{"id":622914,"date":"2026-09-21T14:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622914\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T14:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:12:14","slug":"innerplants-glowing-soy-demos-hyperspectral-use-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/622914\/","title":{"rendered":"InnerPlant\u2019s Glowing Soy Demos Hyperspectral Use Case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the human eye, a soybean field could look perfectly healthy. To a hyperspectral satellite, however, the plants could be emitting a glowing warning signal that they\u2019re in trouble.<\/p>\n

Let it glow: InnerPlant, which was founded in 2018, has enabled plants to let humans know when they\u2019re under stress. The company\u2019s first product is genetically engineered soybeans that glow when they\u2019re facing stress\u2014specifically in this case, a fungal infection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the fluorescence can be picked up with ground-based sensors, the company is designed to use space assets to spot problems faster, and survey large areas of crops for potential issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of space was always baked in,\u201d Sean Yokomizo, InnerPlant\u2019s VP of comms, told Payload. \u201cThere are technologies where you can just put a clip on a leaf, and get the same readings. But doing that in a field of a thousand acres, with hundreds of millions of soybean plants in there, it\u2019s restricted\u2026That\u2019s why we first started looking at space very early.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

We know you\u2019re wondering: Let\u2019s just get two big questions out of the way before we get into the details.<\/p>\n

Spotting the fluorescence takes specialized equipment, and won\u2019t be visible to the human eye.\u00a0The engineered plants are safe to eat. InnerPlant relies on a fluorescent protein that\u2019s been known about and used for a long time, and the company already has USDA approval.<\/p>\n

Keeping tabs: InnerPlant\u2019s data is already being used by farmers today, though they\u2019re not actually planting the seeds that will produce glowing plants yet.<\/p>\n

InnerPlant has planted plots of soybeans engineered to glow during fungal infection.Each plot has a ground-based detector that can spot the plant\u2019s SOS signal.If InnerPlant detects an active mold outbreak in any of its plots, it sends a notice to farmers growing nearby, since diseases tend to follow geography, Yokomizo said.Each plot is designed to mimic the nearby farms, including soil type, topography, and row spacing.<\/p>\n

Around 50 farmers used the service in summer 2026, which grew to 160 to 180 customers in summer 2026, Yokomizo said. InnerPlant provides farmers actionable data\u2014not raw images\u2014to keep the process as simple as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRecent history is replete with the tombstones of startup ag-tech companies that tried to give too much data to farmers,\u201d Yokomizo said. \u201cWe\u2019re not giving them reams and reams of data. We\u2019re telling them, \u2018Hey, this area over here is hot for this disease.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Helping hands: InnerPlant officials initially thought they needed to build their own satellites, Yokomizo said. But Brandon Rasmussen, head of detection science at InnerPlant, joined the team after a stint working on the Tanager hyperspectral program at Planet Labs. He showed that there were already the necessary assets in space, which allowed InnerPlant to focus on the plant problem.<\/p>\n

InnerPlant conducted its first demo in Argentina between December 2023 and March 2024. That demo relied on tasking DLR\u2019s Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) hyperspectral satellite, and the DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) aboard the ISS. All the hardware was able to spot 10 acres of \u201ccalibrator plants\u201d that have been engineered to glow constantly. That demo proved that the company could spot its stressed plants among fields of commercial soybeans, Rasmussen said.<\/p>\n

InnerPlant conducted a similar demo in summer 2024\u2014but made their job harder. The company planted its fluorescent soy in fields in North Dakota, Missouri, and Iowa. In this demo, InnerPlant-engineered plants were mixed among commercial soy, proving the company could detect problems even at the pixel level, Rasmussen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA big part of my work here is figuring out all of the different ways that we can do detection,\u201d Rasmussen said. \u201cThe reason hyperspectral is interesting\u2014this is a great use case for it\u2014is the resulting power and specificity that it brings. But ultimately we want scalable and differentiable detection at all scales.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next: The company is working through the process of deregulating with the FDA, which they expect to be done by 2030. After that, farmers will be able to plant acres and acres of soybeans that can glow under stress. That\u2019s the point at which satellites will become required to keep tabs on such large areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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