海角社区

Team to compete in the SEC Student Pitch Competition on October 17, hosted by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, this week.

海角社区 students and alumni have created a new, AI-powered tool called FarmSmart that puts decades of 海角社区 AgCenter research right under the green thumbs of Louisiana鈥檚 farmers. With a few clicks on their smartphones or computers, farmers and gardeners can quickly access actionable intelligence on how to best manage their crops and get rid of weeds.

鈥淥ur goal is to be as good or better than the best agricultural consultants,鈥� said Colin Raby, 海角社区 alumnus and CEO of FarmSmart, which won 海角社区鈥檚 leading pitch competition, the J. Terrell Brown Venture Challenge, last spring and now will compete in the on October 17, hosted by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

While there are several apps on the market that already do plant recognition based on photos, FarmSmart goes many steps further.

鈥淵ou can upload a picture of a plant or weed, and our app won鈥檛 just identify them, but tell you how confident it is in its answer and provide alternatives鈥攁lso, you can ask it any question about the plant, and it will provide recommendations for how to best manage that crop or weed based on the most up-to-date research, while citing the exact documents it pulled that answer from, so you can do your own fact-checking,鈥� Raby said. 鈥淚n short, we鈥檙e taking high-quality 海角社区 agricultural research, synthesizing it using AI and large language models, and putting it in your pocket.鈥�

Raby was one of the first students to take 海角社区鈥檚 Large Language Model Development and Deployment for Real-World Applications Honors course that was jointly developed by 海角社区 Executive Vice President and Provost Roy Haggerty, Assistant Professor of Computer Science James Ghawaly, and Baton Rouge entrepreneur Henry Hays in 2023. The idea for FarmSmart came from a meeting and conversation with 海角社区 AgCenter weed expert and associate professor Daniel Stephenson.

鈥淒r. Stephenson told us he鈥檚 getting farmers, especially younger farmers who are taking over family farms, coming to him asking, 鈥楬ow do I manage this thing about my crops?鈥� and Dr. Stephenson going, 鈥榃ell, you have to read our guide,鈥欌�� Raby said. 鈥淪o, the idea of creating an interactive chatbot really came from him, to make the information in 海角社区 AgCenter鈥檚 annual more accessible and useful. At least, that鈥檚 where we started.鈥�

鈥淎s a land-grant university, our research-based recommendations are free and available to the public, but the classic method of disseminating this information has been through a sizeable annual publication, either in hard copy or as an online PDF people can look at or download,鈥� said Daniel Stephenson, weed scientist and 海角社区 AgCenter associate professor and regional director based in Alexandria, Louisiana, where he serves as field crops coordinator for the Dean Lee Research Station. 鈥淥ur primary goal has always been to help our producers be profitable. To accomplish that, the 海角社区 AgCenter is dedicated to disseminating information in new and effective ways, and these students did an amazing job with FarmSmart.鈥�

When he鈥檚 not working on developing FarmSmart, Raby serves as , helping the legislative branch of the U.S. government work more efficiently by improving workflows and advising on policy. Raby graduated from 海角社区 last May with a bachelor鈥檚 degree in mechanical engineering and minors in economics and aerospace engineering. He served as a teaching assistant for the second offering of 海角社区鈥檚 Large Language Model Development course last spring and started researching AI on his own about three years ago.

鈥淭he more I learned about AI, the deeper I knew I needed to go,鈥� Raby said. 鈥淓verywhere I looked, I was like, why don鈥檛 we use this technology to make this better, make that better?鈥�

With extended family who are farmers in Louisiana, Raby is proud to develop a solution that combines agriculture and AI to increase farmers鈥� profits while optimizing the use of pesticides and herbicides, which protects pocketbooks as well as the environment.

鈥淲e鈥檝e incorporated massive amounts of data that no human could ever memorize,鈥� Raby said. 鈥淔irst of all, it鈥檚 海角社区 research, but also research from other land-grant universities and data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency.鈥�

Raby鈥檚 team includes 海角社区 engineering students Julius Pallotta and Grant Muslow. Their biggest challenge in developing FarmSmart team was figuring out how to train a large language model on data that is structured somewhat randomly, such as herbicide and pesticide labels, for which there is no established template.

鈥淕etting all of this information into a format the AI system could understand was actually very hard,鈥� Raby said. 鈥淲e had to build our own system for how to chunk the data.鈥�

That鈥檚 one of the reasons Raby isn鈥檛 particularly worried about others coming along and stealing his team鈥檚 idea.

鈥淐ode isn鈥檛 patentable, so someone could, of course, come along and put in the time and effort to do what we鈥檝e already done,鈥� Raby said. 鈥淏ut from our perspective, the best protection comes from doing something really well鈥攆rom the quality of the product.鈥�

海角社区 Executive Vice President and Provost Roy Haggerty said FarmSmart exemplifies the kind of impact the university aims to achieve through its ongoing investment in AI and its practical applications for Louisiana.

鈥淲hen we launched the Honors AI course in 2023, our goal was clear: to build a generation of experts who not only understand AI but use it to solve the unique challenges faced by our state,鈥� Haggerty said. 鈥淔armSmart is a perfect illustration of this vision. Colin Raby and his team鈥檚 work in developing AI-driven solutions for Louisiana farmers is an early example of how we are leveraging this emerging technology to directly contribute to the state鈥檚 economy and the well-being of its people. By the end of 2024, we will have trained nearly 50 students to tackle real-world problems with AI, addressing everything from agriculture to healthcare.鈥�

Assistant Professor James Ghawaly, who co-teaches the Honors AI course and leads the AI-powered data science research for a $25 million collaboration between 海角社区 and several national labs to protect the nation from nuclear threats, agreed.

鈥淲ithin a short few months, Colin Raby and his team developed an entirely new AI system that will have a real impact on agriculture applications in Louisiana and beyond,鈥� Ghawaly said. 鈥淭hey were able to couple state-of-the-art AI large language models and computer vision models to enable farmers to photograph a weed, automatically identify it, and recommend the appropriate herbicide to apply. Their project is a clear demonstration of the technical talent being developed through 海角社区鈥檚 College of Engineering.鈥�

Project team member Grant Muslow, an 海角社区 graduate student in electrical and computer engineering from Shreveport, Louisiana, earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree in computer science and engineering from 海角社区 last May.

鈥淔armSmart is important to me because it provides farmers with access to information that would cost them thousands of dollars otherwise,鈥� said Muslow, referencing the current state of the agricultural consulting industry. 鈥淭his information should be accessible at a fair price.鈥�

Team member Julius Pallotta from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is majoring in biological and agricultural engineering at 海角社区.

鈥淥riginally, my plan was to work in the automotive or aerospace industry. That was until I started to learn about the innovation in using technology to assist farmers,鈥� Pallotta said. 鈥淭he agriculture industry is the most impactful on our survival as a society and I noticed there are a lot of needs farmers have that can be addressed with automation, imaging, software solutions, and other technological advancements. Farm Smart is addressing one of the oldest and most prevalent problems farmers have always faced.鈥�

The FarmSmart team expects their app to become available through the AppStore in coming weeks. For now, you can learn more about FarmSmart at .