Britt Buchanan
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
Well, thank you. I'm Britt Buchanan. I'm the VP of Sales at Earth Optics. I've been with Earth Optics for coming up on three years now. And I've worked in the agriculture industry for a good 12, 13 years, predominantly in technical sales. So first time at Farm Progress, though.
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So we started our partnership this past spring, spring 2024, and this fall that partnership's grown. We're doing an increasing amount of work together very quickly because there is some great synergy between our offerings.
Farm4Profit Podcast
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So the cool thing about the combined offering is that part of the expense of getting these data insights is actually the visit to the field where you collect the soil. And so Earth Optics on the agronomy focus has two data layer components to bring to the table here. One is till mapper. So we're mapping compaction inch by inch across the field. We're using both sensors.
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So we use two sensors, electromagnetic induction and ground penetrating radar. We combine that with a ground truth measurement. For till mapper, the ground truth measurement is a DCP, digital cone penetrometer reading, that measures pounds per square inch in the soil for the top 18 inches.
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So that results in a map that shows you not just where do I have compaction in my field, but at what depth is it an issue.
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That's right. And I think we might need all our time here today because we're talking about agronomy out of the gate here, but earth optics bread and butter is really in the carbon space today in terms of leveraging our direct service arm in soil sampling activities. So we'll talk about that too. There's a conversation on the carbon front, but you're right. There's
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a major synergy between till mapper and what results in a tool that we call variable depth tillage.
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So it's a customizable tool where the trusted advisor on the farm, the agronomist you work with, the retail organization you work with, or the farmer themselves can customize and set a target PSI for the fields that can depend on what crop you're going to plant or even what hybrid you're going to plant. and then what implement depth of focus you're gonna have.
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So usually, corn and soybeans, you're gonna be at about four to 12 inches as your focus zone, maybe deeper for potatoes or sugar beets. You can customize all those variables so that the output of the tool is a variable depth tillage recommendation that tells you, on average, you don't need to till at all on 20 to 40% of your field to accomplish those goals. So it's not about tillage or no tillage.
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It's an opportunity to reduce tillage by only tilling where you need to.
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Great point. So there in the market today are tools that, so John Deere TruSet as well as C&H Ecolatiger are two examples of equipment suites that can ingest this data layer and automatically adjust in the field.
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That being said, a lot of folks just look at the map and go out and address what the map tells them they need to address or they use our app that guides them where am I using GPS in the field and what's the recommended depth in the field if they can manually adjust and implement.
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Yeah, I think if you follow Mike and I around for a day, the phrase you'll hear on repeat is actionable insights. Everything we're doing is an actionable insight. In my undergrad, that was a phase, or maybe that phase still exists, where the word sustainability is maybe overused. But what I was taught is there's three pillars to sustainability.
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There's economic sustainability, economic, ecological, and cultural or social. And all of our products hit on all three of those pillars. So if we talk about till mappers specifically, the economic benefit, if you don't till an acre, you're saving $20, $30 in diesel fuel alone. You're also saving time of labor. You're saving wear and tear on equipment.
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There's a major return on investment economically. Socially, there's a factor because folks have a shorter and shorter window to address tillage in the fall. And so you can't get over every field in many operations. So this gives you a tool to help you prioritize and pick and choose which fields are most important.
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On the hour meter. That's huge. And then agronomically, if you do not disturb soil that doesn't need to be disturbed, there's a huge agronomic benefit there as well.
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I think one thing we didn't cover on the agronomy front is with 360 Pro, as Mike mentioned, you're getting that biology insight, but you're also getting nutrients. So industry standard, nationwide, a little bit variable by region is about a two and a half acre grid. That means that on a hundred acre field, you're getting about 40 samples.
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You're taking 40 smaller averages to get insight to variability on the field. Going back to actionable insight, our approach is different. That sensor reading shows you the variability and you need far fewer soil samples to go to the lab to get more precision and a better look at the variability and the levels of all your macronutrients, micronutrients, pH, cation exchange capacity in the field.
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It kind of looks like a parallel rod or stick and that's the EMI or electromagnetic induction sensor and then the ground penetrating radar sensor is basically a box.
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Yep that's right right on the front of a UTV we run it on pickup trucks we run it on tractors we are working on running it on equipment that's already in the field as well.
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Potentially, yes. We're playing around. There's interference is a challenge to navigate. So we're trying to find the right bits.
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Well, this makes it far more economical and efficient because you're only going out into the field and pulling point samples. So you could do like a five acre grid equivalent or seven acre grid equivalent in terms of number of samples that you pull and do that on a more frequent basis. And you can reuse that same scan data for that processing step year after year.
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Yes, a great question. The majority of farms nationwide are soil sampling for nutrients to some extent. So again, that two and a half acre grid industry standard, what we can do with 360 Pro, where you're getting the nutrients and the biology offering, is only a few dollars more than industry standard pricing for just the nutrient soil sampling activity.
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So you're getting this new insight, you know, I'll still Mike your analogy around like, would you rather a blocky grainy black and white TV or a new high definition color one? And oh, by the way, they're almost the same price.
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I mean, soil is where it all starts and it's a farmer's best asset. Right.
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Yeah, it's close to a real-time product.
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I'd say it's definitely an opportunity for firms of all sizes. This tech stack is really not just a tool for farmers, but it's also a major improvement to what the trusted advisor on the farm has available for themselves in the advising process. So Mike mentioned our partner dealer network. These are folks that we fully equip with our technology suite. We don't charge them for that.
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We get a commitment for kind of the acres that they're going to support. and they just pay us for data processing and serve the market in their region.
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So those that are listening should give Mike and I a call.
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Those are projects that we have recently had some exposure to, and there's definitely a potential opportunity there.
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Sure. Great question. And I'll just kind of bridge to, we just talked about the partner dealer network. Earth Optics also has our own service arm. So we've got field techs and rigs nationwide, really solid footprint. We're doing probably over 90% of the carbon sampling in grass and rangeland at scale in the carbon marketplace, as well as over 80% in cropland.
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And when I say the carbon marketplace, that is a big umbrella statement. So there's the inset world, there's the offset world, there's scope three projects, CI scores, all these different things. What is a differentiator of EarthOptics is we ground truth everything we do. And so we're in the business of measuring and mapping carbon at scale.
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We're the most cost effective, efficient and accurate way to do it.
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Exactly. So for a Scope 3 project, which is not a verified project, but it's something that an organization is looking at their supply chain, in that environment, to avoid greenwashing, to be really have a solid data set to prove that you are in fact sequestering carbon, which our nation's soil asset is one of our best opportunities to pull
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carbon out of the atmosphere and put it in the soil long term. And farmers have a really important role in that activity. And so if a buyer of some good wants to look backwards in their supply chain and validate that the farmers in that supply chain are doing things to sequester carbon, which many are, they have an opportunity for a scope three type project.
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We're the best source to help build out that project, measure it, document it.
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We are not a developer. We're an MRV. So we're a measurement and verification service within programs. So in the inset world, so a verified project, we have projects at scale with Vera, with CAR, with B-Carbon, with a number of different verifiers and developers in both grass and rangeland and in cropland.
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Exactly. It's those like Fortune 100 companies who are actually pretty picky about what type of credit they want to buy because they want to put their money into something that's highly credible and they're trying to invest in offsets that are something that the market at large respects as having made an actual impact.
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Yeah, exactly. So if we're there for agronomy offerings, we can add a carbon data layer for quite a reasonable rate. Similarly, for a lot of the carbon programs that we measure for nationwide, whether it's an inset program or an offset program, we have the ability to call the grower and give them the opportunity to take a look at our agronomy tools.
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That's where blockchain will come in.
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The carbon marketplace is in its infancy, and it is the wild, wild west.
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I feel like right now is a good time for you to talk about robots and dark matter.
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I want to add at this point to another synergy we haven't talked about yet here today between the climate and carbon space and the agronomy space, which is that as someone who has taken part in selling biological type tools on the farm, just my experience is they work half of the time. And when they work, they really work.
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One of the things that's really cool about the pattern offering is that they're able to better place biologicals after reviewing where it has worked so they can identify the DNA things that are present or not present in an environment that a biological is successful or not in. So that's taking a success rate from something like 50 to 60 percent up to 95 percent in placing a biological.
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And then the link with the climate and carbon space is that there's a number of biologicals that are scientifically proven to help sequester more carbon. So if we can better place those products on the right field, that's another additionality opportunity.
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So we're at earthoptics.com and pattern.egg. So those are our two websites. There's fillable forms on both of those websites to request more information or get in touch with Mike and I.
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You gave us shade and a breeze, so happy to be here.