The investment world keeps looking at potential agriculture-focused startups, but even ag companies see the value of these businesses. Case in point is John Deere’s recent lead in a Series A funding round for InnerPlant, a startup focused on turning crop plants into sensors.

The technology meshes well with the company’s rising focus in plant-by-plant management, according to Than Hartsock, director of global corn and soybean production systems, John Deere. “My job is to identify opportunities to create more value for farms,” he says. “The way we do that is, we think about how we can help farmers grow yields through more precision, more timeliness — as well as take waste out of the system.”

The InnerPlant technology is a trait stack that turns plant stressors into a kind of signal. If a plant faces stress from a disease or insect, the plant would, in essence, emit a light frequency that can be seen by specialized sensors. And those sensors can not only be mounted to equipment, but also be used by satellites to target issues.

Related: New tech turns crops into field sensors

Today, sensor technology is either visual: for example, John Deere’s See & Spray Ultimate approach, where the sprayer can distinguish a weed from a crop plant and hit it with herbicide. Or it can use general infrared systems that can detect the presence of stress, but not identify the problem.

InnerPlant’s approach is much more precise. The company’s technology can provide a highly specific signal noting what kind of stress the plant is actually facing — fungal disease, insects, nutrient stress or water stress. First out to the field is a trait that shows when a plant is facing fungal disease stress.

“In the last year and a half, we’ve been setting up our transformation pipeline,” says Shely Aronov, founder and CEO, InnerPlant. “The first trait is now designed and is a fungal disease sensor that we want to get into field trials in 2023, and then do our soft launch with the InnerCircle members in 2024.”

Precision trouble spotting

InnerPlant’s approach is much more specific and can work as a precision early warning system for trouble in the field. Aronov notes she is working on satellite detection of the signal the trait shows in the plant, and she should have a partner at work by September 2023. “We definitely are working towards that satellite detection of the fungal pressure sensors in soybeans. We plan to have a partner very soon; the first satellite will be in orbit in late 2023,” she says.

Consider how that works on the farm, and the ways this can enhance crop scouting work done by farmers or trusted advisers. Fungal diseases are spotty; but with this technology added as a soybean trait, if trouble arises, a farmer could use variable fungicide application based on location of a disease.

That falls in line with Hartsock’s comments regarding reducing waste. Today, fungicide is a broadcast application across a field, often in advance of trouble. This approach working as an early warning system would allow for precision treatment — potentially reducing the amount of fungicide needed to control an outbreak.

“What InnerPlant is aspiring to do is, give every plant a voice,” says Deere’s Hartsock. “If you think in terms of bringing technology like we are bringing with See & Spray Ultimate, and potentially having plants that can send signals based on the stress that plant is experiencing potentially at a time much earlier than today’s traditional stress-scouting methods … this could be really valuable to the farm.”

For John Deere, the plant-by-plant approach is called “sense and act,” and Hartsock explains that Deere’s investment in InnerPlant falls in line with that approach. “We’re bringing our sense-and-act technology to kind of the next frontier, so that’s what this is about for us,” he says.

Working toward a solution

InnerPlant’s signal technology, when built into a crop — and soybeans are the first — would send a signal at a specific wavelength, which can be seen by specific sensors. But how might that work on a piece of equipment hitting the field to treat a problem.

“We’re still early in understanding exactly what that might look like,” Hartsock says. “But I think it goes back to the investment justification. I think on both sides, from our standpoint, it’s our ability to work together towards a solution where the biology and technology are actually designed to work together.”

He adds that when Deere engineers get together with Aronov’s molecular biologists, “it’s really fascinating to think about the possibility where we develop a system that complementary in terms of plant biology and machine technology.”

And fungal stress is just the beginning, Aronov says. “So, the reality is that anything that stresses a plant we can look for. The question is, what is the value proposition for farmers?”

She points to soybean cyst nematode as a complicated example. “You want to find them, but not in season, because what are you going to do about it?” she asks. “Because it’s always the chicken and the egg. If you can’t find it, you can’t do anything about it. But if you find it, you need to [be able] to do something about it.”

Creating actionable information

She adds that there’s little value in late detection of general stress in a field, or what she calls “stress detection 1.0.” “For us it’s got to be early, but it also has to be specific,” Aronov says. “And in a way, another hope we have for the system is that it will help make the agronomist more efficient. It’s not about replacing them; it’s about directing them so they don’t have to drive an hour and a half and go three rows in. But the system shows them there is something there and they tell a farmer exactly what it is, and they could do something about it.”

Plant-by-plant management sounds like a challenge, but the rising use of high-precision tools like See & Spray Ultimate and the potential of InnerPlant will create for some interesting agronomic discussions in the future. You can learn more about InnerPlant at innerplant.com.