“Avalo, a crop development company based in North Carolina, is using machine learning models to accelerate the creation of new and resilient crop varieties,” reports CNN:
The traditional way to select for favorable traits in crops is to identify individual plants that exhibit the trait – such as drought resistance – and use those plants to pollinate others, before planting those seeds in fields to see how they perform. But that process requires growing a plant through its entire life cycle to see the result, which can take many years.
Avalo uses an algorithm to identify the genetic basis of complex traits like drought, or pest resistance in hundreds of crop varieties. Plants are cross-pollinated in the conventional way, but the algorithm can predict the performance of a seed without needing to grow it – speeding up the process by as much as 70%….
Dandelions that can be grown to make rubber, heat-resilient tomatoes, and drought-resilient cotton are all in the works at Avalo, as is a fully edible broccoli, created to reduce food waste. Only 20% of the total biomass of an entire broccoli crop is typically consumed…Tenderstem broccoli, also known as broccolini, is entirely edible but is a different vegetable – a hybrid of broccoli and Chinese kale. Avalo sourced hundreds of broccoli varieties to enable AI to identify the desired traits, producing a broccoli that can be eaten sprig, leaves and all. It is set to be the company’s first commercially available product, in 2026, taking three years to get to market – half the time of a typical new broccoli variety. “The leaves are just like kale or something you traditionally see in a salad. Then the sprig itself is just like a delightful, very tender sprig of broccoli that you’d be familiar with.”…the broccoli can be grown using less energy and fertilizers than any other available variety.
In Kenya, farmers are using artificial intelligence to produce much more food. Big data has made dairy cows much more productive.
Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms. In the U.S., farming robots now use artificial intelligence to kill 100,000 weeds per hour. Drones with artificial intelligence will make farming easier and more productive.
Artificial intelligence is also greatly improving the detection of many different diseases.
