Key Takeaways
- Advanced Growing Resources (AGR) has secured $2 million in contracts and grants led by NASA and the U.S. National Science Foundation, ranking in the top 1% of American deep technology innovations.
- AGR's platform combines AI-assisted satellite imagery with Spectre® handheld scanners to diagnose crop afflictions more than a week earlier than current lab-based methods.
- The system has achieved 99% accuracy in controlled field trials, covering more than 1,000 afflictions across corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, grapes, and oranges.
- Field pilots are now available in the United States and Australia, with subsidies pre-applied for the first 25 operations in each country.
- Twelve additional crops are in AGR's pipeline, with the platform developed alongside Cornell CALS, Virginia Tech's extension, and the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics.
AGR Secures $2M to Bring Scan-and-Act Crop Diagnostics to the Field
Advanced Growing Resources (AGR), a Rochester, New York-based agtech company, has announced $2 million in contracts and grants led by NASA and the U.S. National Science Foundation to advance its AI-powered crop diagnostics platform. The funding follows the company being ranked in the top 1% of American deep technology innovations and reflects growing institutional confidence in AGR's ability to move crop scouting from a sample-and-wait model to scan-and-act decision-making in the field.
AGR's platform guides field scouting using AI-assisted satellite imagery capable of identifying crop afflictions before they are visible to the naked eye or detectable through standard vegetative indices. Once a problem area is identified, the company's Spectre® handheld scanners bring laboratory-grade diagnostics to the field, drawing on thousands of trusted agronomy publications combined with proprietary chemical signature data. In controlled field trials, the system has achieved 99% accuracy.
AGR Platform Diagnoses Problems More Than a Week Earlier
The core value proposition of AGR's technology is early detection — identifying crop afflictions more than a week ahead of current methods. This window gives agronomists time to weigh treatment decisions before problems escalate, calculate return on investment before chemicals are loaded, and reduce waste by applying only what is needed. Francis Pellegrino, AGR's founder and CEO, said the company was built specifically to close the gap between knowing where problems exist and having defensible, ROI-positive prescriptions to address them.
“Everyone we have worked with already knows where their blind spots are,” Pellegrino said. “What they don't have is a way to spot trouble early enough to weigh costly decisions, and prescriptions that consistently produce a positive return.”
Field Pilots Now Open in the U.S. and Australia
Developed in partnership with Cornell CALS, Virginia Tech's extension program, and the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics, AGR currently offers field pilots covering more than 1,000 afflictions across corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, grapes, and oranges, with 12 additional crops in development. Pilots are available in the United States and Australia, with subsidies pre-applied for the first 25 qualifying operations in each country.
AGR frames its mission in the context of a global food production challenge: according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, crop output must increase 70% over the next 30 years to feed a projected population of 10 billion. The company argues that efficiency — not more land or labor — is the only viable path forward, and that reducing chemical waste while improving diagnostic precision is central to that goal.
