Upside Robotics says its small autonomous machines can cut corn nitrogen use by as much as 70% — and save growers about $150 an acre. The bigger question is whether micro-dosing can scale across the brutal maths of row-crop farming.
In a North American corn field, the hardest problem is rarely the science. It is timing.
Corn does not “eat” nitrogen in one sitting. The crop’s demand rises as the season progresses — yet much of the fertiliser still gets applied early, because that is when machinery and labour can get in, and because weather windows close fast.
