GroGuru's Wireless Underground IoT for AgTech Solution Enables High Volume Deployment of Soil Sensors in Annual Field Crops

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 3, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- GroGuru, an innovator in precision agriculture and site-specific soil monitoring, announced today that it has launched its 100 percent wireless underground system for precision soil monitoring and management. The GroGuru Wireless Underground System, or WUGS, allows farmers of annual field crops, like corn, wheat, cotton, and soybeans, to 'permanently' install soil sensors below the till depth.

Five Year Battery Life of Wireless Underground System is a Game Changer

The GroGuru WUGS solution has a battery life of five years, which will allow farmers to get season-to-season and beginning-of-season soil sensor data, without the need for trenching cables into the field. In addition to cable trenching, a common practice today, with soil sensors for annual crops, is to install soil sensors right after planting and to remove them prior to harvest. This removal of sensors eliminates the ability to get off-season data, and is a labor intensive and cumbersome process. An additional benefit of the GroGuru WUGS is that it improves the quality of the data and decisions made as the sensors stay in place for long periods of time, eliminating year-to-year variations in sensor placement and disturbances that occur during installation.

"We have been working on the WUGS technology for over two years, and are excited to be able to launch this product with great reviews from our customer and partners," said Patrick Henry, president and CEO of GroGuru. "The GroGuru WUGS solution allows us to take our successful first-generation solution that has received great acceptance in the horticulture and fruit & nut tree farming markets, to the market for high volume annual field crops."

Farmers of Annual Field Crops Value the Permanent Installation Enabled by GroGuru WUGS

Farmers agree with the value of the WUGS solution. "Permanent install enabled by the GroGuru all wireless system is very useful for growers like me who need soil sensors to plan our irrigation," said Grant Norwood, Norwood Farms, Mansfield, Tennessee. "We have less obstacles to avoid during our no-till practices. We can farm right over the sensors and not have to worry about the maintenance of the sensors. And the data all throughout the year and across multiple years from the same spot is priceless. "

"We are deficit irrigators in this region and stored soil moisture is critical to making a decent crop. We heavily rely on soil moisture sensors to know how much deep moisture is available to the crop but since they are removed before harvest, we often miss what happens out of season," said Tom Moore, Moore Brothers Farming, Sunray, Texas. "If we can't determine how much winter moisture we have accumulated, we can't accurately manage pre-irrigation to fill the profile before planting. The ability to permanently install soil moisture sensors will greatly improve our ability to manage water and should improve our yields and sustainability."

"Our goal is to be able to maximize profit on every inch of water pumped. To achieve this goal, we need the ability to accurately measure soil moisture the entire year not just during the growing season," said Harold Grall, President of the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District, Hasta Farms, Dumas, Texas. "A permanent probe is the only solution, it allows us a way of monitoring winter moisture and keep from pumping water too early. With water having the biggest influence on production and being our most limiting resource it is important that we know what's in the profile at all times."

GroGuru's focus is on site specific crop management, and the GroGuru WUGS solution will address the high volume annual field crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, sorghum, alfalfa. GroGuru sells its solutions through a hardware enabled Software as a Service, or SaaS, business model. By providing real-time feedback about the water in the ground and soil conditions to farmers, GroGuru makes recommendations about when and how much to irrigate. The GroGuru solution is compatible with drip, sprinkler and center-pivot irrigation systems.

GroGuru WUGS Solves a Major Problem for Farmers

The problem being solved by GroGuru is complex, and the impact of overwatering or under-watering can be catastrophic to crop quality and crop yield. The right amount of irrigation varies by soil type, crop & topology, and is also dependent upon weather and crop growth cycle. GroGuru's irrigation recommendations are reliable, accurate, and easy to understand. GroGuru takes the information collected about the soil conditions and adds other information and machine learning to make its irrigation recommendations.

Key GroGuru WUGS Product Features and Benefits to Farmers

• Proprietary low frequency communication technology for wireless communication to buried sensors at depths of up to 20 feet
• Optimized for long-life, battery powered sensing and telemetry systems
• Currently supports GroGuru soil moisture, salinity, temperature sensor, but can accommodate a wide range of different sensing options
• Game changing technology allows for fixed permanent sensors in row crop and center pivot fields without impacting spraying, tilling, harvest etc. by eliminating fixed above ground telemetry components
• Breakthrough WUGS solution enables deployment in ALL crop types
• Crop templates combined with season-to-season and off-season data
• Cumulative machine learning, or ML, enables dynamic calculation/learning of 'Field Capacity' and soil type
• Low deployed cost and total cost of ownership per acre per year
• Payback period for the farmer is less than one growing season
• Removes the need for annual installation/removal in annual field crops
• Closed loop irrigation system capability for annual crops with center pivot irrigation systems

Demonstration of the GroGuru WUGS Solution for Precision Irrigation

GroGuru will be demonstrating its WUGS solution at the Irrigation Association's Irrigation Show 2018 Exhibition and Conference in Long Beach, CA on December 3rd-7th, 2018 at Booth 1749. The GroGuru WUGS has been nominated as a finalist in the Irrigation Association's 2018 New Product Content in the Agriculture Irrigation category. GroGuru will also be demonstrating the WUGS solution in conjunction with its relationship with AgLaunch simultaneously at the Farm Journal Media's AgTech Expo in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 3rd-5th, 2018.

GroGuru WUGS Product Availability

GroGuru is currently deploying the WUGS solution with early access partners and expects general availability of the product in March 2019. For inquiries, please contact GroGuru at [email protected].

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About GroGuru

GroGuru, Inc. is a privately held company based in San Diego, CA focused on enabling farmers to optimally use water and fertilizer with an innovative hardware-enabled Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. The GroGuru solution is analogous to giving growers X-Ray vision to the water in the ground. GroGuru is a portfolio company at the EvoNexus technology incubator, the premier technology incubator in Southern California. For more information, visit the GroGuru website at https://www.groguru.com.

SOURCE GroGuru