Startup helps farmers grow plant-based feed and fertilizer using wastewater
Founded by former MIT Tata Center translational research director Jason Prapas, Fyto has built an automated system for harvesting the aquatic plant Lemna on dairy farms.
Farmers today face a number of challenges, from supply chain stability to nutrient and waste management. But hanging over everything is the need to maintain profitability amid changing markets and increased uncertainty.
Fyto, founded by former MIT staff member Jason Prapas, is offering a highly automated cultivation system to address several of farmers’ biggest problems at once.
At the heart of Fyto’s system is Lemna, a genus of small aquatic plants otherwise known as duckweed. Most people have probably seen thick green mats of Lemna lying on top of ponds and swamps. But Lemna is also rich in protein and capable of doubling in biomass every two days. Fyto has built an automated cropping system that uses nitrogen-rich wastewater from dairy farms to grow Lemna in shallow pools on otherwise less productive farmland. On top of the pools, the company has built what it believes are the largest agricultural robots in the world, which monitor plant health and harvest the Lemna sustainably. The Lemna can then be used on farms as a high-protein cattle feed or fertilizer supplement.
Fyto’s systems are designed to rely on minimal land, water, and labor while creating a more sustainable, profitable food system.
“We developed from scratch a robotic system that takes the guesswork out of farming this crop,” says Prapas, who previously led the translational research program of MIT’s Tata Center. “It looks at the crop on a daily basis, takes inventory to know how many plants there are, how much should be harvested to have healthy growth the next day, can detect if the color is slightly off or there are nutrient deficiencies, and can suggest different interventions based on all that data.”
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