Measuring in distance, Michigan and Israel are about 5,900 miles apart. However, when it comes to agricultural innovation, the two regions work together like good neighbors.

At the most recent Great Lakes Expo, five different Israel-based businesses provided elevator pitches during “Smart Farming: Doing More with Less.” The session was led by the Michigan Israel Business Accelerator (MIBA). MIBA was established in 2017 as a state-supported economic development non-governmental organization dedicated to driving Michigan’s growth by connecting Israeli innovation with Michigan’s industries.

According to their Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy, “Michigan ranks second in agricultural commodity diversification only to California, rounding out over 300 commodities. Agriculture is one of Michigan’s top three industries, contributing over $100 billion annually to the state’s economy and employing close to one million people” – some solid reasons for this partnership.

  • Robotic Perception

North American Director for Robotic Perception Shlomo Kalach took the stage to talk about this company. Robotic Perception has built and released autonomous electric vehicles, sprayers and mowers that take the hard work out of the hands of growers. Their machinery uses simplified crop detection, irrigation requirement analyses, virus stress detection and single plant detection to make farm management easier and more efficient.

Kalach noted that an agricultural labor shortage is ongoing, and Robotic Perception provides state-of-the-art pruning AI for vineyards and apple orchards.

“We offer remotely-controlled global operations, from semi-autonomous to fully autonomous – and we’re currently working worldwide,” he said.

One of their most well-known clients is growing Ugni Blanc grapes, cultivated in the Cognac region of France to be made into Hennessy Cognac.

For more information, see roboticperception.com.

  • Agam Greenhouses

Speaking on behalf of this business was Kurt Parbst, president of Borlaug LLC, a controlled environments engineering consultancy and systems integrator. Agam Greenhouse Energy Systems was founded in 2009 by industry veterans with over 75 years of expertise. They develop and manufacture innovative, energy-conserving and environmentally friendly dehumidification, heating and cooling systems.

Parbst spoke specifically about Agam’s ventilated latent heat converter. “Many pathogens thrive in the same conditions our crops do – and this can result in catastrophic losses,” he said. So many indoor growers are tied to a convection-transpiration feedback loop – standard dehumidification means heating a space and then venting it. “The more heating you do, the more plants transpire. You solve that by closing the greenhouse.”

Agam’s latent heat converter works all night, every night, Parbst explained. It is fan-assisted with a uniform vertical airflow circuit which circulates the air volume twice every hour. It collects 10 to 15 liters/hour of water vapor and integrates it into hot water heating. (The system is also connected to chilled water for summer night cooling.)

In addition, this system captures and neutralizes trouble-causing spores. Parbst said the takeaway a latent heat converter can “save a tremendous amount of energy (up to 60% reduction in heating) and increase saleable yields.”

Agam Greenhouses currently has installations on every continent except Antarctica and is used in high-value crops like basil, dill, peppers, tomatoes, cannabis, roses, tulips and more. While the crops, climates, greenhouses and fuels may vary, Parbst said the average installation cost is $1 to $2 per square foot, with an energy savings of 50 cents to $1.50/sq. ft. The crop saver/revenue enhancement side of it can equal $1 to $6/sq. ft. (and much more in cannabis), he reported.

Want to learn more? Visit agam-greenhouses.com.

  • CropX Agronomic Farm Management System

CropX has more than 5,000 farm deployments and more than 20,000 sensor deployments, tending to more than 80 crops, according to Todd Carlton, territory sales manager with CropX Agronomic Farm Management System.

The company website states, “The CropX system aggregates data from soil to sky and transforms it into useful information, helping farmers monitor the health of fields and crops. The information is easy to access and provides a holistic overview of field conditions.” Carlton said this can boost farm productivity, optimize resource use and minimize environmental impacts.

He said the system is “easy to install, accurate and dependable.” It uses electrical conductivity sensors to measure soil moisture, soil temperature, weather data and evapotranspiration from both the root zone and the canopy level to ensure crops are getting exactly what they need.

“It’s an all-in-one product with a five-minute install that’s easy to scale,” Carlton said. It’s a connected system, with weather stations and rain gauges; third-party soil sensors from various manufacturers; and pivots, flow meters, pump switches, pond level meters and static sprinklers. After all, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” according to business management expert Peter Drucker.

Carlton added CropX can import data from almost any farm machinery, and highlighted connections include Reinke, John Deere Operations Center and FieldView.

For more information, see cropx.com.

  • NESS Fertigation

“Healthy crops need light, water and fertilizer, the latter of which has the biggest impact,” said Gai Boger, CEO of NESS Fertigation. He continued that while fertigation – introducing fertilizer via irrigation – was invented 60 years ago, yields seem to have peaked. Now growers are trying to be more efficient with it.

Boger said the three big issues currently affecting fertigation are that it’s based on past practices; that ratios are remaining the same; and that it’s not continuous. It’s as if plants are only getting one meal per day.

NESS offers a self-adapting fertigation platform, with optimized nutrient delivery using application technology. Homogenous, level application minimizes plant stress and increases nutrient intake.

Soil and plant sensor data analysis “personalizes” optimal nutrition per plant and growth stage using an algorithm. This is a fully autonomous system, with optimal fertigation ratios delivered to plants independent of the grower, which can lead to bigger yields and better plant health with no added fertilizer costs.

Boger said the company is currently looking for partners to help it expand – either farmers or investors.

For more information, go to nessfertigation.com.

  • TierraSpec

Avital Levy-Lior, CEO and co-founder of TierraSpec, stated, “With soil testing, we’re making decisions based on just a few data points.” Her company offers over 22 times more data than the average soil test for crop management decisions.

Levy-Lior shared some startling information: The global cost of soil mismanagement is 75 million tons of overfertilization, which affects both producers’ pockets and runoff into watersheds. It can mean $400 billion in annual yield loss, and it means that approximately 50% of global agricultural soil is degraded.

In the U.S., current soil monitoring practices can be insufficient – often just one sample for every five acres) – time consuming and costly. This results in inaccurate fertilization and the aforementioned environmental damage. There’s higher use of fertilizers, degraded soil health and decreased plant health, all of which can lead to increasing costs, regulations and even fines.

“Our soil monitoring provides the data you need when you them,” Levy-Lior said. TierraSpec uses AI-powered soil mapping combined with high-resolution satellite imaging and a worldwide soil database for cost-efficient monitoring and actionable recommendations for growers.

The company is currently onboarding new product testers/farmers (with over 100 acres) to beta test – three pilot projects are ongoing, including one in Iowa.

Want to learn more? See tierraspec.com.