NEWS

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. (…)

Rantizo sells agricultural drones and drone spraying services which farmers can request. These drones deliver targeted sprays precisely where they are needed for various agricultural applications. Rantizo’s upgraded DJI Agras MG-1P Drones are currently being used by 30 contractors in 15 states throughout the Midwest and are becoming more popular among farmers thanks to the wide range of agricultural applications (i.e. herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, pollen, cover crop seeds, and more). This wide range of application is partly why Rantizo became Iowa’s first legally authorized drone company for aerial application of agrichemicals. (…)

Being at the cutting edge of a new industry often means not just developing a new technology, but adapting as regulations and policies are created to catch up with those advancements.

Iowa City-based Rantizo has led the way in developing technologies and equipment for using drones in agricultural applications, as well as working with customers, regulators and farmers to ensure drone technology is deployed in the most safe, economical and efficient ways possible. In December 2020, the company announced a $7.5 million Series A funding round led by Leaps by Bayer with participation from several other agtech investors. (…)

The ag drone hype may have dwindled a few years ago. But that didn’t stop Iowa City-based startup Rantizo, which uses the vehicles to spray crops, from going full steam ahead.

“There was a lot of enthusiasm about what drones could do and that tapered off when people saw what they actually could accomplish,” CEO Michael Ott tells AFN. “In the last few years, we’ve really ramped up the productivity, autonomy, and the use cases where application from drones actually makes sense.” (…)

Agricultural technology company Rantizo has announced it has raised $7.5 million in series A funding led by Leaps by Bayer and several premiere ag tech investors and strategic partners including: Fall Line Capital, Innova Memphis, Lewis & Clark Ventures, KZValve, and Sukup Manufacturing. (…)

Troy Gibbs, a Rantizo Application Services Contractor in Wisconsin, has worked with Applied Ecological Services, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and Allied Cooperative, Pest Pros Crop Consultants on a project to spray an area affected by Phragmites grass. (…)

See this creative and flexible solution for farmers to plant cover crops and apply inputs using swarm drones. (…)

At the 2020 Farm Journal Field Days in-person event in Jesup, Iowa, attendees got an up close look at the latest technology in drones used for agricultural applications. 

Startup Rantizo is the first and only company to gain legal approval for swarm applications of drones in ag, and the team was on-hand with their machines to demonstrate both aerial spraying and aerial seeding. (…)

Michael Ott is the CEO and founder of Rantizo. He was at Farm Journal Field Days presenting his product of using drones for various applications on crops. He joins us today to talk about this operation. (…)

Rantizo was founded in 2018 by Michael Ott who previously started a company that delivered small amounts of nitrogen precisely on rice seeds. The idea for Rantizo came from that concept; precisely delivering inputs in the field when it was needed. (…)