The word ‘agriculture’ connotes certain images: workers toiling under the sun, vast fields of crops, tractors, and plows. It’s a world apart from shiny Silicon Valley, but technology has always been as integral to agriculture as any other sector, where new equipment and techniques can maximize efficiency, safety, and crop yield. Now gleaming computers and dusty fields are merging – and potentially changing agriculture as we know it.
A team of researchers from MIT Media Lab’s Open Agriculture Initiative published a paper detailing a recent study where machine learning algorithms were used to optimize growing conditions for basil plants (with an eye on more expansive future use cases). The burgeoning field – called “cyber agriculture” by the scientists – combines a variety of disciplines to grow the most flavorful, disease-resistant crops possible in a given environment.
“Our goal is to design open-source technology at the intersection of data acquisition, sensing, and machine learning, and apply it to agricultural research in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Open Agriculture director and MIT Media Lab principal research scientist Caleb Harper. “We’re really interested in building networked tools that can take a plant’s experience, its phenotype, the set of stresses it encounters, and its genetics, and digitize that to allow us to understand the plant-environment interaction.”
Open Agriculture performs the studies in its warehouse headquarters at MIT-Bates Laboratory. Inside are specially-retrofitted shipping containers, designed “so that environmental conditions, including light, temperature, and humidity, can be carefully controlled.” The ability to artificially control conditions in these “food computers” has already yielded unexpected insight – the researchers’ initial study of basil plants revealed the plants had the best flavor after being exposed to round-the-clock light. “You couldn’t have discovered this any other way,” said John de la Parra, one of several co-authors of the study and an OpenAg research lead.
The burgeoning field of cyber agriculture has long suffered from siloed information, making MIT’s commitment to open-source tools especially significant. Equally so is their use of machine-learning algorithms, developed in conjunction with Cognizant, that “evaluated millions of possible combinations of light and UV duration, and generated sets of conditions that would maximize flavor, including the 24-hour daylight regime.”
Researchers have now set their sights on “developing basil plants with higher levels of compounds that could help to combat diseases such as diabetes” without any genetic modification while continuing to explore the effects of different environmental features. De la Parra calls the paper “the archetype” for future large-scale applications of the tools, as well as an opportunity to study climate change adaptation in far quicker, controlled ways than in nature. More insight will surely be gleaned from further study, but initial returns are clear: the future of agriculture may very well mix analog and digital realms for the best results.
Looking for Fresh Investment Ideas? See How Algorithms and A.I. Can Help
Want to invest and/or diversify your portfolio but unsure where to start? Artificial Intelligence can help! Tickeron has developed user-friendly Artificial Intelligence tools to help new and experienced investors generate investment ideas. Tickeron’s A.I. is capable of evaluating a portfolio and providing a “Diversification Score,” to tell the user how well-diversified their portfolio is. It can also generate investment ideas for a user’s 401(k) plan – even if you’re just getting started! The A.I. will give you ideas based on your risk tolerance, investment objectives, and the investment options available.
Tickeron’s new financial website is available to beginners, intermediate investors, and even experts and advisors. Explore tickeron.com today.
The 50-day moving average for IYW moved above the 200-day moving average on June 26, 2025. This could be a long-term bullish signal for the stock as the stock shifts to an upward trend.
The Momentum Indicator moved above the 0 level on June 03, 2025. You may want to consider a long position or call options on IYW as a result. In of 79 past instances where the momentum indicator moved above 0, the stock continued to climb. The odds of a continued upward trend are .
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) for IYW just turned positive on June 26, 2025. Looking at past instances where IYW's MACD turned positive, the stock continued to rise in of 47 cases over the following month. The odds of a continued upward trend are .
Following a 3-day Advance, the price is estimated to grow further. Considering data from situations where IYW advanced for three days, in of 370 cases, the price rose further within the following month. The odds of a continued upward trend are .
The Aroon Indicator entered an Uptrend today. In of 348 cases where IYW Aroon's Indicator entered an Uptrend, the price rose further within the following month. The odds of a continued Uptrend are .
The RSI Indicator demonstrated that the stock has entered the overbought zone. This may point to a price pull-back soon.
The Stochastic Oscillator demonstrated that the ticker has stayed in the overbought zone for 6 days. The longer the ticker stays in the overbought zone, the sooner a price pull-back is expected.
IYW broke above its upper Bollinger Band on June 24, 2025. This could be a sign that the stock is set to drop as the stock moves back below the upper band and toward the middle band. You may want to consider selling the stock or exploring put options.
The average fundamental analysis ratings, where 1 is best and 100 is worst, are as follows
Category Technology