Yuktix launches early warning system for plant diseases in Karnataka

BENGALURU, 11 March 2021: Yuktix a provider of data intelligence tools for agriculture has launched its plant disease forecast platform, Yuktix GidaBits for the farmers in Karnataka state.

The platform provides advance disease warning and management advice to farmers. The Gidabits platform uses Yuktix IoT technology and ankiDB data analysis software to predict weather linked diseases in advance. Most of plant pathogens thrive in certain conditions.

Gidabit used the accurate 24x7 weather and soil monitoring along with crop specific disease models to deliver advance warning about impending diseases to grower phones. Yuktix mobile app provides right chemical recommendations and best R&D package of practices for the specific crop.

Farmers can also take pictures and share with a researcher via Yuktix platform for disease management recommendations.

The losses from pest and disease attacks account for more than 20 percent to 25 percent ( around INR 50,000 crore ) of the crop losses.

With a changing climate and shifting weather patterns, the problems are only going to be acerbated in the future. There is a significant body of research linking changing weather patterns to occurrence of diseases. There are many early warning systems hosted by research organizations using statistical models.

However, the current systems are unidirectional. Research organizations have websites dispensing the advice but there is no feedback coming from the farm. The advice is dispensed and forgotten. There are no feedback loops and hence there is no learning in the system. The cost of delivery is high and there is no out-of-the-box experience. Yuktix Gidabits is an interactive system. The forecast is half the story.

A grower also needs the right recommendations from the system as well as a trained researcher. A system with feedback will also improve the forecast accuracy.

Yuktix Gidabits is a hassle free experience for the growers. They just have to call a help line number (available in Kannada and English) to get the installation done. The Yuktix IoT device is a proven technology that is in use at major agri companies and NGO setups.

The Yuktix IoT devices are solar powered sensor devices that relay accurate field data 24x7 to Yuktix ankiDB cloud. The IoT devices are like a black box that just needs to be put in the field and does not require any expertise to operate.

Speaking on this, Shailendra Singh, the co-founder of Yuktix, said that this is the first system to provide disease forecast in snack sized subscription so anyone can join. The on boarding is extremely simple. Farmers just have to call a number. Further, all the interactions for grower is via a mobile app only. We are using sage ML pipeline on AWS for analyzing the images and data along with the statistical packages available in Yuktix ankiDB sdk."

"We are a firm believer in the need of domain expertise so the app allows the growers to interact directly with a research expert if required. The tools also allows an expert to quickly shift through the farms data along with recommendations and scribble his own. The system is going online with Tomato, capsicum and Guava," Singh stressed.

About Yuktix

Yuktix is a provider of digital tools for farm digitization. Yuktix manufactures IoT devices for capturing micro weather and soil conditions that along with Yuktix ankiDB cloud provides expert guidance to growers at each stage of crop life cycle.