Farmers can't see when pathogens are in the air, so they are forced to spray pesticides prophylactically. Root Applied Sciences' pathogen monitoring technology alerts growers to airborne pathogen risk so they can spray pesticides only when they need to, leading to a 50% reduction in pesticide applications.

 
 
 

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Sarah Placella

Sarah Placella founded Root Applied Sciences after realizing that farmers struggle to get decision-critical information for pathogen management. She applies techniques she learned as a scientist and researcher to provide actionable insights to growers. Placella worked at startups in biotech and agtech before starting Root. She has a bachelor's degree in earth and planetary sciences from Johns Hopkins University, a Ph.D. in soil microbial ecology from UC Berkeley, and postdoctoral experience at Michigan State and INRAE, a national research institute in France.

 

TECHNOLOGY

 

Critical Need
Right now, farmers have no way of knowing when crop-threatening pathogens are in the air. They are forced to apply prophylactic pesticides or risk losing their crops. Many grape producers spray regularly for months just to control grapevine powdery mildew. This approach incurs significant material and labor costs, even to control just one pathogen.

Technology Vision
Root Applied Sciences' fully automated, autonomous pathogen monitoring devices will continuously collect particles from the air and run a DNA-based analysis quantifying the pathogens present. Each sensor in the network will upload these insights to the cloud and automatically notify farmers of risks to their crops with ample time to respond and prevent losses. Additionally, a web portal will show pathogen pressure spatially and temporally with comparisons to previous years. 

Potential for Impact
Root Applied Sciences will transform pathogen management in agriculture. Root's technology is applicable to a large variety of airborne pathogens in crops around the world. Farmers worldwide will be using fewer chemicals, with less intensive management, while growing food more sustainably.

Website
Root Applied Sciences