Roots Sustainable Agricultural Technologies

For a farmer, each day leading to harvest is important, and they must monitor their fields with utmost scrutiny to ensure an excellent productive crop yield. With many factors to contend with, such as soil density, water availability, and seed quality, to name a few, however, the process is easier said than done, and the lack of an effective solution hinders farming progress and collection of produce. While digitization in agriculture has changed the way plant growers approach farming, the challenge is finding the right applications and equipment based on the unique requirements of every farm.

Enter, Roots Sustainable Agricultural Technologies, an AgTech solution provider that offers multiple temperature control systems to empower farmers in always maintaining root tip temperature and increase yield. Borne out of a technology incubator conducted by the Israeli Chief Scientist Office, Roots has built multiple products targeting a global agricultural audience and has various collaboration agreements with many top agro-companies in Israel as well as Europe and Asia. The AgTech firm is backed by ahighly experienced team of directors, managers, and scientific advisory board members and works alongside regulatory officers to ensure best practices in both the chemical and biological sectors.

COMBINED FERTILIZATION AND IRRIGATION SYSTEMS

From ground foliage to upper stem and fruit, optimum root temperature is critical for effective growth and substantial crop produce. To aid farmers have a good harvest and rake in profits, Roots offers a Root Zone Temperature Optimization (RTZO) system that cools, and heats roots based on current farming area conditions. A simple temperature sensor embedded in the root zone area relays messages to the RTZO system allowing for automatic maintenance of optimum temperatures all year round regardless of air temperatures.

Roots’ RTZO system enables farmers to save energy and reduce carbon footprints by regulating their thermostats to work in the most accurate manner. When compared to normal farming strategies, crops treated with Roots’ systems showed an improved yield of twenty to two hundred and fifty percent. Not only do fruits and vegetables increase in size, texture, color, and taste, but also the time from seed to full plant is substantially reduced encouraging better ROI for farmers.

For a farmer, each day leading to harvest is important, and they must monitor their fields with utmost scrutiny to ensure an excellent productive crop yield. With many factors to contend with, such as soil density, water availability, and seed quality, to name a few, however, the process is easier said than done, and the lack of an effective solution hinders farming progress and collection of produce. While digitization in agriculture has changed the way plant growers approach farming, the challenge is finding the right applications and equipment based on the unique requirements of every farm.

Enter, Roots Sustainable Agricultural Technologies, an AgTech solution provider that offers multiple temperature control systems to empower farmers in always maintaining root tip temperature and increase yield. Borne out of a technology incubator conducted by the Israeli Chief Scientist Office, Roots has built multiple products targeting a global agricultural audience and has various collaboration agreements with many top agro-companies in Israel as well as Europe and Asia. The AgTech firm is backed by ahighly experienced team of directors, managers, and scientific advisory board members and works alongside regulatory officers to ensure best practices in both the chemical and biological sectors. COMBINED FERTILIZATION AND IRRIGATION SYSTEMS

From ground foliage to upper stem and fruit, optimum root temperature is critical for effective growth and substantial crop produce. To aid farmers have a good harvest and rake in profits, Roots offers a Root Zone Temperature Optimization (RTZO) system that cools, and heats roots based on current farming area conditions. A simple temperature sensor embedded in the root zone area relays messages to the RTZO system allowing for automatic maintenance of optimum temperatures all year round regardless of air temperatures.

Roots’ RTZO system enables farmers to save energy and reduce carbon footprints by regulating their thermostats to work in the most accurate manner. When compared to normal farming strategies, crops treated with Roots’ systems showed an improved yield of twenty to two hundred and fifty percent. Not only do fruits and vegetables increase in size, texture, color, and taste, but also the time from seed to full plant is substantially reduced encouraging better ROI for farmers.

Available in four configurations, farmers can choose the customization that best suits their crop and soil type. The first iteration of the RTZO system includes a monitoring and control panel along with a water tank and heat pump to regulate the temperature of the water. To allow for an accurate range of root zone temperatures year-round, the water is circulated in a closed cycle in pipes and through a T-shaped heat exchange probe placed in any substrate within the growing area of a plant. Alternatively, farmers can also choose a ground source heat exchange system to allow for a more natural process and encourage lesser power consumption. The system deploys a two-piece piping system, with the lower half embedded at the stable temperature-depth and the upper within the target crop’s root zone. Capable of increasing and decreasing temperature depending on the weather. This technique allows plant growers to heat the root zone during winter and cool it during summer, maintaining the RZT at a relatively stable and favorable range throughout the year. Clients can also opt for a hybrid system of heat pumps and GHSE systems for larger farms and different crop species.

The latest customization of Roots’ RTZO system ingeniously adds a drip irrigation/fertilization console to the heat pump configuration. The advanced mechanism allows farmers to save money by deploying a single solution for RZT control and drip irrigation.

The new technology allows Roots to stimulate growth with a state-of-the-art two-in-one fertigation (irrigation and fertilization) system.

FULLY NATURALAUTO WATERING TECHNOLOGY

Besides the low energy consuming RTZO systems, Roots has also developed a standalone, closed-loop, solar-operated module—IBC. Powered by the sun, the system irrigates crops by precipitating air humidity that collects on the external surface of pipes with cold running water. An insulated tank is filled once, and water is cooled to below dew point temperature for circulation through pipes in a field or greenhouse. The pipes can be laid on the ground in a horizontal or zig-zag pattern.

For optimal flow of condensed droplets from pipe to plant, Roots deploys gravity-based pipe angling that allows the water to flow toward the soil directly. In many regions that have tough crop growing conditions, the utilization of the system enables no additional irrigation requirements to maintain plant survival and food production. A new agriculture technology, Roots has proven the effectiveness of its solution in growing multiple crops with only condensed moisture, even from a saltwater source. Currently, IBC is the only automated irrigation system that can facilitate food production and positively impact an entire food chain completely running on naturally generated water and electricity.

TALES OF SUCCESS

By improving farmer crop growth potential, Roots’ innovative and unique irrigation and fertilization systems have grown tremendously, and the company partners with farmers from across the world. Experiments conducted in lab conductions in Israel and the US showcase the added value that Roots brings to the table in terms of the value proposition. Each installation of a Roots RTZO or IBC solution comes with its own set of cloud-based controllers and loggers that allow farmers to monitor the status of the crops all the time and limit damage or wastage due to bad conditions.
For one greenhouse located in Karmia, Israel using Roots GHSE system for improved heating proved more than fruitful as it was able to increase its basil yield by sixty-six percent. Another indoor strawberry farmer was able to improve the quality of the fruit, shorten the grow time and save energy with no requirement for additional air heating. On the other hand, hybrid systems have shown to double or triple the yield of certain crop types.

Moving ahead, Roots is further investigating the economic and technical feasibility of its IBC system in the agriculture sector. So far, the company’s research has led to the extensive creation of a knowledge base in integrating, operating, and scaling up IBC based irrigation solutions for active use in a one-acre farm. The focus is to empower eight to sixteen families to profit from a single grow space depending on crop type, price per kilogram, and other such criteria.