Story by Whitney Baxter
The Digital Ag Innovation Lab’s “north star” is to be the premier thought leader and partner in agricultural innovation.
Led by Matt Darr, professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering, Digital Ag has emerged as a global leader both in its approach to cultivating unique industry partnerships and through impactful farmer outreach efforts in partnership with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.
The lab, which employs more than 65 full-time staff, graduate and undergraduate students, is located at the Iowa State University Research Park in the Alliant Energy Ag Innovation Lab. Everything they do is guided by the lab’s three mission areas: innovate, outreach and educate.
Innovate: Solving problems, enhancing systems
“We’re focused on creating value for farmers, and our work is centered on creating partnerships with industry to solve difficult problems that integrate technology and efficiency into machines and agronomic systems,” Darr says.
Companies of all sizes engage with Digital Ag for its expertise in advanced sensing and algorithms, controls and automation, digital agronomy, and testing, development, deployment and refinement of products aligned with the team’s core expertise.
John Deere has been a key partner for more than a decade. Jahmy Hindman, senior vice president and chief technology officer with John Deere, leads efforts to improve John Deere’s technology solutions. Working alongside Digital Ag’s engineers and researchers, the company has enhanced its control systems on products in customer hands, like self-propelled sprayers and row crop planters.
“We want to make producers better at what they do,” Hindman says. “The Digital Ag team has allowed us to do that and has been a true partner. Our relationship with them is unique among our work across academic institutions in how tightly integrated they are in our product development.”
Three years ago, Bayer began its first field trial with the Digital Ag team. Now, the company has expanded that to 12 research studies to improve seed quality and modify equipment to be more efficient, which can lead to higher yields for farmers.
Shannon Hauf, senior vice president and head of North America, Australia and New Zealand product supply with Bayer, says it has been great to have a team of experts to turn to for solutions.
“The Digital Ag team moves quickly, and they’re highly collaborative,” Hauf says. “We think of their team as an extension of ours.”
Outreach: Supporting farmers
Farmers and producers can also tap into the Digital Ag team’s expertise.
In 2022, the lab partnered with the ISU Extension and Outreach Crops Team to offer Planter University, a brand-neutral learning road show that travels throughout the state each spring to help farmers better understand and optimize their planting system. The course also integrates the latest learnings from Digital Ag’s prior year of product development activities.
“We think about planting 365 days a year and are all over the world refining and developing planting technologies,” Darr says. “That gives us a unique perspective to be able to really help farmers.”
Due to the popularity of Planter University, Digital Ag and Extension now offer Combine University and Drone University, with additional classes in the works.
“We’re filling a bigger gap than we imagined,” Darr says. “Farmers increasingly need trusted advisors who can help them get the most out of whatever equipment they have. We feel an immense sense of pride in being able to help enhance the livelihoods of farmers and communities throughout the state.”
Sean Blomgren, owner of Blomgren Seed in Boone, Iowa, worked with the Digital Ag team to offer Planter University and Combine University classes to his customers after attending one of the Extension farmer education courses.
“Our customers rely on us as dealers to help them navigate so many choices in agricultural products, technology and inputs,” Blomgren says. “We can’t be subject matter experts in everything, so this is a great way for us to extend value from a trusted team that meets them where they are and helps them understand what the future looks like in agronomic advances.”
Educate: Preparing the future workforce
Iowa State students have opportunities to work with Digital Ag through courses taught by Darr or Bailey Adams (’19 agricultural engineering, ’22 PhD agricultural and biosystems engineering), an assistant professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering at the lab.
The students also are embedded into professional project teams working on innovative projects with industry partners. Many of those industry connections lead to full-time positions upon graduation, thanks to the hands-on training received through coursework, at the lab in upskilling courses, or through the teams.
“The opportunities here can’t be found elsewhere,” Adams says. “We believe that our mission is to teach students to be ready to contribute. Their early awareness of the innovations that exist in agriculture is the first step, then we layer on experiences as they progress through their education, all the way through our graduate students being embedded as part of product development teams.”
Grace (Bjustrom) Kueker (’23 agricultural engineering, ’25 MS agricultural and biosystems engineering), an engineering development program engineer at John Deere, worked at the lab as a graduate student. Her research studied self-propelled sprayer vehicle dynamics. She says she was exposed to everything from control software systems to instrumentation to project design and management – and made connections that led to her current position.
“My time at the lab definitely set me up for success,” Kueker says. “Unlike school, there’s no answer key in the real world, and that's exactly where the Digital Ag lab thrives, allowing you to use that freedom to innovate and solve real challenges in the ag industry."