Agricultural spraying is a precision task, but growers have historically had limited visibility into what happens to individual droplets after they leave a sprayer. AgZen is addressing that gap with technology that measures spray coverage as equipment moves through a field, giving operators information about where droplets land and how application settings affect coverage. MIT describes the company’s system as a feedback-optimized spraying technology that can monitor how much sprayed chemical adheres to plants in real time.

AgZen’s RealCoverage system uses dual high-speed cameras to track droplets as small as 150 microns, at speeds of up to 18 mph and up to 3 feet into the crop canopy. The system is designed as a retrofit for existing sprayers. It can be used across applications ranging from spring burndown to fall fungicide, allowing growers to collect measurements without replacing their existing equipment.

RealCoverage Gives Growers Live Application Data

RealCoverage is designed to give operators information while spraying is underway. The system can provide feedback on variables including travel speed, gallons per acre, droplet size and boom height, allowing growers to make adjustments based on measured spray coverage rather than relying only on preset settings or field experience.

The technology also illustrates AgZen’s focus on closing the feedback loop between application and measurement. Instead of treating spray settings as fixed throughout an application, growers can observe how changes affect coverage and make adjustments during field operations. MIT reported that AgZen’s field testing showed its technology could help farmers spray more efficiently and effectively while using fewer chemicals overall.

RealPerformance Extends the Data Beyond the Field

Measurements collected by RealCoverage are uploaded to AgZen’s RealPerformance platform, where growers can examine spray performance over time. The platform includes chemical benchmarking, interactive field maps and historical analysis, allowing users to review both where they sprayed and how effectively the spray reached crop surfaces.

RealPerformance also gives growers a way to compare results by field, crop and time of day and share information with agronomists. Rather than limiting spray data to a single application, the platform creates a record that can be used when reviewing past performance and planning future applications.

EnhanceCoverage Targets Droplet Retention

AgZen’s product portfolio also includes EnhanceCoverage, an adjuvant technology based on research into interactions between droplets and plant surfaces. The technology uses direct injection to apply adjuvants to the surface of droplets, with the goal of increasing their ability to remain on leaves rather than bouncing off or running away from the target surface. AgZen traces the technology to more than a decade of interfacial science research at MIT.

The company’s work grew from research by co-founders Vishnu Jayaprakash and MIT Professor Kripa Varanasi into the behavior of agricultural spray droplets. Jayaprakash, who serves as AgZen’s CEO and co-founder, grew up on his family’s farm in southern India and later pursued doctoral research focused on droplet-leaf interactions. AgZen was founded in 2020, and its technology has since moved from laboratory and field research into commercial agricultural applications.

ABOUT | VISHNU JAYAPRAKASH

Vishnu Jayaprakash, co-founder, is the CEO of AgZen, an agricultural technology company focused on improving the efficiency of crop spraying. He grew up on his family’s farm in southern India, where he experienced the inefficiencies of agricultural spraying firsthand. That experience led him to pursue research focused on droplet-leaf interactions.

Jayaprakash earned an SM from MIT in 2019 and a PhD from MIT in 2022. His work with MIT Professor Kripa Varanasi contributed to technologies designed to improve how pesticide droplets interact with crop surfaces. The pair founded AgZen in 2020, bringing that research into commercial agricultural applications.