Massachusetts-based AgZen inked a deal with Corteva to explore the agtech company’s spraying optimization technology for use with the ag giant’s commercially available products, Vishnu Jayaprakash, CEO of AgZen, told AgTechNavigator.
“The goal for Corteva and AgZen is the same, and we want the customer to achieve what they want to on that field. We do not want them to have weed escapes. We do not want them to have disease control problems at the end of the day. When they are using a Corteva product or when they are using an AgZen product, we want the farmer to say, ‘This is some of the cleanest fields that we have ever had,’” Jayaprakash elaborated.
AgZen pursues a holistic platform for optimizing crop inputs
Founded in 2020 and spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), AgZen offers a crop spraying optimization technology called RealCoverage. AgZen mounts a device to a sprayer that then uses AI to analyse spraying while adjusting in real-time the sprayer’s speed, droplet size, and boom height to improve crop input application, the company shared. Growers can also monitor spraying through a web-based portal.
“We have been spraying chemicals on fields for 80-plus years at a large scale, but no one has ever bothered measuring how much of this chemical actually gets on the weeds or the crops that we are trying to spray ... If you did not know that, how do you know the best way to make chemicals? Or how do you know how to make these chemicals work more effectively on different types of crops and different types of weeds and things of that nature?” Jayaprakash elaborated.
AgZen is expanding into spreading with its next product offering, RealNutrition, set to launch later next year, Jayaprakash said. Farmers can optimize their spreading with the forthcoming product, so they know where granules are ending up on the field and ensure proper coverage, he added.
Additionally, AgZen is revisiting a nozzle device that it developed “over six years that makes droplets stick better to plants,” which was tested in a pilot program this year, he said. The agtech company plans to expand the pilot test next year with the goal of launching commercially in 2027.
On the commercial front, AgZen’s technology has been used on roughly 1 million acres, and the company launched its dealer program last year with five dealers and already signed up 15 for next year, Jayaprakash noted. The company is seeing strong demand for its services in Australia, Argentina, and Brazil, he said.
“We are building this proprietary knowledge set of ... how do inputs actually link to outcomes. And so that journey is one that growers are incredibly excited to get on board with as we build this out,” he elaborated.
