Hailed as “the beginning of a new era” and “a revolutionary way to improve agriculture,” artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to monitor potato harvests and discover which soil microbes best feed crops. This novel AI tool also can expose past (and current) technological follies and hazards in agriculture.
Drone-Farmed Potatoes
Potato researchers collected data measuring the amount of bacteria and fungi on seed potato stock, then planted the seed potatoes over a large area. As the potato crop developed, drones were employed to survey 240 test fields from on high, measuring growth rates for comparison. The two sets of data – the bacteria and fungi types and prevalence and the growth rates of the plants over successive seasons – were melded, using AI algorithms to determine which bacteria improved (or inhibited, as in some cases) growth.
The publication of the research results in Nature Microbiology (Dec. 27, 2024) concluded: “This study shows that seed potato vigour can be reliably predicted based on the microbiota associated with seed tuber eyes, potentially guiding future microbiome-informed breeding strategies.” Seed suppliers, biologists, and farmers have long observed variations in growth rates even where the same variety of potato is planted. Genetically identical plants often differ in size, resilience, and yield.
Measuring DNA data from bacteria and fungi in this manner has implications for future crop management, including adding bacteria to the soil or tubers or developing plants that thrive when in contact with certain soil microbes and fungi. For potatoes, some bacteria species significantly boosted growth while others had the opposite effect. This type of analysis is promising, noted the authors, because “[h]ealthier and more resilient crops mean fewer failed harvests, reduced waste, and less need for chemical pesticides. This makes farming more sustainable while boosting productivity.”
AI Benefits
Much like the telescope brought the heavens into human view, this vaunted drone-tracking of spud-spurting employs technology to confirm what organic farmers have observed for years: Microbial life strongly influences crop yields. Synthetic fertilizers that replaced time-honored manure and compost and genetic modifications of plants to increase yields often imperil the natural relationships that nurture growth. The “marvels” of toxic chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides all compromise the microbes AI now reveals are essential to plant health in soil (and to humans in their gut microbiomes).
In Dirt to Soil, farmer Gabe Brown chronicles the human plant-breeding processes that have divorced many food crops from vital connections to underground life:
“… many of today’s ‘new and improved’ grain varieties do not have the ability to form symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi … Breeders have been selecting for traits such as yield and not noticing that in the process other traits – such as the ability to form relationships with fungi – are lost ... Those varieties will be fully reliant on applied synthetic nutrients!”
Bird Flu Snafu
American poultry have been genetically selected much like plants, favoring increased production of eggs or pounds of meat generated per month. This has likely diminished traits such as immunity and long-term health, making modern birds more vulnerable to bird flu. In the case of plants, the AI potato-drone researchers predict the potential benefits of their discovery that living microbes interact symbiotically with Americans’ favorite tubers:
“In the future, scientists might identify the perfect mix of microbes for specific crops — not just potatoes. ‘We could coat seed potatoes or seeds with these beneficial microbes,’ said Berendsen. ‘Or even engineer plants to attract and retain the ideal microbes.’”
Looking for Bad With the Good?
Modern science has engineered plants that don’t function with vital fungi, and now AI proposes to create or enhance microbial relationships. Perhaps AI will also be used with drones to identify damage to soils or soil microbes caused by GMO monocultures, overtilling, or other industrial practices.
Highly paid researchers “improve” upon life’s complex cycles while farmers disappear and technocrats flourish, the latter peering down at the former through drone-mounted cameras or satellites. As with the AI-powered analysis of how microbes feed potatoes, perhaps more of these examinations will circle back to see soil’s ability to feed life without human meddling, or learn that peasant farmers in India knew all this stuff eons before man landed on the moon.
Of the various “improvements” to agriculture using technology, AI assessments of beneficial bacteria are a positive development. Sensible employment of natural microbes to bolster plant health, nutrient content, and crop yields without creating more chemicals or genetic modifications is a helpful benefit of drone and AI technology. Peering down from the sky with cameras to discern microbial relationships in the soil is looking in the right direction.
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