A two-pronged robotic system pioneered by University of Missouri researchers is changing the way scientists study crops and plant phenotyping.

Online ordering is an increasingly popular and convenient purchasing method for consumers. Just this past week, Amazon launched its Prime Now, which offers 1- and 2-hour home delivery of among other things, household items or groceries.

Farmobile, the farm data company, announced that Guy Carpenter, a leading global risk and reinsurance specialist, will purchase enhanced data sets to help optimize risk assessment and potentially improve the underwriting capabilities of Carpenter’s clients.

Spensa Technologies Inc., a precision agriculture technology company, and Spectrum Seed, a premium, non-GMO seed company, announced a partnership that allows corn growers in the Midwest the ability to collect important pest population data for insects such as corn earworm, western bean cutworm and European corn borer in near real-time, powered by Spensa’s Z-Trap Network.

Total sales in 2016 increased 8% to $42.3 million compared to $39 million in 2015. The increase was primarily driven by the acquisition of Novariant.

Valley Irrigation, a division of Valmont Industries Inc., and Trimble, a provider of precision agriculture solutions, announced that Valley Irrigation will become the exclusive OEM distributor of Trimble’s Irrigate-IQ precision irrigation solution.

One of the toughest challenges ag retailers and agronomists have faced in using precision ag technologies is that different software and hardware systems haven’t been able to “talk” to each other, hampering the ability to help producers manage valuable data. Now that is changing with the introduction of AgGateway’s ADAPT software toolkit.