Interview with Mark DeSantis, Head of Bloomfield: 5 Key Insights Revealed
Pittsburgh-based Bloomfield, a subsidiary of Kubota Corporation, revolutionizes agriculture with its AI-driven plant imaging technology. This innovative solution assesses the health and performance of specialty crops at an individual plant level, focusing on high-value crops such as berries, cacao, and coffee beans.
In an interview, Mark DeSantis, the company's CEO, explained how Bloomfield's technology combines deep learning models with custom-built cameras, delivering precise insights to farmers. Mounted onto existing farm vehicles like ATVs or tractors, the device captures high-resolution images of various crops, from grapevines to blueberry bushes and apple trees.
To tackle the challenges of real-world field conditions, Bloomfield developed a dual-lens stereo camera with built-in lighting to maintain image quality despite sunlight, shade, time of day, or cloud cover. The system captures multiple images per second, processes them locally on a farm server, and uses AI models to detect and track key plant features, even when overlapping or hidden.
As the AI model learns, it adapts to new crops, growing conditions, or feature requests from growers. This continuous refinement allows the system to scale and remain tailored to each grower's unique challenges, with feedback directly shaping both the technical roadmap and deployment priorities.
One of the main challenges faced by Bloomfield as an AI innovator in agriculture was gaining farmers' trust. However, by demonstrating the accuracy of their system, which outperformed human data consistency, they were able to earn that trust. Another challenge was the agricultural calendar, which often limits learning and improvement to just one growing cycle per year. To circumvent this, Bloomfield expanded its operations to Southern Hemisphere countries where the seasons are opposite, accelerating development and validation.
Compared to others in the agri-tech space, Bloomfield stands out for its focus on providing growers with precise, plant-level insights into crop health and performance. By relentlessly honing in on this niche demand and expanding its operations globally, the company has transformed agriculture, enabling farmers to make informed decisions and improve crop management.
- Mark DeSantis, CEO of Bloomfield, emphasized that their technology's innovation lies in the integration of deep learning models and custom-built cameras, helping farmers gain precise insights about their crops' health and performance.
- Bloomfield's AI-driven plant imaging technology, in addition to adapting to new crops and growing conditions, also uses artificial intelligence to detect and track key plant features, demonstrating a high level of accuracy compared to human data consistency.
- To address the challenge of a limited learning and improvement period due to the agricultural calendar, Bloomfield strategically expanded its operations to countries in the Southern Hemisphere, thereby enabling continuous learning and validation throughout the year.
