AgTech Innovation News

Walco Engineering has joined forces with GoMicro to create - Grain Detective - an AI powered auto sampling device that can be fitted to a range of agricultural machines such as headers, tabulators, grain cleaners, etc.

Walco Engineering based in Balaklava, South Australia, and GoMicro are deep-tech startups that have successfully developed and deployed high-precision grain assessment technologies.

GoMicro AI technology can now assess most of Australian export and domestic crops, including cereal crops such as wheat and barley and legume crops like lentils and peas.

The Grain Detective is designed to automatically and accurately assess grain directly during flow in an auger and can identify defects and contaminants every 3 seconds.

Currently, sampling methods require multiple samples to be taken that are assessed manually and introduces an element of subjectivity. The Grain Detective is entirely objective in its analysis, eliminating any subjectivity in the final result.

Sivam Krish, the CEO of GoMicro, believes that AI can not only reduce but possibly eliminate quality-related risks with auto sampling, which can assess the quality of an entire truck load.

Kurt Walter, with many years of experience in working with farmers to bringing up their grain up to receivable standards, states that “Farmers worry about downgrading risks at reliable sites”. The ability to assess truck loads will likely eliminate the risk of downgrading, alleviating concerns for both seller and buyer.

Farmers can also use the defective percentage required during harvest to make storage and cleaning decisions. It can assess weed seeds within harvesting machinery. It will enable farmers to create weed maps similar to the way protein maps are developed using NIF (near infrared) solutions fitted to farm equipment, allowing farmers to optimise herbicide use on their crops.

A prototype of the Grain Detective is now being tested in preparation for launch this harvest. AI technologies are being developed and deployed rapidly throughout the Agricultural Sector worldwide. AI assessment of grain quality is widely anticipated to be the norm. It will bring fair pricing for farmers and reduce quality-related risks within the global value chain, making Australian grain exports competitive in terms of quality and price in the global grain market.