Thanks to Algorithmics and Sensors: This System Knows What Plants Need at Any Given Moment – and Provides It

Eitan Israeli is an Agronomist with many years of agricultural experience. After a long period of research and development in his field, he made a revolutionary agricultural discovery: how to create a soil solution in the root zone that optimizes plant growth. This was the basis for the establishment of Agrinoze, a company founded by Israeli and Erez Fait, co-founder, acting Chairman, and an experienced entrepreneur and investor that has already implemented technological solutions in international markets. Israeli contributed his deep knowledge of agriculture and breakthrough invention and Fait brought with him an idea that enabled them to revolutionize the agricultural world.

“I come from drone, communication, command, and monitoring technologies, Eitan comes from agriculture. Together we took his knowledge and important discovery and transformed them into an algorithm”, says Fait. “Since then, the method was implemented in many agricultural projects worldwide and proved to be efficient, regardless of crop, soil, or growing environment. Indoor or open-field cultivation – they all benefit from the ‘Agrinoze’ method and gain double or even triple the yield compared to conventional model-based methods.”

How it Works
“Eitan discovered that the single most important factor for plant growth is water. Water holds 95% of the growth potential. With this discovery he understood that an optimal soil solution for all plants, whatever they may be, will render the soil type irrelevant. Whether soil is light, heavy, or sandy is no longer important. What is important is the drainage – because there is a flow of water. This was the base upon which we added the technology: smart sensors that manage irrigation and fertigation. While existing irrigation technologies use models that determine execution timing – our system does this using machine learning. The sensors learn soil conditions and teach the system to identify preferred conditions for any plant – and thus maintain them automatically. The system eventually learns to time irrigation in a way that creates the optimal root environment. It can be said that the plant determines the volume of irrigation and fertigation that it needs at any given moment. The result is a significant increase in yield. We manage to grow at a higher density and with shorter growth cycles, while improving crop quality.

“Another effect of our irrigation method is the release of minerals in the soil which become accessible to plants, as in nature. This is possible only with our technology, due to its ability to measure what plants need in real time. Model-based irrigation is unable to do this and there is no learning algorithm. Therefore, we have not encountered any real competition, although we are active around the world.”

Simple operation and a contribution to the environment
Among “Agrinoze’s” worldwide project locations are Thailand, Indonesia, Morocco, and the USA – a large strategic market that has enabled further expansion to new regions. “The Americans recognize us and are leading us to more projects around the world,” says Fait. “They put an emphasis on food security projects and our solution enables them to do so. As a corn producing giant, a solution that has the power to produce twice and three times more corn from the same field is very appealing to them. We grow rice using 20% of the water typically needed for this process. This is also a highly valued ability in an era of water scarcity and global warming.

“And if we have already mentioned environmental issues, water and fertilizer conservation with our method is very significant. Because the method is so effective – sometimes fertilizer is not needed at all. It even reduces CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. We are also eliminating the need for conventional agricultural practices such as composting before planting. It is simply unnecessary – we provide everything that plants need through the soil solution. This makes it possible to tackle the food security and supply chain issues facing many countries, when nowadays they can’t import from Ukraine and Russia and must rely on local growth. Our system enables any farmer to install a system and start growing.”

How simple is it for a farmer to implement the “Agrinoze” system?
Very simple. When a farmer shows interest, we first visit his farm and determine what needs to be installed and how. After he purchases the system – we install it immediately and it begins working. The farmer only needs to prepare water and electricity infrastructure and install a standard irrigation system. We add the special irrigation head that we developed, the sensors, and the control computer. Pipes can be purchased independently or through us. The beauty of the system is that owing to remote operation on the one hand, and the autonomy enabled by the algorithm on the other, independent and automatic operation is enabled within a week or two. During COVID-19, when it was more difficult to reach the field, we built systems, shipped them, installed them remotely – and it worked. The effectiveness level is so high in part because of the innovative technology, but also because of our holistic approach. Other companies offer one technology or another, but we are a one-stop-shop: planning, execution, and operation and thus, we are less affected by key difficulties and obstacles thanks to the technology’s ability to bypass them.

What difficulties, for example?
“New conditions, new plants, hard soil, and human errors – or a model – such as miscalculating the required irrigation volume. Irrigation decisions today are typically based on plant and soil evapotranspiration calculations that dictate the volume of fluid that needs to be returned to the soil via driplines and other methods. For this purpose, the only existing mechanism in the world today uses a hydraulic approach which returns the moisture that was lost. Eitan discovered that it works – but not well enough and inefficiently. Our system, on the other hand, makes sure that the plant always has what it needs. It creates a common language between the system and the plant, which we know how to read in real time and from which we can draw conclusions and improve accuracy. All the information is derived from the smart algorithmics and sensors. There is no agronomist who observes and decides what needs to be added or reduced.

Tell us about your projects in Israel.
Most of our work is done abroad, but we are very impressed with a banana plantation in Megadim which requires minimal intervention by the local farmer. There hasn’t even been a need to fertilizer there. We also carried out blueberry, date, and flower projects in Israel. As for projects abroad, these days we are in advanced penetration processes into Morocco, South American countries such as Argentina and Columbia, and several other markets. The holistic “Agrinoze” solution has been recognized by the American government bodies dealing with the global food crisis and we are in the process of signing financing agreements for various projects in target countries.”

In collaboration with “Agrinoze”