Corn pollinating drone technology earns Iowa City agtech firm $7.5 million investment
Summary
This natural process is critical to the country’s number-one feed crop, but experts say fertilization must be facilitated to preserve the traits that allow today’s corn hybrids to withstand disease, pests and eye-popping yields. A just-announced $7.5 million Series A infusion of venture capital will help support a brand-new method of pollinating corn developed by Iowa City-based agtech company Rantizo. “Many strategic players are evaluating their options for the future and trying to evolve their businesses where the markets will go, rather than just focusing on what they have already done,” Ott told Silicon Prairie News from the National Agricultural Aviation Association’s annual conference in Savannah, Georgia. For its part, the National Agricultural Aviation Association considers drones a “complementary tool to manned aerial application methods, not a wholesale replacement,” trade group head Andrew Moore wrote in a May 2019 column. Also, aerial seeding of cover crops will place me in the perfect spot to participate in the rapidly developing carbon sequestration marketplace, as well as simply be a better steward of the land.”