AI was one of the topics discussed during a panel at ASTA's Field Crop Seed Convention in December. (Chris Lusvardi photo)
For more information, see the First Quarter issue of Seed Today.
The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities have been quite impressive to many experts.
All indications are the technology will continue to impress as advancements continue to rapidly occur.
As Jagresh Rana, Bayer’s head of North America product management said during ASTA’s Field Crop Seed Convention in December, AI is changing the agriculture industry.
It’s not just the agriculture industry that is being changed by AI.
Changes are happening all around us as we’re seeing AI in more facets of our life, whether it’s ordering food or figuring out how to fix a problem with our cell phones.
Conversational AI
Chat bots are being trained to master natural language as part of conversational AI, said Douglas Fisher, a computer science professor at Vanderbilt University, during the Southern Seed Association Annual Convention in January.
The goal, he says, is to improve human performance as the technology is used effectively.
“I didn’t think we’d see it at this level of competence in my lifetime,” Fisher says.
He notes concerns about conversational AI include misinformation, intellectual theft, and inappropriate responses as the technology has yet to understand emotion. Still, that’s something Fisher sees on the horizon and AI can be an intermediary in human interactions by providing relevant information.
Ag Industry
While not everyone is currently using the technology, the agriculture industry has so much to gain by embracing AI.
“Generative AI will change everything,” said Lars Dyrud, CEO of EarthOptics, during IPSA’s Annual Conference in January. “Agriculture is not exempt from that statement. In fact, agriculture stands to benefit more than other sectors.”
He explains the technology can be used in areas such as crop selection, market analysis, research, and info retrieval.
“Decisions are based on all the knowledge coming our way,” Dyrud says. “It will impact every sector, with agriculture in particular standing to benefit.”
Dyrud says the more everybody learns how AI works, the more they can take advantage of what happens next.
Crop research. Some of the ways AI is impacting crop research are described in this issue of Seed Today.
University of Minnesota researchers have found, when combined with AI, satellite-based remote sensing could dramatically improve management of soybean aphid, which negatively impacts soybean yield and quality.
University of California Davis scientists have developed high-tech weapons through AI and machine learning to be used against the invasive johnsongrass weed.
Computomics and 2Blades launched a pilot project using AI tools to accelerate the discovery of disease-resistant genes across crop species.
Universities are recognizing the potential of AI and the need to educate students about developing and understanding its capabilities as they build research centers to focus on learning more about the technology.
That is by no means all that is happening as those are only a few of the most recent examples of AI usage in the agriculture industry. This seems like just the beginning of how it will be used in crop research and beyond.
We will certainly see more to come, and it is just one of the topics we are excited to follow both in the magazine and online at seedtoday.com.
Written by Chris Lusvardi, Seed Today Editor