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Reducing pesticide use while increasing effectiveness
MIT spinout AgZen developed a system for feedback-optimized spraying that can help farmers spray more efficiently and effectively, using fewer chemicals overall.
With support from MIT Tata Center and the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab, Varanasi and his team analyzed how droplets strike plant surfaces, and explored ways to increase application efficiency. Field studies across regions — from Massachusetts to California to Italy and France —showed that this droplet-optimization system could allow farmers to cut the amount of chemicals needed by more than half because more of the sprayed substances would stick to the leaves. Once AgZen has proven the effectiveness of using coverage as a decision metric, and after the RealCoverage optimization system is widely in practice, the company will next roll out its second product, EnhanceCoverage, designed to maximize droplet adhesion.
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