Juniper Systems started in 1993 with the goal of helping agricultural research become faster and more efficient. Farmers are now able to process seeds and get an in-depth knowledge of moisture, protein and oil contents of the seeds all from their combines, which are complex harvesting or sorting machines.
Juniper Systems has partnered with SCiO, an Israeli company, to create a cheaper and more advanced combine, called the H3 GrainGage, that helps farmers see the molecular makeup of seeds using near-infrared, or NIR, sensing without having to take them to a lab to get tested. Ray Newman, Product Manager for the Harvest Master product line for Juniper Systems, said this is a cheaper and faster way to analyze seeds.
“They no longer have to invest their time and money in building these calibrations and updating them every year. They don't have to have that NIR expertise. We do that for them,” Newman said.
NIR analyzing has been around since the late 1900s, but this is the first time it has been found built into a combine, according to Newman. Large amounts of research are going into the agriculture industry to find the best breeds of seed for farmers and ranchers, and getting the data in quicker will help speed up this process.
"Our equipment, basically analyzes for them so they can weed out and vet out the different ones that are not going to pass the test," Newman said. "And so they quickly know which ones will pass the test so they know how to proceed with the most successful seed breeds.”
