FluroSat, an Australian remote sensing, and crop health software startup, has acquired ProductionWise, the digital agriculture platform of GrainGrowers, Australia’s leading grain farmer membership group.
ProductionWise, a subscription precision agriculture software service, was developed by GrainGrowers for over 10 years in consultation with its members. FluroSat won a competitive bidding process for the technology, according to Anastasia Volkova, CEO of FluroSat.
“This was a brilliant opportunity that we jumped on,” she told AgFunderNews. “When you’re given the opportunity to review and acquire a heritage and validated solution developed in partnership with the grower community, you take action!”
Backed by proven scientific crop and climatic models, ProductionWise provides decision support to grain farmers including crop planning by using satellite imagery and an Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) to predict yields.
FluroSat uses various remote sensing methods, including satellites, drones, and some aerial imagery, to capture and analyze hyperspectral images of cotton and grain fields to predict disease and help growers make decisions related to crop health.
The combination of ProductionWise and FluroSense (FluroSat’s analytics product) will give customers access to enhanced resources and functionality including reliable agronomic decision support, tailored recommendations at a sub-field level and the ability to focus the agronomist’s attention on emerging issues spotted in the field.
“ProductionWise is one of Australia’s most powerful decision support platforms for grain growers, in use for over a decade and providing planning, satellite imagery and precise Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM)-driven yield simulations. We are excited about the synergy between the scientific agronomic approaches and modern ML and AI data exploration techniques which will offer the industry a comprehensive, easy to use way to understand the impact of their decisions on crop yield,” said David McKeon, CEO of GrainGrowers.
FluroSat has acquired the technology behind ProductionWise as well as the “world-class team.”
“The most exciting part is that their amazing team will come and work with us; they are the most experienced agtech experts in the country,” said Volkova.
The expanded business will serve more than 1,000 customers in Australia, New Zealand, and the US, with plans to rapidly extend into new crops and regions. “We are very pleased to be able to continue supporting the large, dedicated group of ProductionWise users”, continued Volkova. “ProductionWise and FluroSat together will deliver an improved platform for all our current and future users for powerful, informed agronomic decision-making.”
