about how drone applications are a fit for ag retailers. (…)

We might not be driving Jetson-envisioned flying cars yet, but in the past five years unmanned aerial systems, or drones, have merged from futuristic novelties into farm equipment. This crop season will bring swarms of drones that spray and seed cover crops – with a future as limitless as the horizon. 

Nick Williams of Parkston, S.D., launched Williams Drones last June and is looking forward to starting his first full summer work season. He purchased a swarm of three drones with spraying and spreading kits through a contract partnership with Rantizo, a turnkey agricultural drone service provide based out of Iowa City, Iowa, that provides everything, from hardware and software to training and licensing support, insurance and even customer leads. (…)

An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Michael Ott of Rantizo, which was honored as 2021 Best Tech Startups in Iowa. (…)

Michael Ott is the founder and CEO of Rantizo, an agtech startup that addresses both the field needs of farmers and the business needs of custom applicators with the platform’s combination of autonomous hardware and user-friendly software. Rantizo leverages both drone and aerial imagery technology to provide solutions to growers.

Michael joins us to talk about his background in investing and what led him to jump into entrepreneurship and start Rantizo. He shares how he has grown and scaled the business and the insights he has learned along the way. Don’t miss this one! (…)

Farmers that have embraced drones in their agricultural operations tend to use them for crop monitoring purposes but Iowa-based ag startup Rantizo thinks drones can do much more to help lessen the workload for farmers. The company utilizes autonomous sprayer drones for precise input application. Last summer, Rantizo became the first in the U.S. to receive FAA approval for nationwide swarming for agricultural spraying. (…)

Never underestimate the power of a small company to make a big difference in agriculture.

During a recent Future of Farming Dialogue sponsored by Bayer, three agriculture technology companies shared their progress from humble beginnings as a startup. Here are a few interesting advancements on the horizon in the areas of equipment, food and biotech. (…)

As part of Bayer’s Future of Farming Dialogue virtual event series, Bob Reiter, Head of Research and Development at the Crop Science division of Bayer, will highlight the interconnectivity between scientific experts inside and outside of the company’s own network of R&D resources, their importance to innovation, and the next solutions to advance the future of  agriculture. (…)

In January 2020, Michael Ott participated in the American Farm Bureau Innovative Challenge contest at the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) national convention. One year later, he was a presenter for the 2021 AFBF virtual annual convention in a session about how new technology can get traction. The company he founded, Rantizo, of Iowa City, Iowa, is licensed to custom-apply ag chemicals, cover crops and other things in 17 states, including Indiana. (…)

We’re doing a lot of things in Ag that are still “on the way” to the non-Ag sector. Driverless cars are a concept but self-driving tractors have been in America’s fields for over a decade, for instance. But take drones. While we’re allegedly on the cusp of drone deliveries to our homes, we’ve been using drone technology in Ag for several years. And their use is growing.

Michael Ott and Emily Carlson of Rantizo — an Iowa based drone technology, Ag input company join me to discuss the future. It may already be here! (…)

Last year, Syngenta partnered with representatives from four technology companies to test their new devices on commercial farms in Illinois as part of Project Bin Buster.

In 2020, the Bin Buster project stretched across nearly 400 acres over five farms, including the Farm of the Future — three in west-central Illinois and two farther north. Each of the five fields in the project were approximately the same size and planted with the identical replicated trials that included a base rate of nitrogen.

The project put four new technologies, produced by different companies, through their paces. (…)