| 87 Agriganics helping farmers reach goals Bees work the crop a lot harder. Sue Russell Bruce Hore established agricultural advisory business AgriGanics back in 2009. His purpose was to provide meaningful, affordable and effective tools and services to support New Zealand farmers to enjoy the benefits of working with nature, using more sustainable soil management practices and attaining better production outcomes. After experiencing less than satisfactory results from a crop he was growing Bruce began to research better ways to work with the soil. “I read about the Albrecht approach and though I didn’t initially understand it, it just made good sense.” The biggest thing, Bruce says, the Albrecht programme does is the way they look at pH, Four elements influence pH(Lime) - Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and Sodium. Traditionally the understanding was that just Calcium influenced Lime. “Every time you put Lime on you lower your Magnesium so you have to balance the Calcium and Magnesium together which will give your soil structure. This creates a house for the biology to thrive in, bringing, for example, more worm life.” AgriGanics offers its soil testing and advisory services across a wide array of farming contexts, from growing grapes, flowers, small seeds, grains to veges and pasture species. It’s about improving the health of the soil and for Bruce, the results from this thoroughly researched and sensible approach have been outstanding. “Some of the tools do challenge the norms of conventional farming, yet they are all backed by RURAL SERVICES » Agriganics science and proven results.” Bruce was so taken with the logical, natural approach that he began working with Neal Kinsey in 2005. Neal trained and became certified as an agronomist by Dr William A. Albrecht, Professor Emeritus of Soils at the University of Missouri, U.S.A. Bruce is New Zealand’s most experienced Kinsey-Albrecht consultant. Along with offering agronomy services here, AgriGanics organises tours overseas to showcase the application of the Kinsey-Albrecht Programme. Plans are that around the last week in June a 15 day tour in Europe will take place. “One of the things that’s really good for our clients is that we are totally separate from a fertiliser company. We offer science-based advice, not aligned to a particular brand.” Farmers often comment that after applying the blend of minerals determined by the tests AgriGanics undertake, paddocks don’t have to be worked up so much and there’s a noticeable improvement in water retention. “Once they have the confidence in their soil condition they can begin to work on cutting their rates of Nitrogen back over time.” Always looking for ways to improve service and outcomes for clients Bruce has now teamed with IRIS Data in Dunedin to offer farmers another tool, in the form of Artificial Intelligence application. “I was looking for a way to add value through the use of modern technologies and I really took to the guys at IRIS Data, who saw the potential in working with the data we collected in a new way which would deliver clients with real time results and offer ‘intelligent’ advice/indicators as to what crops to grow, when and where, to get the best outcomes.” Because the Kinsey-Albrecht system is governed by a number of rules, the approach lends itself to being taken up into a machine-learning environment, which is what Artificial Intelligence is based on.“Greg Peyroux and colleagues from IRIS Data in Dunedin have coded up all these rules, so they can develop a software tool for farmers to make decisions around. The coding has taken two years to complete.” Gotogrow® software has been developed and licensed by IRIS Data with the intention of empowering farmers to ultimately undertake their own soil tests, receive intelligent future-bearing information back and adopt cropping/planting strategies that bring about lasting benefits, financially and environmentally. Ultimately systems will be accessible by smart-phone at the touch of a finger. Bruce sees the potential for this new technology as a logical next step, harnessing the latest in computer sciences. “I’m just a one-man band in this company so giving these tools to clients is going to make a difference potentially to what I spend my time doing. Hopefully this will give me more time in the field? Dunedin-based arti icial intelligence and machine learning company Iris Data Science focusses on providing tools to add value to New Zealand’s essential agricultural and horticultural sectors. Led by co-founders Greg Peyroux and Benoit Auvray the boutique business has advanced several world-leading products to support farmers and growers to get the very best outcomes from their land and stock. Given these capabilities, it’s not surprising that Bruce Hore, founder of AgriGanics Ltd, chose to engage with the Iris Data team to create a meaningful, reliable, accessible and timely data analysis system to provide his clients with solid predictive information as to what to grow, how much to grow and when to grow. “We’ve been working with Bruce for some time now and have 10 years’ worth of soil data on which to build a machine-learning tool for his clients to use,” says Greg. Machine-learning, a sub-branch of Arti icial Intelligence, is about creating the ability to teach a computer how to do a task without having to code it. “We’re teaching the computer how to predict. Once we have the soil sample data, and know what crop they want to grow, their target yield and how much they want to spend the system we call Gotogrow™ will tell the farmer what The way to enhance crop productivity nutrients to apply based on the code, algorithms and models developed from past nutrient applications.” Greg says the AI helps farmers by sending them back a number of reports, telling them what the minimum nutrient applications are to maintain the soil at its existing quality and also provide a number of di erent nutrient options and budgets. Bruce has been using GotoGrow™ in a ‘soft launch’ of the technology on selected clients with positive results. “Iris Data Science is all about enabling those working the land to optimise the best results in a super-smart way. Underpinning what we create is the desire to minimise wastage of resources and assist farmers to create long-term sustainable practices bringing lasting bene it.” Healthy soils sit at the root of productivity and pro itability. The AI system, Iris Data Science has created for AgriGanics gives farmers optimal soil health and soil treatment recommendations, enabling them to make prudent soil nutrient placement decisions. “We’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Bruce to create some pretty exciting tools for his clients to access. Anything that provides them with easily accessible information to base their pasture management decisions on is a good thing.”
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