By turning biological test results into gigabytes of data, Pattern Ag has developed the largest soil metagenomics database with more than 200 billion DNA reads.
With customers supplying samples from the Dakotas to Ohio, Pattern Ag has been working on its database for five years, but in the past two years, they’ve ramped up to a scale where they can derive analytics from the data. As such, they produce predictive agronomy with the goal of helping farmers match their input decisions to yield threats.
“We got almost everything right from our 2022 predictions,” says Mike Tweedy, vice president of Pattern Ag, and he shares the company has been particularly focused on how to manage corn rootworm and sudden death syndrome.
Via its Predictive Ag Report, the company predicts pest and pathogen risks 12 months in advance. For 2023, here are three things to watch for via Pattern Ag’s outlooks:
Slightly lower pressure from Western Corn Rootworm
Higher summer corn pathogen pressure in the western regions of the Midwest
Higher Sudden Death Syndrome pressure across the central Midwest, and increased pressure from Pythium and Fusarium in Indiana
Behind The Technology
Applying technology first developed for human health care, Pattern Ag aims to deliver simplicity in its product, while relying on complexity of science. “We’re taking super complex information with 10 million reads on each pound of soil and turning it around into an elegant and intuitive product anyone can read,” Tweedy says. The data layers include at-plant data, yield data, weather data, and the Pattern Ag soil genomics data.
“One of the biggest learnings I’m proud of is how we coordinate weather patterns to the inoculant load of the next season,” Tweedy says. “March/April weather patterns are indicative of the inoculant loads for the next season, when it will express and how bad the disease will be expressed.”
Source: agweb.com
Categories: Ohio, Crops