Limburgerhof, Germany, and Toulouse, France – BASF and Delair, a global provider of end-to-end visual data management solutions for enterprises, today announced their collaboration to scale up BASF’s research and development projects for seeds, traits and crop protection. The agreement will enable BASF’s agricultural research stations worldwide to use the delair.ai cloud platform to streamline and standardize the information gained through drone-based field studies. The delair.ai platform provides enterprise-focused workflows and industry-specific analytics and will help BASF turn its visual drone data into actionable insights and ultimately, new sustainable solutions for the agricultural market.
Each year, BASF conducts several thousands of research trials in agricultural stations throughout the globe to measure product performance under different field conditions. “As a research driven agricultural company, we want to use the full potential of digitalization to accelerate innovation. Partnering with Delair will help us to get a deeper understanding of the observed crops and their surrounding environments, and reduce the time to market for new products,” said Greta De Both, Manager of Sensor-based Field Phenotyping for Seeds & Traits at BASF.
BASF recently introduced drones equipped with multispectral sensors to automate and optimize their field data collection, allowing real-time insights into how plants respond to environmental conditions. In delair.ai, BASF will be able to build digital twins of their research fields, as well as map and analyze hectares of plots across all trial sites. The cloud platform will enable field agronomists to automatically vectorize as well as geo-reference microplots and generate biological data and crop behavior per plot.
“While capturing agricultural data is easier than ever with drones, the real challenge enterprises face is harnessing all of this data so that it is consumable, shareable, and actionable,” said Lénaïc Grignard, Agriculture and Forestry product manager at Delair. “We are honored to start this new partnership with BASF and help them harness the power of visual data to make the right decisions at the right time.”
About BASF’s Agricultural Solutions division
With a rapidly growing population, the world is increasingly dependent on our ability to develop and maintain sustainable agriculture and healthy environments. Working with farmers, agricultural professionals, pest management experts and others, it is our role to help make this possible. That’s why we invest in a strong R&D pipeline and broad portfolio, including seeds and traits, chemical and biological crop protection, soil management, plant health, pest control and digital farming. With expert teams in the lab, field, office and in production, we connect innovative thinking and down-to-earth action to create real world ideas that work – for farmers, society and the planet. In 2019, our division generated sales of €7.8 billion. For more information, please visit http://www.agriculture.basf.com or any of our social media channels.
About Delair
Delair is a leading provider of end-to-end, visual intelligence solutions that enable enterprises to capture, manage and analyze their assets and turn the collected data into valuable business insights. The company’s offerings combine high performance UAV hardware with delair.ai, the industry’s most robust platform to power your entire visual intelligence workflow, from data management to advanced analytics. Its solutions are sold in over 70 countries with a network of more than 100 resellers in industries such as mining, construction, agriculture, oil and gas, utilities and transportation. Delair has strengthened its position as a global leader through strategic acquisitions (Gatewing, Airware/Redbird), and a strategic investment by Intel Corporation. Founded in 2011 by experts in the aerospace industry, the company employs 180 people and has offices in Toulouse, Paris, Los Angeles and Singapore. For more information, go to www.delair.aero
