Phytech unveiled a unique new service this summer for the U.S. market at the InfoAg precision ag conference in St. Louis, and the company is calling it PlantBeat. It’s a system that monitors plant growth rate and contractions, or its "pulse," and was originally developed in the company’s home country of Israel where drip irrigation is widely used. The company has expanded to the U.S. and its initial work has focused on the almond, cotton, citrus, tomato and grape industries, yet representatives at InfoAg said they’ll expand to testing on corn and soybeans in 2015.
The company’s first international office has opened earlier this year in California’s Central Valley. The PlantBeat service they’ve been testing in the state offers continuous monitoring – 24/7 - of plant growth rate, soil moisture and microclimate conditions in a farmer’s field or orchard. The data from sensors place on sample plants throughout a field is transmitted wirelessly via the cloud, and algorithms then analyse the plant’s health to determine whether or not it’s under stress. And alerts are sent to any mobile device designated by the grower.