About

Woodrill Ltd is a full-service crop input provider and grain elevator that grows and package soybean seed, sell seed fertilizer and chemicals to farmers and also buy and sell grain to and from farmers. Groundwork is the precision agriculture branch of Woodrill which creates digital soil maps of farms to allow growers to optimize their application of seed, fertilizer, chemical and general crop management across every acre of their farm. Currently most farmers apply uniform rates of these crop inputs across a farm but given the variability in soil types across a farm, this means that uniform application is not the most economical or environmentally sustainable practice. Using GIS, soil science and increasingly AI/machine learning, Woodrill can provide digital soil maps to farms to make sure their applied rate is as close as possible to the optimal rate.

Project

Groundwork’s business is developed and generating revenue, but the technology for having AI assistance is currently in the early prototyping phase. The company has prototyped various chatbot interfaces with promising results (ChatGPT custom GPTs, Flowise AI).  Through the support of the Development and Commercialization program, Woodrill will look to develop added functionality for the Groundwork platform as well as integrate Groundwork with their existing website/ software.  Woodrill will be working with the ventureLAB TDS to train and tune a chatbot as well as further develop a soil analytical tool for soil classification.

Impact & Outcomes

By developing the customer-facing agent, Woodrill aims to overcome  bottlenecks in customer support. This would increase revenues while also decreasing labour costs. Furthermore, agronomists and farmers in Ontario will benefit by gaining a deeper understanding of their farms and making better variable rate decisions for their farms.  With increased efficiencies, Woodrill estimates that they will be able to increase business by 35% year over year.