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On this edition of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, brought to you by Ag Express Electronics, AgZen CEO and co-founder Vishnu Jayaprakash joins contributing editor Dan Crummett for a conversation about the company’s RealCoverage technology and how it allows farmers to spray more effectively. 

RealCoverage, which works with any generation of sprayer, allows growers to save up to 50% on spraying costs according to the startup company. Jayaprakash explains how the system takes the guesswork out of spraying and pays for itself in one pass.

The Precision Farming Dealer podcast series is brought to you by Ag Express.

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Full Transcript

Noah Newman:

Great to have you with us on another edition of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, brought to you by Ag Express Electronics. This week, AgZen CEO and co-founder Vishnu Jayaprakash joins contributing editor Dan Crummett for a conversation about the company's RealCoverage technology and how it's helping farmers spray more effectively. So let's jump right in. Dan, take it away.

Dan Crummett:

We're here today with Vishnu Jayaprakash with AgZen. The company is a startup based on research and some of the personnel at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and they have a new product that promises to make on-the-go spraying much more efficient, and I believe they call it RealCoverage. Welcome Vishnu, and tell us a little bit about AgZen's birth and the technology that you're harnessing, and then we'll get into an explanation of real coverage and enhanced coverage.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

No, of course. Thanks Dan. Yeah, my name is Vishnu. I'm the CEO of AgZen. AgZen's mission is to enable this new type of spraying that we're calling Feedback Optimized Spraying. The idea is every acres of soybeans that you spray, any spray you do during the season, your sprayer is putting out a billion droplets an acre every time you're driving it.

And the question is, first of all, how many of these droplets are getting to the plant? How much of it is actually staying on the plant? And can we do better? Can we figure out a way to optimize spraying by focusing on the droplets, right? Because ultimately, at the end of the day, these droplets contain the chemistry that actually protect your crops and growers around the world, and especially here in the US, are spending a lot of money on these inputs to try to protect their yields and how can we get more efficient? So AgZen's whole thesis is by optimizing every single droplet and by measuring and monitoring droplet coverage on leaves, we can help growers already today save 30 to 50% on their chemical costs, on the volume that they spray and help them achieve better yields and in the future do much more than that. Really make spraying a lot more efficient. So that's in a nutshell what AgZen's focused on.

Dan Crummett:

You mentioned the 30 to 50% improvement or productivity boost in crop protection application. Tell us a little about where you came up with those figures.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Yeah, so AgZen been around for just about three years now, and as you mentioned in the beginning there, we had our start at MIT, right? So I did my PhD there studying how droplets behave on leaves, how they spread out, things like that, studying the fundamentals that then we translated into engineering. But having our start there, we actually got contacted by growers all the way back then when I was still doing my PhD. People for a very long time, there's this adage in farming, coverage is king right?

Dan Crummett:

Yes.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

But people have always wanted to know what does that mean? What kind of coverage do they have? How can they get better? Things of that nature. So from the very beginning, we've had grower buy-in, right? And so over the last couple of years we've been able to validate our performance, that 30 to 50% savings in chemical costs and volume, being able to go faster, being able to get better yields, pest control. Those are all from farms here in the US and in Europe.

Last year specifically, we did 12 trials in pilots. We worked with some very large commercial growers. We worked with three Ag universities as well, where we gave them our products, had them validate how it can be used to save money on herbicide sprays, fungicide and insecticides, and even on defoliation. So it's applicable throughout the season. And from that data, they told us, "Hey, we're able to save 30 to 50% on the chemistry, on the chemical costs going out on every acre. And on the volume, we're able to go faster because finally, now we can actually see where the droplets are on, optimize them on the leaves, then get better that way."

Dan Crummett:

And I would take it that came back to yield is king and the yields were as good or better.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Exactly. Yeah. That's kind of the on-field outcome that's top of mind for any grower is you have your inputs and then at the end of the day you have your yield. And then all of our trials and pilots we've either seen, we cut the rates by 30 to 50%, still get the exact same yields or better. So we've never gone the wrong way on that. And that's sort of the power of focusing on the droplet. The way I like to explain it to growers is let's say today you're spraying a hundred droplets to get 20 on the plant. What AgZen does is to show you how you could spray 50 and still get 20 on the plant. So what's on the plant isn't really changing. You're just getting a lot more efficient with everything else you're doing on the field.

Dan Crummett:

Well, the MIT material that I read indicates your product actually was a research tool developed to establish a benchmark of how well sprays are being put down now. Explain a little of that and how it got its name and how it's being used and what it is.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Yeah, yeah. No, you're exactly right. When we were at MIT, we actually started with what is now called EnhancedCoverage, and that's coming out next year. It's essentially a tool to make every droplet stick better without changing the chemistry in your tank. And we do that by being smart about where adjuvants are applied in droplets. So we change where the adjuvant is within the droplet, and by doing that, we're able to get every droplet to stick better. And like we talked about in that story, came up with the concept for that initially. And now we've drastically enhanced its practical implementability and we're making it a universal install. And next year growers will be able to put it on their sprayers.

But when we first went to growers and said, "Hey, we have this product that can make your coverage a lot better," the first thing they all told us was, "Well, we don't know what coverage we have right now, so how do we know that it's better? And how do we know how much we can cut down on the coverage even? How can we cut down on the rate even more using the EnhancedCoverage product?"

And so that was their first question. And as we started talking to more and more growers, we saw not just the breadth of that question and how many growers had that question, but the depth of it as well. So we saw that across the board, this question of how much are you actually getting on your plants was there, almost every farmer has this question, but then you start going deeper. The next question is, okay, how do all of my parameters when I'm spraying, how does my speed, my boom height, my nozzle, my GPA, what kind of adjuvant do I use, the time of day, the temperature of that day? How does all of that influence much how much coverage I'm getting?

And the fact is they all influence it, right? Spraying is really complicated. You have hundreds of parameter combinations all the way from how fast you're driving to what time of day it is that affect how much of the product ends up on the plant. And that was one level deeper. Going even further, people started asking us how much of a specific chemical do I need on a plant for it to work properly? When I'm looking at a systemic herbicide versus a contact fungicide, how much do I need of each on every type of plant I'm trying to hit in order for it to work? And that's something that now real coverage is for the very first time shining a light on because we now know how much is on every plant, and then we can correlate that to the outcome. And that's really exciting about it, where we're opening up a whole new door where everyone in Ag can get better.

It's not just the growers who are getting all the benefits. It's equipment companies can make better equipment. Chemical companies can know how much of their product is actually on the plants and how that affects the outcome and how you can optimize that. Even retailers can get better with their spraying offer, better sprays for their customers. So yeah, it's really a tool that helps everyone helping make our food and grow crops for us. And even on the regulatory side, we've been talking with the USDA, for example. We're going to do a project with them later this year, and the idea there is to help measure where the droplets actually are, how much of it is on the plant and things of that nature. So those are sort of the breadth of things that are possible.

Dan Crummett:

The RealCoverage tool is referred to as a bolt-on, and I fully understand that and so do our audience members. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is now used as a driver for on-the-go changes in spray application technology. Give us a little bit of a rundown on that in layman's terms. And without getting into proprietary things, how do you enhance where the adjuvant is in the droplet?

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Yeah, no, that's great. Both great questions. So first, I'll talk about Real Coverage first. So like you said, it's a bolt-on product. It can go on any sprayer. We've put it on front boom systems, rear mounted booms, tow behind units, even on air blast sprayers, so it can go on any sprayer. The maximum install time we've ever taken is three hours. And so in three hours we have this unit on. And what it enables is as you're going through the field optimizing, it's not just measuring coverage and predicting how the droplets are spreading out and evaporating and all of that. In real time, it's giving you recommendations on what to do. So it's giving you recommendations in a screen in the cab of, "Hey, go up or down with your boom, go faster or slower, change your GPA." And at the beginning of every spray, it's helping you pick the right adjuvant, the right nozzle, the right tank mix to optimize your outcomes on every single field that you're spraying.

Dan Crummett:

This would include an analog sprayer or one with pulse-width modulations, the nozzles.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Exactly. So whether it be a PWM system or a traditional broadcast sprayer, whether you have a rate controller or not, even if you have spot spraying integrated, it doesn't matter. We can help all types of sprayers get better with their spray coverage. And that was really important to us. Universality is something we really care a lot about because we want to be farmer first in the way of whatever equipment you have going, we want to help make that more efficient. We don't want to come in and say, "Hey, we can only go on equipment that's 2020 or newer," things of that [inaudible 00:11:05]. And so we enable that in a pretty big way with all of our products. And so yeah, RealCoverage, like I mentioned there, it's providing that real time feedback for the very first time on how well are you doing with your sprays and how can you get better?

Noah Newman:

And let's burn a quick time out to remind you that the Precision Farming Dealer podcast series is brought to you by Ag Express. Dealers, farmers, and those in Ag know the importance of getting the most from their efforts. Technology has been a significant game changer when it works and when it doesn't turn to the experts at Ag Express Electronics who find a way by specializing in the timely repair support, sales and engineering of Ag technology. Ag Express provides component level repairs to save time and money on those costly replacements. They also offer wiring harnesses and custom to meet your customer's unique needs. A vast portfolio of over 2000 supported products allows Ag Express to provide possibilities for numerous agricultural concepts. Whether planting, harvesting, chemical application, or hay baling, Ag Express has a solution for nearly any operation. You could feel confident doing business with Ag Express Electronics because of their excellent reputation, track record for quality work and commitment to technology, the company is 100% certified employee owned and celebrating over 30 years of providing possibilities. Now, back to the conversation.

Dan Crummett:

It alerts the operator and not the rest of the machinery.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

So it can. So there's certain options that we have of plugging directly in with rate controllers and things of that nature. But a lot of our growers... growers are... I have a background in science and engineering, but I think growers are the first scientists that humanity ever had. They keep track of so many things from weather and from... they're experts in everything, from their seeds to the chemistry, to the plants and everything like that. So a lot of growers want to use our tool to understand how every single lever affects the outcome. And because we give them that guidance of, "Hey, go in this direction," they have that confidence, and that's how they're able to unlock all of these savings is by interacting with the product and interacting with all of the levers that they can turn by themselves. So a lot of our growers actually ask for us to give them the recommendations and have them make the changes. And they're unlocking all of these benefits from water savings to being able to cover fields better and faster to savings on the chemical itself.

Dan Crummett:

Yeah. A little bit about the magic.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Yeah. And so EnhancedCoverage, what I can tell you is what we do is we cloak droplets. So instead of mixing your adjuvant in the tank, what we're doing is cloaking the droplet with the adjuvant. And so that fundamentally makes droplets stickier but because we're avoiding the main-

Dan Crummett:

You're dealing with surface tension.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Exactly. Yeah. We're being a lot smarter about how to control the dynamic surface tension of the droplet, and that's what eventually ends up in a droplet sticking or bouncing. And by modifying that, by cloaking these droplets, we're able to get droplets to stick a lot better and more on that will be coming out over the next year, and our product will be available commercially next year.

Dan Crummett:

Is that a chemical or a mix, or are you dealing with electrostatics or anything like that?

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

No, no, no. It's a purely fluids and purely physical play, right? We are not changing the tank mix that a farmer uses. We're not introducing new chemistry that they're not used to. It's going to be the exact same chemicals that you buy, and even the adjuvant, it's going to be the same rate and the same usage. It's just working a lot better. So that's what we do. And that's not to say that we don't have an influence on chemistry. So one of the things we're already helping growers right now with is figuring out, hey, which adjuvants are the best and which ones could be better, things of that nature. We're already helping influence-

Dan Crummett:

And if you're cutting rates by 30 to 50%, you're also dealing with ultimately the major chemical makers changing their product.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

I mean, right now there's so much room even within label. So you look at a product like Liberty or things like that, there's so much range within a chemical of how do you get smarter about applying it. So even within that range, we are able to offer so much savings to a lot of growers. And then beyond that, yeah, we're just opening the door to spraying has been about gallons per acre for a very, very long time. That's been the way it's been done for almost 80 years, and we've always had a problem with it. And what we think it should be is droplets per leaf. Especially when it comes to a foliar spray, shouldn't be gallons per acre, it should be droplets per leaf and optimizing how many milliliters or micrograms or whatever you're spraying is on the leaf. And that's what we've opened the door to for the first time and what we're going to explore all the way. We're going to help, like I said in the beginning, chemical companies, growers, retailers, OEMs, everyone get better.

Dan Crummett:

One more blue sky question, just address how this would be used as a tool to alleviate the problems that growers have run onto with that combo.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

I don't want to comment on specific chemistries if that's okay. I think in general, I'll comment on when we're spraying, you have the issue of drift, you have the issue of what's on the product, you have the issue of what's on the plant, and then you have the issue of runoff right? What RealCoverage is doing for the first time, it's telling you, "Hey, when you're making a billion droplets on every acre, how much is on the plant?" And now extend that to one minus of what's on the plant is on everywhere else is off target. And so that now gives you the door. And that sort of goes along the lines of why this has such a massive environmental impact as well. In addition to helping growers cut their input costs and get better with their yields, is we can tell growers where all their chemistry is going.

And for every single tank mix, be it a herbicide or a fungicide or an insecticide, we're helping them know how much is on target and how much is off target. And when the wind picks up, we can tell you, "Hey, the wind's gone high up. You're getting very little coverage on your plant," let's say in that particular scenario. And that means you need to adapt something to get more on target and less off target. So that's kind of where we can go with chemistries that farms want to use and are running into challenges with drift or any other off target impacts.

Dan Crummett:

Okay. EnhancedCoverage, a little bit about that product. It's not released yet, but what is it? How does it play into your market?

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Yeah, so EnhancedCoverage is that force multiplier that's cloaking droplets, right? So that's what we're doing next year. And the idea is right now we're opening the door and giving you that insight of what's on the plant and how can you get better without changing anything else, just all the usual things that a farmer can change. The next step is adding a force multiplier to the equation, make every droplet stick better, and now all of a sudden you can go even more in the cost savings, even more in the water savings, even more in the efficiency gain. That's how it all fits in. We're giving growers that insight into coverage as a first time. This is the first time they're able to use it as a decision metric, and next year they're going to be able to optimize coverage even more than what they can already do now. And so we have a long pipeline of things coming to fully explore this space as I mentioned.

Dan Crummett:

Well, this is a simple question, but I think I missed it. Is EnhancedCoverage an additive or is it part of the system?

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

It's also going to be a bolt-on. So it's something that we're putting on. It's a new type of hardware, a new piece of... a little bit of pumps that are coming on. So the system is purely... it's getting smarter about where these adjuvants are applied and how we're cloaking these droplets. But it's also going to be the method to get to market is again, and the reason we're bringing it out next year is to make it universal, similar to how real coverage is universal. Now, regardless of what chemistry you use or what machine you have, you can put real coverage on. That's going to be the same thing for EnhancedCoverage next year is we're going to be universal. Any sprayer is going to be able to add this onto their system and get a whole lot better with their spraying.

Dan Crummett:

Okay. Does it depend on having RealCoverage installed?

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

It certainly helps a lot, right? So it's going to help you understand both systems and our systems all are working in harmony to optimize this coverage. And RealCoverage tells you how much you have and EnhancedCoverage is making it better. We will have a suite of products that growers can choose from at all times and different combinations. But of course, in a few years from now, you'll see the full suite launched out there, and they're very optimistic about growers wanting access to everything because it's going to help them not just optimize their operation, but give them that peace of mind. Because that's one of the main things with spraying is you're always thinking, how good of a job did I do and things of that nature.

Dan Crummett:

And record keeping. Yeah.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

And it's going to get to that point where it's going to go from... I grew up on a small farm and spraying was we had to do it because if we don't, you're going to lose out on a bunch of yield. But it was definitely one of the more involved jobs on the farm. And so we're going to work to make that less and less involved. There's such a big opportunity here, and we're just now tapping into it, but we're very confident about where we're going to go.

Dan Crummett:

Okay, business model leasing, not something you buy. How does this work and how are you going to launch that and bring it to market?

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Yeah. So RealCoverage is on lease to own right now. Every acre you spray, you pay us a little bit, but it's all going towards ownership of the unit. So the idea is for customers to have a way to try out our unit without having to... We understand where we are. It's new technology and it's a new product. It's a new way of looking at spraying overall. And so the reason we came up with this model is to, we're very confident in what the product can do, and we've seen that in a bunch of fields.

And the way we want to be, again, prioritize farmers and their decision making process is we'll lease it to you. All of that money you're paying is going towards eventual ownership of the unit. And yeah, that's kind of how we've launched it and we found a whole lot of traction already. We're going to be... and I'm happy to tell you that we're going to be spraying on close to 50,000 acres this summer, and that's for a company that was founded three years ago. So it is a lot of traction commercially where people are paying to use our product already, and we're super excited about what we can do.

Dan Crummett:

Where does the grower go to lease?

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

Oh, they can go onto our website. So agzen.com, on our page we have... the first thing you'll see is figure out, there'll be a big button on there to find out how you can bring AgZen to your farm. You click on that. There's just a couple of questions there that ask you about your farm, your operation, what you're spraying, what crops you're growing, and then pretty much you'll receive a call from one of AgZen's team, one person from AgZen's team, and we'll basically take it from there, but that's-

Dan Crummett:

Very good.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

The best way to get in touch with us.

Dan Crummett:

Well, I thank you for your time. I think it's an exciting product and I think our audience will certainly be interested in it and wish you the best.

Vishnu Jayaprakash:

No, that's fantastic. Thank you so much for having me, and yeah, it was great to meet you, Dan.

Noah Newman:

All right, that'll wrap up this week's Precision Farming Dealer podcast. Thanks once again to Ag Express Electronics for making this podcast series possible. And thank you for tuning in. I'm Noah Newman. Until next time, for all things Precision Farming Dealer related, head to precisionfarmingdealer.com. Have a great day.