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Introducing Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer: Precision, Efficiency, and Sustainability

Introducing Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer: Precision, Efficiency, and Sustainability

At Stout, innovation is at the heart of everything we do, and our latest product, the Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer, is a testament to that commitment. This groundbreaking solution is set to transform how fertilization is managed in farming operations, enhancing both efficiency and sustainability.

The Future of Fertilization

The Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer is more than just a new product – it’s a smarter approach to farming. Traditional fertilization often results in overuse of materials, driving up costs and increasing environmental impact. Our new smart fertilizer implement (add on?) addresses these challenges by focusing on precision, delivering nutrients directly to the individual plants that need them, when they need them.

Why Choose Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer?

  1. Reduce Material Use:

In agriculture today, efficiency is crucial. Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer minimizes material use by tailoring nutrient delivery to the specific needs of your crops, optimizing results with fewer inputs, saving both time and resources.

  1. Precision by Each Individual Plant:

Instead of applying fertilizers uniformly, our technology adapts to each plant’s unique requirements, ensuring that every part of your crop receives the optimal amount of nutrients. This personalized approach boosts both productivity and plant health.

  1. Achieve Uniformity with Less Inputs:

Uniform crop production is critical, and achieving it doesn’t have to mean using more resources. Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer helps you drive uniformity across your fields with fewer inputs, creating more sustainable and cost-effective farming practices.

Take the Next Step in Sustainable Farming

Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer is now available and ready to further revolutionize your farming practices.  By choosing the Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer, you’re not only improving your farm’s efficiency but also contributing to a more sustainable future in agriculture.

The Stout Smart Rate Fertilizer is designed to meet your needs.

The Journey of Innovation in Agriculture: A Story from Austin Larick

The Journey of Innovation in Agriculture: A Story from Austin Larick

When I reflect on my role as the Mechanics Team Lead at Stout, I see a journey deeply rooted in a passion for creating what didn’t exist and pushing the boundaries of agricultural technology. My background in agriculture and AgTech has been instrumental in shaping this path. From my early days, I’ve been driven by a desire to bring new solutions to life, a pursuit that has found a perfect home at Tanimura & Antle and subsequently, Stout.

My journey with Stout began with the commercial development of the PlantTape automated transplanter at Tanimura & Antle. This innovation was the catalyst for the creation of the Tanimura & Antle R&D department. The process of transforming ideas into reality has always been thrilling, and Tanimura & Antle’s extreme motivation to push the industry forward has been a significant driving force behind our successes. Our R&D department, which started as a small team in the bullpen of the hardware shop, has now evolved into the cornerstone of Stout’s innovative spirit.

In my role, I emphasize flexibility and simplicity in our designs. Traditional engineering approaches sometimes lack the fundamentals of moving dirt needed for agricultural innovation. I’ve learned from experience that sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective. For example, we’ve refined our precision implements, like the Smart Cultivator, to allow growers to make adjustments easily and precisely. The user-friendly interface on our Smart Cultivator has significantly improved efficiency and productivity for growers world-wide.

Precision in agricultural machinery is crucial for minimizing waste and maximizing yield. By ensuring that our machines operate with high accuracy, we can help growers reduce wastage and increase the consistency of their produce. The information our machines provide, along with their precise operations, leads to better outcomes in the field, whether it’s in terms of crop yield or operational efficiency.

Our team has developed key innovations in precision implements that benefit growers by making their tasks easier and more efficient. One of the most significant advancements has been the development of a user interface that simplifies adjustments and enhances the precision of operations. This allows growers to be more confident and effective in their fieldwork.

However, developing machinery for diverse agricultural environments comes with its unique challenges. The older generation of farmers being mostly happy with doing what has worked in the past. The increasing openness to technology among younger generations of farmers is encouraging, and it fuels our drive to innovate continuously.

Feedback from growers is invaluable in our design and development process. We prioritize their input to ensure our machinery meets their needs and enhances their productivity. For instance, while working on the Smart Cultivator, we developed an implement to lift drip tape based on requests from specific growing practice, although it required further refinement to suit different regional practices.

At Stout, we strive to make our machinery both user-friendly and technically advanced. Our approach stems from being a farming company first, reaching out to Silicon Valley for technological expertise rather than the other way around. This collaboration ensures that our solutions are practical and beneficial for growers.

The future of agricultural machinery lies within greater efficiency, reduced traffic, and optimal use of growing areas. Stout is positioning itself at the forefront of this movement by creating machines that maximize efficiency with minimal input. Our focus on precision and resource management is key to leading the industry in these future trends.

Looking back, one of the most surprising and rewarding experiences was patenting a simple yet effective landing gear design. It’s moments like these that remind me of the value of intuitive thinking and practical solutions. Every small improvement we’ve made to our machines brings immense satisfaction as we see more growers benefiting from our innovations.

For those entering the AgTech field, especially engineers, my advice is to remain open-minded and adaptable. Agriculture presents unique challenges that require innovative thinking and practical solutions. Understanding that the field environment is unpredictable and uncontrollable is crucial for developing effective technologies.

Every step we’ve taken at Stout to improve our machinery has been a collective achievement. Seeing our innovations make a positive impact on growers’ lives is the most rewarding part of my job. As we continue to push the boundaries of agricultural technology, I am excited about the future and the endless possibilities it holds for Stout and the farming community.

About Austin

Austin Larick, the Mechanics Team Lead at Stout, has a rich background in agriculture and AgTech. Influenced by his grandfathers, both skilled welders, and encouraged by his father’s inventive challenges, Austin developed a passion for problem-solving from a young age. After honing his skills at Wyoming Technical Institute (WyoTech), he started his career at Ramsey Highlander, progressing from welding to electrical work, hydraulics, and machining. He then managed the shop at Green Valley Farm Supply for five years. Austin then spent nine years at Tanimura & Antle (T&A) in research and development, solidifying his reputation as an innovator, where he worked on the PlantTape transplanter. His diverse expertise and leadership have positioned him as a key figure at Stout, dedicated to pushing boundaries in agricultural technology.

About Stout

Stout is at the forefront of agricultural innovation, specializing in precision implements and AI-driven solutions that enhance efficiency and productivity for growers. Committed to pushing the boundaries of agricultural technology, Stout continues to lead the way in developing advanced machinery for the farming community.

 

The Future of Farming: Inside the Mind of Steven Snyder, Co-Founder and Director of Robotics at Stout Industrial Technology

The Future of Farming: Inside the Mind of Steven Snyder, Co-Founder and Director of Robotics at Stout Industrial Technology

At Stout Industrial Technology, we’re not just revolutionizing agriculture; we’re redefining it. With our cutting-edge True Vision technology and a relentless commitment to innovation, we’re making strides in AI and robotics that are changing the way growers operate. Today, I’d like to share insights into our journey, our capabilities, and what’s in store for the future.

True Vision is at the heart of what sets Stout apart. It is a sophisticated system combining AI and machine vision to detect and classify objects in real-world, ever-changing environments. Unlike traditional systems that require structured settings, True Vision excels in challenging outdoor conditions, utilizing advanced software, AI, and robust camera hardware to meet the field conditions.

True Vision operates using a convolutional neural network that identifies and classifies crops and weeds. This is further enhanced through a proprietary tracking algorithm. True Vision communicates detailed position information to an implement controller, enabling machines to perform precise agricultural tasks, setting a new standard for efficiency and accuracy in farming.

The journey of True Vision began with Jeff Antle’s vision to automate the weeding and cultivating process under high weed pressure. Existing machine vision technologies, like blob detection, were insufficient for real farming conditions. Recognizing that recent advances in AI were instrumental in solving this problem, Jeff started to assemble the team to lay the groundwork for what Stout True Vision is today – a high performance field-ready AI machine vision system.

Developing True Vision was not without its hurdles. One of the biggest challenges was the need for extensive datasets to train the AI models. To address this, we built portable data collection systems that enabled us to gather images and farm data from a multitude of crops in various regions and field conditions. Stout’s fleet of data collectors allowed us to train new AI models quickly and efficiently. This ability to rapidly adapt to new applications is a significant differentiator for Stout.

Looking ahead, True Vision continues to evolve. We have recently added capabilities for plant size and spacing histograms, heat maps, and web applications for real-time monitoring and detailed analysis of how crops are growing. Future enhancements are in the works to improve and enhance data feeds and provide growers more insights on how to improve their farming practices.

Our robotics and AI team is dedicated to continuous improvement. We focus on expanding our AI models to include new crop varieties and weeds, enhancing weed detection, and adding new functionalities to our Smart Cultivator. Our goal is to stay at the forefront of innovation, ensuring our customers always have access to the most advanced precision farming products.

Stout recently unveiled Smart Rate Fertilizer (SRF), an add-on for the Smart Cultivator and the world’s first plant-specific variable rate fertilizer system. Traditional variable rate application systems apply different rates of fertilizer to each part of the field, whereas SRF uses Stout True Vision to apply the right dose to each individual plant. By giving plants just the right amount of fertilizer, SRF lowers costs and reduces fertilizer runoff.

We have several exciting projects in the pipeline beyond the Smart Cultivator and Smart Rate Fertilizer. While details are under wraps, rest assured that our team is working on groundbreaking technologies that will further enhance our capabilities and the impact on the agriculture industry.

One of the key strengths of True Vision is its user-friendliness. It is designed to be self-tuning and adaptive, ensuring that operators do not need to be engineers to use it effectively. We’ve tested our interfaces extensively with customers, resulting in intuitive solutions like a mobile app for in-cab monitoring, which allows operators to manage the system without leaving their tractors.

Continued feedback from growers is invaluable. Our products are designed to solve real problems and improve margins for our customers. By working closely with growers, we ensure that our solutions are practical, effective, and aligned with their needs. This collaborative approach helps us focus our efforts on the most impactful areas.

As we remain at the cutting edge, we continuously experiment with new technologies and stay active in industry conferences. Partnerships, such as with industry leader Tanimura & Antle, provide us with opportunities to test new ideas and receive immediate feedback, keeping us ahead of industry trends.

Our robotics team is highly interdisciplinary, comprising machine learning / AI experts, mechanical engineers, controls engineers, and other specialists. We work closely with other departments to develop, test, and refine new technologies. This collaborative process ensures that our innovations are practical and ready for production.

The future of robotics in agriculture is incredibly exciting. We are at the beginning of a wave of robotic solutions that will make farming more productive and efficient, while reducing environmental impacts. Stout is building the tools to enable precise, plant-level decision-making, which is key to revolutionizing farming practices. By applying science at the individual plant level, we open doors to unparalleled advancements in agriculture.

These insights underscore Stout’s commitment to innovation and excellence in AgTech. With True Vision technology, we are not just keeping pace with industry trends; we are setting them. As we continue to evolve and expand our capabilities, we remain dedicated to providing growers with the tools they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Stay tuned for more exciting developments from Stout Industrial Technology!

About Steven Snyder: Steven co-founded Stout Industrial Technology and is the Director of Robotics, leveraging his expertise to bridge the gap between traditional industry and Silicon Valley innovations. With a rich background in autonomous robotics, electro-optics, automotive and aerospace, he has held key positions at Motivo Engineering and Applied Minds, where he designed complex systems and led significant technological advancements. Steven’s early career at GeneFluidics saw him develop critical software and hardware for medical research, showcasing his multifaceted engineering skills. He holds a degree in Cybernetics from UCLA, a multidisciplinary program with studies in computer science, electrical engineering, statistics, systems biology, and chemistry.

About Stout Industrial Technology: A Salinas, CA based artificial intelligence Company focusing on labor-intensive applications in agriculture. The Company builds software-defined implements for tractors that use machine vision and AI to identify and remove weeds via mechanical actuation instead of chemicals. Born inside a grower-shipper operation, Stout’s hardware and software solutions are developed from the grower’s perspective, hardened in the field prior to commercialization and continuously improved to help growers lower their operating costs and increase their margins.

Stout Industrial Technology Announces Participation at FIRA USA

Stout Industrial Technology Announces Participation at FIRA USA

SALINAS, CA. (September 5th, 2023) – Stout Industrial Technology, a leading pioneer in agricultural technology, is excited to announce its participation at this year’s prestigious International Forum for Agricultural Robotics (FIRA USA). The event will take place from September 19-21, 2023, at the Salinas Sports Complex in Salinas, CA, and will bring together industry leaders, experts, and enthusiasts in the field of agricultural robotics.

As a company that is revolutionizing the agricultural industry through cutting-edge AI technology and automation solutions, Stout Industrial Technology is thrilled to showcase its latest advancements and to foster connections with prospective customers and industry professionals at FIRA USA. The event provides an excellent platform for the company to demonstrate how its innovative technology is shaping the future of agriculture.

Attendees will have a variety of opportunities to engage with the Stout team and see the Smart Cultivator, an automated AI-powered weeder and cultivator, in action. The Stout team will partake in an Inno’Pitch session on September 20th, at 4:00 p.m.  During this session, attendees can expect a 15-minute presentation followed by a dedicated and interactive Q&A session with the Stout team.

There will be two demonstrations where the Stout Smart Cultivator will operate in a romaine field for attendees to watch the machine in action.  The demonstrations are scheduled for September 20th, at 10:15 a.m. and again on September 21st, at 2:00 p.m. Throughout the demonstration, attendees will have the opportunity to interact with Stout’s state-of-the-art Smart Cultivator.  The Stout Industrial Technology team will be on-site, providing valuable insights and explanations about the machine’s capabilities, highlighting the company’s commitment to improving efficiency, productivity, and sustainability in critical labor heavy farming practices such as weeding and cultivating.

Ryan Mazzuca, Director of Business Development

“We are thrilled to be a part of this year’s FIRA USA and to showcase our Smart Cultivator machine that leverages our proprietary True Vision™ AI technology,” said Ryan Mazzuca, Director of Business Development at Stout Industrial Technology. “This event presents a unique opportunity for us and innovative growers alike to connect with industry leaders, exchange insights, and explore partnerships that will drive the future of agriculture.”

FIRA USA is widely recognized as a premier event for autonomous and robotic farming solutions, with a comprehensive program featuring expert speakers, panel discussions, and networking opportunities. Attendees stand to will gain valuable insights into the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in the field, as well as witness live demonstrations of cutting-edge technologies.

Stout Industrial Technology invites all attendees to visit their booth #53 to learn more about the transformative technology of their Smart Cultivator and discover how it can minimize labor costs and increase farming efficiencies.

Stout Industrial Technology Appoints New Leadership

Stout Industrial Technology Appoints New Leadership

SALINAS, CA (August 3rd, 2023)

Stout Industrial Technology, a prominent AI company focused on agtech solutions, is proud to announce two significant additions to its leadership team. Ryan Mazzuca joins as the new Business Development Director, and Lance Portman takes the helm as CEO. These strategic appointments are geared towards reinforcing Stout’s commitment to continued growth and enhancing its position as an industry leader in artificial intelligence and agricultural technology.

“I am looking forward to leading the innovative team at Stout,” said Portman. “Together, we will build upon Stout’s already impressive accomplishments and drive the company’s growth to even greater heights. Stout’s commitment to revolutionizing agriculture and supporting farmers is unwavering, and I am excited to be a part of this transformative journey.”

Portman brings a distinguished leadership background and record of successfully bringing products to market, stewarding innovative teams and constructing sound business practices, having held key executive roles at prominent companies across the globe, including BJ Services Company, Baker Hughes Incorporated, and PlantTape, a fully automated agriculture transplanting system. His extensive experience in managing diverse operations, specifically in the agricultural sector, will be invaluable in driving Stout’s mission to provide growers with durable, labor-saving farm solutions.

Mazzuca joins Stout as the new Business Development Director, bringing a wealth of experience from companies such as Bloomfield Robotics, Iron Ox, and Tanimura & Antle. His proven track record in identifying and cultivating strategic partnerships will play a pivotal role in expanding Stout’s market reach and solidifying its position in the industry.

“I am deeply honored to be a part of the talented, visionary team at Stout,” remarked Mazzuca. “Stout has already established an exceptional product that is positioned to shape the future of agriculture. I am looking forward to contributing to the team and supporting growers tackling the adoption of Stout’s cutting-edge technology.”

With a steadfast commitment to agricultural innovation and a focus on developing AI solutions that empower growers, the Stout team continues to lead the charge in shaping the future of farming. The recent additions to the team are expected to contribute significantly to their ongoing success, further solidifying Stout’s position as the leader for AI solutions in the agriculture industry.

Stout Industrial Technology Adds Global Distribution And Investment From CNH Industrial

Stout Industrial Technology Adds Global Distribution And Investment From CNH Industrial

Stout Industrial Technology Adds Global Distribution And Investment From CNH Industrial

Helping growers automate labor-intensive field work with artificial intelligence

SALINAS, CA (December 9, 2022)

Stout Industrial Technology, Inc. (Stout) has announced an investment from and global distribution agreement with CNH Industrial that will see Stout’s AI-powered Smart Cultivators sold and serviced at New Holland dealerships worldwide.

The machines simultaneously cultivate and remove weeds at the rate of 1 – 2 acres per hour and are anticipated to be available for sale at selected New Holland dealers in early 2023. Stout currently has Smart Cultivators operating in locations across the US and in the United Kingdom. 

The minority investment by CNH Industrial adds Michele Lombardi to Stout’s Board of Directors and adds Stout’s proprietary vision system, neural network and AI expertise to CNH Industrial’s See & Act portfolio of products.

 

Stout Industrial Technology is a Salinas, CA based artificial intelligence company focusing on labor-intensive applications in agriculture. The Company builds software-defined implements for tractors that use machine vision and AI to identify and remove weeds via mechanical actuation instead of chemicals. Born inside a grower-shipper operation, Stout’s hardware and software solutions are developed from the grower’s perspective, hardened in the field prior to commercialization and continuously improved to help growers lower their operating costs and increase their margins.

Learn more at www.stout.ai or follow Stout Industrial Technology on LinkedIn.

CNH Industrial (NYSE: CNHI / MI: CNHI) is a world-class equipment and services company. Driven by its purpose of Breaking New Ground, which centers on Innovation, Sustainability and Productivity, the Company provides the strategic direction, R&D capabilities, and investments that enable the success of its global and regional Brands. Globally, Case IH and New Holland Agriculture supply 360° agriculture applications from machines to implements and the digital technologies that enhance them.

Across a history spanning over two centuries, CNH Industrial has always been a pioneer in its sectors and continues to passionately innovate and drive customer efficiency and success. As a truly global company, CNH Industrial’s 37,000+ employees form part of a diverse and inclusive workplace, focused on empowering customers to grow, and build, a better world.

 For more information and the latest financial and sustainability reports visit: cnhindustrial.com

For news from CNH Industrial and its Brands visit: media.cnhindustrial.com