Syngenta and Premier Crop Systems, LLC, successfully trialed Premier’s Enhanced Learning Blocks, which enables the automation of large-scale, on farm, replicated trails.
“Enhanced Learning Blocks represents a breakthrough in generating new agronomic knowledge, cost effectively, at larger scale than previously possible,” says Dan Frieberg, Premier Crop CEO.
This spring, Syngenta Research and Development evaluated Enhanced Learning Blocks in multiple field trials.
“Premier’s Learning Blocks provides a novel and simple way to validate treatments in growers’ fields,” says Chuck Foresman, Syngenta’s digital agriculture agronomy lead on the research and development side. “The addition of randomization and replication within those treatments is exciting to a research and development driven company like Syngenta because it opens the possibility of scaling scientific field research.”
As such, Syngenta Ventures, the venture capital arm of Syngenta, is making an investment in Premier Crop Systems.
“Premier is a perfect fit for Syngenta Ventures,” says Gabriel Wilmoth, investment director with Syngenta Ventures. “Our minority investment provides capital to help bring the benefits of their technology to more growers.”
Frieberg says with additional capital from Syngenta Ventures, the company will be better able to deliver this and other new tools to growers, their advisors and the research community. It will also help Premier expand its team of agronomists, data scientists and customer support for new and existing customers and accelerate the launch of Enhanced Learning Blocks.
“Growers want local trial results, and you can’t get more local than each of their fields,” says Kevin Kruize, Precision Ag Leader at Central Farm Service in southern Minnesota, one of Premier Crop’s customers that also conducted 2016 trials.
