This Week (28-03-2025)

General
1

  1. https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/14/9/1975

  2. Point-of-use sensors and machine learning enable low-cost determination of soil nitrogen | Nature Food (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpdKA0rys6U)

  3. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/10/usda-cancels-local-food-purchasing-for-schools-food-banks-00222796

The key to low cost remote sensing (RS) stems from a combination of IoT devices/sensors + machine learning (ML) to normalize data.

Article 1 explains different applications where these two concepts are applied together in agriculture; even going as far as dissecting the specific kinds of ML models that are used for different kinds of RS.

Article 2 is a specific case study on the application of ML to a cheap RS for nitrogen. In this study, researchers developed a method for measuring nitrogen levels in soil for less than a $0.01/unit then normalized the data using ML; their end result had an R-squared value at 0.70, which is quite accurate in terms of ML.

Article 3 deals more with recent events in the world of agriculture, recently $1B in governmental funding for USDA programs have been cut; these programs purchased produce from local farmers to help feed school programs and disability programs. This has a direct impact on farmers across America as many have lost a substantial “customer” for their produce.