Transcript:

BRAD NEWBOLD 0:00
Hello everybody and welcome to We Measure the World, a podcast produced by scientists, for scientists…

SAUL ALARCON 0:07
eventually, you are going to be able to have a five have a row system that you can use day and night and cleaning your your fields 24/7. One thing that is going to change in with this technology is that you are going to have to change the paradigm of weed control, because what is going to happen is that you are going to plant your tomatoes and then two or three weeks later, you’re gonna have a good pass to eliminate all the weeds that are one inch or less in the first pass, then you are going to do all your groundwork cultivation and then you come back with a second pass to kill the second generation that is coming up. And then that is going to allow your plants to prevail.

BRAD NEWBOLD 1:04
That’s a small taste of what we have in store for you today. We Measure the World explores interesting environmental research trends, how scientists are solving research issues, and what tools are helping them better understand measurements across the entire soil plant atmosphere continuum. Today’s guest is Saul Alarcon. Saul is an agronomist for Gradient Crop Yield Solutions with over 30 years experience in agriculture. And as part of the Morningstar Company, his research into plant health has been instrumental in developing crop models for growers. Saul obtained his Bachelor’s in biology with an emphasis in plant health from the Instituto Tecnologico de los Mochis in Sinaloa, Mexico, and recently received his master’s in agronomy from Iowa State University. And today, he’s here to talk about his research into precision agriculture, focusing on the improvement of crop yields and the optimization of input cost, all while protecting natural resources. So Saul, Thanks so much for being here.

SAUL ALARCON 1:59
Thank you for having me today. Appreciate it.

BRAD NEWBOLD 2:02
All right. So definitely today, we wanted to talk about your projects, your research, but first, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you became involved in agronomy?

SAUL ALARCON 2:13
Sure, you know, when when I was getting my bachelor degree back in Mexico, and I, in the last I think, the last two years of my study, as you know, I got involved in a subject called Integrated Pest Management. And at the time, you know, I fall in love with with the concept of managing insects and reducing pesticides and all those things. And as I finished my career, my excuse me my studies, you know, I am not is that I had a passion for that. And coincidentally, I got an internship with a company called Campbell’s Soup Company, the company that makes the soups and and they had a research station in Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico. So where I went out to apply for an internship. And I say that it was a beautiful coincidence, because the program, the program that they were developing at the time was actually integrated pest management practices. So it was like a dream come true. And, you know, I started doing a lot of research working with very capable, smart, entomologists, plant pathologist, and it was a great, great start for me. So that’s how I got involved in in agriculture and in research in specific.

BRAD NEWBOLD 3:43
And how did you move on then to work for Gradient Crop Yield Solutions and Morningstar?

SAUL ALARCON 3:50
Well, you know, when, when I was in working for Campbell, they actually relocated me to the United States in 1997, and I worked, you know, for many years with them. Then I came to California in 2000. And I started working again in the tomato industry here in California. And by 2010, I started working for the Morningstar company, as a research scientist, you know, especially as an agronomist, and since then I have been working with Morningstar and after, you know, so many years working on projects and getting excellent results. My colleagues and I decided to create a an entity called Grading Crop Yield Solutions, which is basically the vehicle that we use to transfer all these technologies that we develop to the growers. So that’s how you see you know, and the place of grading within the Morningstar universe.

BRAD NEWBOLD 4:58
And in your in your bio, here, we mentioned that you recently went back for your master’s in agronomy at Iowa State University. After being in the field for so long for decades, what made you want to go back? Go back to school and get a master’s?

SAUL ALARCON 5:13
Excellent. That is an excellent question. It was a personal dream from my, from when I was a little kid, you know, I wanted also to study abroad, you know, I didn’t know where and what I wanted to do at the time, but, but lately, as, as time passes by, you start understanding that there is there is a lot of changes in technology, you know, there are new things to investigate new things to understand. And I felt that it was a good time to go back to school, and, and in a catch up with all these developments that were, you know, happening at the moment. Remember that, you know, when I graduated, I think it was 1991. And now you you transition into, you know, satellites, and, you know, laser lasers, and all these these technologies, GPS, and all this incredible technology, say, I felt that I needed to get updated on those skills.

BRAD NEWBOLD 6:27
No, definitely. And we’ll talk about this here. But even just in the past five years, there’s just been leaps and bounds when it comes to the technology involved in agriculture. So I can imagine, yeah, going from, you know, nearly, you know, 30 years ago, is a big deal.

SAUL ALARCON 6:42
Absolutely, absolutely. And one thing that, you know, it’s interesting to share in this in this section is that when I was at Campbell’s in the early 90s, we were already using sensors, you know, we were already using leaf wetness sensors and air temperature sensors, and and two way channels, and data loggers, you know, very simple equipment, but that’s when I fall in love into this technology, you know, and like I said, you start working on on this on these technologies, and you realize that the next five years, that is a new thing, and so on.

Right, right. So for those in our audience, who are not very familiar with, with agriculture, or, or what you’re working on, can you give us a brief definition or introduction into precision agriculture and Smart Farm Management?

Yep. Well, precision agriculture is a concept that has been developed maybe the last 10 years, 10-15 years and actually is, is the use of all technologies that make in this case, for instance, groundwork more efficient and more accurate, you know. And precision agriculture can be, an example, for instance, GPS technology, which was actually the the first technology that was used to describe as precision ag. You know, and you are talking about, maybe, you know, the early 2000s, where were precision agriculture started. And the other question was, what is the-

BRAD NEWBOLD 8:35
This is similar to what you’re doing there at Morningstar with Smart Farm Management.

SAUL ALARCON 8:39
Okay, so a smart farm management, in our concept is basically the integration of all these technologies that are gonna help you to improve production. And, and in the case of agriculture, is measured management is, is focused on increasing of deals, right, and helping growers to be more profitable. But in reality, you know, at the same time you are trying to achieve this sustainability factor, which is going to help you to minimize the detriment of the environment. So smart farming is basically focusing of an optimization of resources, be more productive, and deplete or damage the less possible the environment.

BRAD NEWBOLD 9:36
Right. So with that being said, can you tell us a little bit about Morningstar and the kind of the business model and how they work with their partner growers?

SAUL ALARCON 9:46
Yes. The Morningstar company is is the biggest tomato processor in the world. We have facilities in in three locations here. And we have two in Los Banos and one and Williams, California. And basically Morningstar is a vertically integrated organization and we produce the plants that the growers plant in the ground, we provide also services to plant these plants in the ground, we have a transplanting operation, we also have a harvesting operation and we have hauling company, the Morningstar trucking company. And we have our our tomato processors. So we have vertically integrated organization. And what we do with growers is we are basically negotiating with them to be and participate as suppliers, you know, they produce those tomatoes, and they actually do an awesome job. The processing tomato industry is one of the best industries you can find in the world, high productive growers, very highly dignified growers, and all of them deliver tomatoes, basically starting from the first week of July all the way to October 30th, more or less. So this is basically the structure Morningstar also has their own farming operation called Lucero Farms where we have an a small portion of the total acreage we grow in the state of California.

BRAD NEWBOLD 11:37
Right. That makes that makes it a bit clearer for clear for me as well, that helps me better understand kind of how how things are bit more, more integrated there.

SAUL ALARCON 11:46
Absolutely, now is is really, really a big organization. And I have to say that all the success that Morningstar has achieved has been due to the the great vision of Chris Rufer, the owner. And that has a tremendous support for research in this case, he he loves innovation. He’s always he’s always looking to find the next best technology they can have. So that is also a huge factor in making Morningstar what it is right now.

BRAD NEWBOLD 12:23
Yeah. And I know that there’s a lot of information out there for any our audience who wants to know more about Morningstar, they’ve got a lot of a lot of cool videos and and other things online where you can see all the different ways that they’re integrating their technology, like, you know, like you were saying, Saul from, from, from seedlings from from planting and in the greenhouses, to transplanting to growing and and, you know, beyond so, a lot of great really cool cutting edge, it seems that you guys are very much early adopters in a lot of this, this new new and and budding technology. So that being said, let’s talk about some of this, this new and interesting technology and research that you’ve been doing there at Morningstar. What are some of the projects that you have? Or at least I guess I should say, what are what are some of the the agricultural research and the interests that you are focusing on right now?

SAUL ALARCON 13:19
Well, we are involved in several aspects of agricultural production. And one thing that we were working on the last 10 years was basically in the improvement of irrigation practices for growers, for tomato growers. And that was even even more important after the drought, right, when we went through the drought. So, there was a lot of interest on growers to get help to improve water usage, they were very limited in the water allocation and they wanted to understand what is the minimum amount of water I can use to produce a decent crop or be able to be profitable right? And all that triggered a lot of interest on us to develop technologies and basically, we started understanding from the basics, you know, what what is the best sensor that I can use for to monitor moisture, soil moisture, what is the best sensor I can use to monitor air temperature, relative humidity, vapor pressure deficit and and as we move forward, we, we were getting a better understanding of what the growers needed to the point where we develop a technology using infrared sensors that help us to monitor water stress. So all these dis components together, all this technology was put in place, you know, to assist the growers and develop algorithms and tell them when to irrigate and how much water to irrigate. So that was the main focus in terms of water management, and I can give you more details later on. But that was the main focus in our research. The second aspect that we got involved is in the, in the understanding of crop nutrition, we also see that there are a lot of needs for growers to improve fertilization, there are a lot of restrictions coming up, that are going to basically put growers on the spot related to fertilizer, you know, contamination and groundwater. So, we, we understood that growers told us that we needed to develop methods that could ensure that they were gonna pass revisions or audits, right? And so we are working now on that very intensively. And we have a goal as a matter of fact, to increase yields by 15%, within the next three to five years. So it’s a very ambitious target, but we are working hard to try to, you know, collaborate with growers, and achieve that goal. And there are other benefits that you are gonna get out of that, because if you achieved that goal, even if it is not 15%, you can produce the same amount of tonnes in less ground, and less, less lag. So you use less water, less fertilizer, and, you know, less resources in general. So that’s the second aspect that, you know, we are working very, very intensively. And the other factor that I have to mention is, is that we are trying to understand how to improve harvest, you know, activities, for instance, we have now a network with a weather station that we are actually using the ATMOS 41. In this case, we have I think 15 stations already installed from Bakersfield all the way to Calusa. So and we are planning to increase the network even even more, because we need to create models that are going to tell us when can I go to harvest? And where do I need to harvest you know, and that our head units model and other technology that we are trying to put together to do that. And I can say that other things, we are working with satellite images. We are partnering with EOS, it’s a company that provides satellite services, we have a partnership with them. And we are doing artificial intelligence models. And we are just starting. But there is a lot of projects that we are working on right now.

BRAD NEWBOLD 18:20
That sounds super exciting. That’s back up a little bit. And I wanted to go back to what you’re talking about with, with water management with with the growers. And because, yeah, like you said, I mean, water is a big cost for for these growers. Especially they’re in California, we’re dealing with, you know, extreme or exceptional drought. And in many of those areas. And then I mean, I guess we have not only on with extreme drought, but then also this year, we had quite a bit of of snow and rainfall that follow that drought. And then so you have flooding in some areas there in the Tulare basin and others. How how do you think I guess I want to I want to hit this question before we move on to some of these other ones but how do you think some of this some of this technology and some of these practices can help growers deal with climate instability with these issues with with drought with flooding and with with groundwater I know there’s there’s issues with with groundwater recharge and subsidence and things.

SAUL ALARCON 19:30
Yes. Nature nature is unpredictable and and you are always going to have situations where you know you have a drought for several years then you have a year like this year where we got enormous amount of water. But one thing that we need to understand is that in crop production in crop production, regardless if it is a drought or we have plenty of water, we have to make sure, we are providing our crops with the right amount of water at the right time, you know that that concept is not going to change ever. Because one thing that we have noticed is that some growers, you know, maybe have plenty of water, they they over, irrigate they tend to over irrigate. And that’s a huge problem. We are doing a lot of work right now understanding what is the optimum amount of water that is going to allow our roots to breathe. Remember, the roots breathe oxygen like us, like humans, right. And they, they, you know, transpire a co2 and the ground, there is the opposite on on the canopy, they cannot be, you know, transpires oxygen, and when the stomata opens, it takes co2. So it’s the opposite concept. So the growers, you know, we are trying to collaborate with them and trying to explain them the importance of maintaining proper levels in the ground, you know, what is the amount of water that is going to provide the oxygen that these roots need to prevail, and look for all these nutrients and, and make the plant more efficient. So all these these aspects, that’s what we are trying to collaborate with growers and say, if even if you have enough water, you don’t need to use it just because you have it, try to use use it in a strategic way. So you can increase your yields. So that’s one of the things that we have been doing. You know, I mean, since the last five years, but now with, with the situation right now, where growers do not have any limitations with water, we are trying to use this opportunity to tell them don’t use that water that you don’t need to right? Just just use what you need. And and we have some examples right now that we have with some cooperating growers. And it’s amazing how much yield you can you can get when you allow the plant to work in the optimal conditions in the ground. So I think that that is one thing that we are trying to deal with, is educate growers, or collaborate with them and show them, you know, using all these technologies, so they can improve weather usage. But because you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, we might get into another drought again. And we have to adjust and be able to respond to those conditions.

BRAD NEWBOLD 22:47
Right. One of the one of the stereotypes when it comes to farmers and growers is that they are slow to adopt new technologies into into their farming practices. Have you seen that as the case in I mean, in working with your your partner growers, or has there has there been? I guess, I guess, Have you have you had a good a good amount of buy in from the growers in implementing these new technologies and practices?

SAUL ALARCON 23:15
Yes. One, one thing that I learned, since I started working with growers early in my career, is that it has to be a very slow process. And I haven’t known yet a grower that goes full blast into a new technology in one or two years. And I learned that through through my career. So fortunately, I had great coaches, great mentors, that show me that there are actually three steps to be able to successfully transfer technology to a grower. And the first thing that I learned is that you have to demonstrate the technology in small plots, you have to be able to demonstrate statistically and show that the significance of the benefits of the technology and start already working with the potential economic savings, or the benefits that the grower is going to get out of this this technology. Once you successfully demonstrate that this technology can help the growers, you start now reaching out to them and say, Hey, I have this technology, can we do a side by side you know, and you go now into the face of semi commercial mode, and you have to work with the growers one to do or up to three years, you know, and and that in that process then, that’s when when the technology can succeed or fail. So once the grower validates the benefits of that technology, it immediately wants to expand to there, you know, one portion of the acres 25% of the acreage. And that’s that’s the basically, the process that I’ve seen. Here in California, here in California, I, I have growers that in average, tried to expand basically, and they, in the third year, and but it’s not an easy process. There is always questions. Growers are very smart, very methodic. And, and, and, and the number one thing is they are business people. So that’s, that’s probably the challenge, the biggest challenge is to demonstrate that when you have a technology, they’re gonna get the return of the investment. Right. So you have to be prepared, you have to do your homework, work hard. And I guarantee you that if you follow that process, anything technology that is proven, can be expanded.

BRAD NEWBOLD 26:11
Right. Right. I think it’s, it’s interesting, in being able to, to provide this, you know, provide this the service for them and to allow them to, to kind of experiment and figure things out. Along with that is when you were beginning to implement these, I guess these changes or improvements to their growing practices. Is it something that you’re you’re doing incrementally so, so this this first year or for this first plot or field, we’re only going to do these, you know, these sensors or this type of this type of practice? And then maybe the next year or next season, we’re going to add a little bit more, is it something like that? Or is it where we’re just going to plug in plug in everything that we’ve got, and you’re gonna see a big jump from from one year to the next?

SAUL ALARCON 27:00
This is a great question. This is a great question. And and remember that we have the great advantage to have our own farms, right. And Lucero Farms. So one portion of the acreage that we have in Lucero Farms is devoted to perform research. And, and the owner, Chris rufer, as I mentioned before, he’s always trying to get more and more ground into the research. area, because he understands that that’s the only way we’re gonna be able to get better. So Lucero Farms is is is a great opportunity for us to do all these these small plots, we are all over the place. So we have a wide area where to test things. And that’s basically what helped us to start with the, with the first step. And there are some growers that also I mean, they love research and they say, I want to participate then one thing that I have to say is that every year agriculture, R&D and agrarian have a yearly meeting where we clean up bring all the growers when we share with them, all the research that we perform, and in that in that meeting, that’s a great opportunity for us to call them and say, Do you guys want to cooperate? Do you want to participate? And that’s probably the main reason why we have been so successful in expanding our technologies right now.

BRAD NEWBOLD 28:41
Right. One of the one of the other cool things is that here in METER, we talk a lot about the measuring the soil plant atmosphere continuum. And again, one of the cool things that you guys are doing there at Morningstar is that you are doing that very thing you’re, you’re measuring, you know, you’ve got sensors in the soil, you’ve got sensors, measuring the plants, you’ve got sensors, measuring the water, you’ve got sensors, measuring the atmosphere and the the local climate there and the microclimate. Could you go into a little bit more detail about how you’re going about measuring in each of those in each of those regions?

SAUL ALARCON 29:14
Yes, let me first start with the reason why we got involved with the measurement of the continuum right. Soil, plant, atmosphere continuum. And I have to say that when I started working with soil moisture sensors, I was trying to manage water and in order to systematically reduce the amount of irrigation towards harvests and increase soluble solids. And one thing that I learned through my basic research is that the changes in soil moisture are very slow. It is very slow and sometimes, depending on the soil type is very fast, right? So you have a sand versus a clay. And in some cases, I wasn’t stressing enough because the water wasn’t moving enough for some cases I wasn’t I was stressing too much. And I was losing yields, right? And in one occasion, I remember that I was carrying the water to a field and I went from 100% ET to 60% 75% ET. And I see the field is looking great, green, beautiful, I didn’t see any effect. I was trying to see the effect of the current the water with my eyes. And then I went to 50% no change, and I was getting closer to harvest I was getting closer to capture, I wanted to promote some level of stress to increase my my soluble solids. And little I knew that there was a heat spell with seven days in a row 105-107 degrees. And, and I walked to the field the next day. And and the field was basically collapsed. And, and I I tried to understand what happened. What happened was that I was already stressing my field when I was carrying the water. But I couldn’t detect that as stress visually. And that it was not basically enough water for the plant to respond to those atmospheric demands, water atmospheric demands. And and so the the plants collapse, I lost eight tons per acre versus the control. So it was a huge lesson. And I said, What do I need to do to be able to monitor plant stress, even before my eyes can see that, and I started doing my research. And, you know, like, six years ago, seven years ago, or something like that, I found an algorithm that was created by a research scientist in 1982. Working in the USDA station in Arizona, working with cotton, that was working with basically, with planned stress monitoring, he created an algorithm that use infrared sensor to measure plant water stress at the hottest time of the day, in a daily basis. So when when I read that, and that was at the same time, I was going to a master’s degree. So that’s what I tell you that, you know, going to, you know, the next level of education, sometimes open your eyes and you have you are in a new universe. So I think that was a huge step. And what I did, I immediately bought, you know, 3 Apogee, infrared sensors and start working immediately before the season finished, I couldn’t understand anything about the data was getting why I was sometimes I was getting more transpiration than other I thought the devices were not accurate. But what I didn’t know is that in a daily basis, vapor pressure deficit regulates how much your plants are transpiring, or how much your plants are cooling itself down. So you have to learn all these plant physiology concepts to come up with a system that can tell you if you are putting in no water or not, to, to, to, to the plants. So that’s how, you know I started developing this technology. And, and we we continue advancing and we went through the process that I told you about demonstrating that and we started working with tomato growers first and we have right now around maybe 19-20,000 acres under under the system you know using infrared. Now we are now working with pistachio and almond growers so that’s that’s what I that’s how things happen in terms of that technology.

BRAD NEWBOLD 34:33
Yeah. You talked about wanting to track plant stress, water stress, Have you have you done any research into comparing your volumetric water content with with water potential within the soil water potential?

SAUL ALARCON 34:49
I did not did the research for one very reason is because there is plenty of information that demonstrates you know that the water potential measurements are, you know, correlate really well with the Plant Stress Index when you use the infrared sensor, so there was plenty of information and I didn’t want to use my resources on that, since I knew that that was already proven, you know, and there is plenty of information on that. And they found that in in all months, that is working almonds, basically, in trees where, you know, we’re always use the, the, the pressure bump. And that is a high correlation with that. So that’s the reason why I haven’t done that. That research.

BRAD NEWBOLD 35:41
Right, interesting. So you’ve talked about using the soil sensors, you’ve talked about the infrared sensors, as well. And you’ve also mentioned that you’ve, you’ve kind of moved on to look and working with satellite imagery, and those kinds of things. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing with that?

SAUL ALARCON 36:00
Yes, and this is where the technology, you know, that’s when you get into this smart management concept, right? Because one, one thing is not enough to provide a grower with a robust system to manage their crops. So what we did was to create grading crop yield solutions, where we could provide the grower with a platform that he can choose, and, and start putting all this information together, and educate the growers how to take advantage of these technologies. So that’s when if you have the sensors in the ground, you know, you explain then what is the kind of decisions you need to take. But once you integrate satellite system, for instance, and you have your infrared sensors, you have the evapotranspiration data, and soil moisture sensors, you put all these things together, and I things start getting more sense, right? And you give the grower a certainty that what is going on in that specific field is true. You know, and and, for instance, I’m gonna give you an example, we check our information every day in the morning. So, the first thing we take a look is what are this the fields that are showing the highest stress from the day before because we see the data every 24 hours. So, in the morning, we see what was the field that had the highest stress and yesterday and then you go and select that field and then you go and revise what is the water levels, you know, is that related to that or another factor, right? So, then if you want to see the extent of the problem, you have a problem you go to the satellite image, right and you relate the two points that you have in the ground and then you can you can extrapolate you know, what is the condition that a specific condition the two stations in relation to the rest of the field does when satellite images make sense, you have to have a connection between between the space data right, they are going to get in from the satellite and and correlate that with the ground data, right. I think that at this point, I think that I at this point, we cannot take decisions solely in satellite data, I think we still still have a ways to go on that. And I consider that the best bet you have right now to take a good decision in your fields is you integrate that right. And the other thing that is now coming into play is the crop nutrition aspect of it, right. And then you bring you bring the insects aspect of it and diseases. So that’s how we are trying to integrate, right, all these technologies to provide that to the grower.

BRAD NEWBOLD 39:24
So with you talked about working with or at least checking and following up on on plant water stress working with a plant water stress index, what are some of the specific stress signals that you’re looking for in those plants?

SAUL ALARCON 39:40
Yeah, what you are you are refer for that to be able to take that with satellite with or in the ground?

BRAD NEWBOLD 39:47
I guess. We can talk about both. How are you-

SAUL ALARCON 39:50
Okay, so, so, okay. So the the algorithm the, the wider the stress algorithm, we use using the infrared sensor is so accurate that the plant you can detect the the information that the plant is giving you basically in a daily basis, you know, if you cut the water, you can you can immediately detect the signals, the plan is telling you, I’m falling short of water. Right? You don’t you don’t see the stress, because like I said, by the time you see the stress is because he’s wilted, right? Right, right. So, the great advantage of using infrared technology is that it can tell you way way ahead in advance when your plan is falling short the water or is or if there is another factor or a disease or something that is obstructing the stomata closing and opening. Okay. So that is that is one thing that I can say that if it sends the plant sends the signals ahead of time, through this algorithm through the detection of the infrared, because it takes the canopy temperature, right? And, and it reacts immediately. For instance, I seen that you cut the water because you forgot to irrigate an almond tree. An almond tree tell you that it doesn’t like that, within 24 hours. I mean, it’s very, very sensitive. And you can tell when you leave those spaces without water, the tree stress in the almond is goes up. Right, right, you know, so it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to see your plant wilted. Now we are ahead of the game, we don’t wait to that point. And we try to minimize that factor. So I can say that, in this case, we don’t wait to see the wilting right. Now, when you talk about satellites, you know, is is a different, it’s a different deal. Because what you are trying to see in the image is basically what are the areas that are weaker? Right? And it’s very difficult to say what is the reason why that area is weak, can be soil type can be maybe a disease can be lack of water, as well can be an insect damage. So it’s really difficult. The only thing I can say is that if tells you in a weekly basis, if things are getting better or worst, in the whole in the whole field in comparison with our sensors that are we have only two locations, right? So I think that it’s hard to say the reason why your crop is that, bad, you know, that’s where you have to go and use that map as a reference and understand what’s going on. But at this point, we cannot define the problem. You know, in comparison, when you have a sensor that is telling you right there, that you know, your diseases is getting hard because it’s not transparent, because it’s lack of water or something else. So there are the two differences right now.

Speaker 1 43:16
Right, right. You’ve also I guess, I had I had a question you talked about trying to work with so trying to work with with plants under stress. But then also earlier, you’d mentioned that that you’re in some of the I guess with a different varieties that you’re working with with tomatoes is that you’re trying to either maximize or optimize the soluble solids and working with bricks and and and other other parameters there. Are there times I know in some crops, there are times when you want to stress the plants and others where you want to give them as much water as they can take. Is that Is that how it is with tomatoes as well? Or is it pretty much do you want to be able to to keep I guess, during the during the life of that plant? Or during the season, are you managing, you know, from from week to week or the during the growth phase of of that specific plant how much water they’re getting?

SAUL ALARCON 44:10
That is an excellent question because sometimes growers telling me you know, is there a time where I can cut my water and stress the plant so I can get more blooms? Right. I mean, I have heard that and and in my in my opinion, you know and I you can read this in the books, you have to give your plants the optimum conditions to explore the genetic potential of that of that plant. You know, and, well, if you can make mistakes, I can tell you that probably you can make mistakes the first thirty days of the season, right? But once you start getting into the fruit set stage, you have to strive to provide the plants with the best conditions possible, right? And what is that you have to have proper the proper amount of waters and proper nutrition. And every time and remember this, because what does what we learn in our research, every time you short your plants purposely you know, you are basically sending the message to the plant to close the stomata, right? Because the plants are so smart, they say I don’t have no water, I need to keep my water levels my water bank, so I’m gonna close my stomata right now, but what happened there, you close the intake of co2, which is basically the the key factor for photosynthesis, that in turn produces this biomass right, which is the yields or canopy. So, every time you stress your plants, you are basically limiting your yields. So, you have to make sure that your plant has always the proper amount of water. So this plant opens the stomata at maximum and gets all the co2, right? All the co2, it at the same time it cool itself down, right, you maintain a low stress level, and the plant basically is going to prevail is going to produce all these yields that you are looking for. So they in short term, is it good to stress your plants? No.

BRAD NEWBOLD 46:38
Right. So,with, with all this going on, what are some of the, I guess in what you have seen? What are some of the data points that are most meaningful or useful to farmers, and I mean, you can talk from from your perspective with tomatoes, you’ve been working with other with other crops as well. Or the if you were to say, I guess give give some some consultation to to a new a new farmer who’s starting up a brand new operation? What are the kind of the basic key? Yeah, those key data points or key technologies that that you would suggest they implement?

SAUL ALARCON 47:18
What we are trying to do for instance, I’m gonna give you an example of growers that are getting now and the tomato business right or any any grower that is going to start any crop. The first advice is to make sure you have a great ground prep, first step right is a key factor because if you avoid you know, compaction or things like that, you need to give the roots the best the best conditions possible, I think that will be the first step, but if I have to tell the grower what parameters he needs to watch, other than having a good plan in the ground is irrigation, you know, and and irrigation is is critical critical, I won’t say that is more important than other things, but I will say that proper amount of water will be a critical control point for a grower then then nutrition, then nutrition but I will say that probably irrigation and nutrition and with ground prep and wait for a good weather conditions and work closely with your PCA to control your your insects and diseases. But I think that that will be in my opinion, the factors that you know, other than a good quality plant, right that you receive from your greenhouses. I will say that yeah. Yeah.

BRAD NEWBOLD 48:54
Along with along with what you’ve mentioned, you talked about that you’ve also been working with with almonds and other crops I mean, almonds and tree you know, tree nuts in general, they they consume and require a lot of water. I think I read somewhere that it’s for each almond, it’s, you know, a gallon of water per almond or something, something along those lines. How is that? How are you seeing or I guess in your experience, are you seeing that these technologies can play out a bit differently? Or at least how are the the those orchards or other places we can talk about almonds in particular, how are they adopting these technologies and what what are the differences there in those orchards versus what you’re seeing with the tomatoes?

SAUL ALARCON 49:42
I. The first thing that I have to tell you is that we needed to make a little bit of changes before before I go into into the benefits that you might find. You know what we are doing with with permanent crops like pistachios and almonds, the first thing that we had to do was basically to be able to install the infrared and the top of the canopy. You know, we have to understand if there was a relationship between the temperatures that we were getting and the vapor pressure deficit the deficit values, is there a correlation between high VPD and high evaporative cooling yes or no. And we did the research, we demonstrated scientifically and statistically that we could use the infrared to measure canopy temperatures in response to VPD changes. Once we did that, we created the algorithm and then we started installing and you can see this these, these infrared sensors and the canopies right now have an almost in pistachios. And at this point, right, right at this at this moment, I am working or we are working with a pistachio, large pistachio grower in the Central Valley. And we have a side by side comparisons. Where are we, he is irrigating based on their normal practices. And in our plot, we are irrigating based on tree stress, okay, right, if we, if our stress and normally when you measure water stress in our system, it goes from zero to 1, .5 being the middle point. And you don’t want to be above point five, because the literature says that once you go above point five, you started losing yields, right. And, and so what we are doing right now is, is a practice where we say, if we don’t get above point three, you know, we are going to apply X amount of hours. Right? And we we keep this this average below point three. And that is, it’s been a great experience, because at this point of time, we have saved around 15% of water, we continue to work because we are not at harvest yet. But we add at this point 15% lower water usage. And our average stress index is around .1, .1-.2. And the other side in the control, which is the global standard here is a point three stress, but will even with a little bit more water. So those those are the kinds of things that we are trying to do in other crops I, I think we have a great opportunity to save water because randomly you use between, let’s say 3.6 to 4.5 acre feet of water, you know, for the season, right? So that there is a lot of criticism by by this crop, but by the community to basically tell the almond growers and pistachio growers to optimize water. So at this point, we we have an average of Water Stress Index in our in our plots are about .1-.2 versus the control where is the standard practices the grower has a .3, is slightly higher stress, and with a little bit more water. So we are now seeing the opportunity to help the permanent growers to improve water usage. I think we can help them and I think the infrared technology works really really well with trees. It a read the temperature flawlessly and a daily basis. And we are very, very excited about the possibilities to start deploying this technology with with in permanent crops. Definitely.

BRAD NEWBOLD 54:27
That’s great. That’s I’m super interested to see how that goes. For final final questions are, I wanted to ask you kind of revolve around what you’re seeing here in the future. And at least I was interested in seeing okay, what are the next steps for you there at Morningstar and Gradient? What are you doing here the next year five years to improve? And then and then maybe in what you see are the incoming trends within precision agriculture in general.

SAUL ALARCON 55:01
Yes, we are now at the Morningstar right now is investing at a tremendous amount of resources in automation. And in our autonomous vehicles, we are doing that a lot of work with automated harvesters transplanters, we are gonna do the autonomous weeding. So, definitely there is huge interest there, at least in our company, and then you can see it around the world, and automation or autonomous vehicles. So I think that that will be the the, the main thing we are going to concentrate in the future, but also there is there is going to be a tremendous interest in the growers to maintaining the yields or, or increasing yields, that that is going to be our biggest challenge. Because as you know, population increases in the world, the demand is also going to improve increase. So I think that the the need for continuous improvement and yield production is not gonna stop, in my opinion. So we have to continue working with criminal attrition, irrigation and all those things.

BRAD NEWBOLD 56:32
Right. So So I guess, what do you think the future of agriculture looks like, with, you know, being able to irrigate less and have improved technology? I mean, that seems that hopefully, hopefully, you know, you there at Morningstar can be, you know, the example the the shining light on the hill of, of creating these new business practices when it comes to agriculture? Do you think that’s something that that I guess you mentioned that you’re seeing a lot of this over in Europe and elsewhere? Do you see this kind of spreading there in the Central Valley of California as well?

SAUL ALARCON 57:09
Yes, definitely. I think that we are going to have a big issue, where in the next 10, 10 years or less about labor availability, you know, it’s becoming a big, big problem. And you can, you can, you can say that growers are gonna try to have more robots, mechanize, you know, the equipment that there is there is a need, and there is going to be a need of or basically is going to force us to get into autonomous vehicles that’s what I see. And every time that the new generation of people does, does not have any interest in working in the fields, right. And they, they want to pursue all that other careers. And that is, that is an issue right now in the Central Valley. And don’t be surprised if eventually, the Central Valley becomes one of the, you know, first places where robots or autonomous vehicles are gonna be the norm. I think we are not that far from that. And we are going to that direction. You know, very, very, very quick,

BRAD NEWBOLD 58:34
interesting. Any final thoughts or anything else you’d like to add that we didn’t get to cover?

SAUL ALARCON 58:41
No, I think, you know, we, I enjoyed this conversation. That is a lot of topics. I have the passion for agriculture, the passion for research. I think that, you know, I have fun I enjoy every day when when we work with my colleagues in the field. I think we touch in the general basis, you know, what we do as Morningstar with Gradient? I think we have a huge challenge. And we work every day, to try to assist the growers. One thing they want to finalize, so what I believe what will be my final comment is that we, we, we want to support the growers. We need to work for the growers. We need to generate all these technologies for the growers, because at the end of the day, they are the ones that basically are responsible to produce the food that we need. So as a researcher, I only control researcher, I feel honored to be part of that of that effort. Right? And I truly believe that if we continue working hard, we can give them the tools you know to To increase the yields, you know, and and and be more productive and and why not be more profitable, right, and work together to protect the environment and protect the natural resources. And I think that that will be that will be it will be made the goal at least and the Morningstar vision.

BRAD NEWBOLD 1:00:22
Great. All right. Well, our time is up for today. Thank you again. So we really appreciate you taking time and talk with us. It’s been a really good conversation.

SAUL ALARCON 1:00:32
Thank you for having me today.

BRAD NEWBOLD 1:00:34
All right. Stay safe, and we’ll see you next time on We Measure the World