Sep 01, 2020
FloraPulse is Comstock’s Magazine Startup of the Month
Cleartail Admin
How do you measure the thirst of a plant? Michael Santiago, founder and CEO of FloraPulse, says give it a chip. His new Davis-based irrigation management startup helps growers get accurate information on how much water their plants have and need at any given moment with a microchip implant… Read the rest at Comstock’s magazine.
Aug 01, 2020
FloraPulse awarded $256k NSF SBIR award for “Models to predict soil and plant water status”
Cleartail Admin
FloraPulse just received a Phase I NSF SBIR to develop improved models to predict soil and plant water status! Commercial product coming out in a couple of years after initial studies and validation.
May 24, 2020
FloraPulse receives Wells Fargo, AgStart grant to achieve commercialization milestones
Cleartail Admin
FloraPulse Founder and CEO Michael Santiago said, “AgStart helped us find funding to get through these difficult times, and with their help we are back on track to deliver our breakthrough product to growers across the United States to help them grow more food with fewer resources. Many thanks to the AgStart team!” Read more […]
Jul 15, 2019
American Fruit Grower: (FloraPulse) Delivers Big Opportunity for Fruit and Nut Growers
Cleartail Admin
Reading plant stress can be a difficult endeavor, especially for nuts or wine grapes, where deficit irrigation is desirable near harvest. Currently, pressure chambers are the most common way to measure plant stress. “It’s a big heavy instrument. You cut a leaf off and you stick it in the chamber, and you have to increase […]
Jul 02, 2019
Wine Business Monthly: A New Measurement Tool for Vineyard Irrigation Management
Cleartail Admin
A promising new sensor tool to measure grapevine water status to efficiently manage vineyard irrigation is being beta tested this year in California vineyards, and if trials are successful, a commercial sensor product will be introduced to the grower market in 2020. The sensor is a micro-tensiometer that is installed into the trunk of a […]
Apr 21, 2019
FloraPulse technology featured in “Retaking the Field – science breakthroughs for thriving farms”
Cleartail Admin
FloraPulse’s sensor breakthrough was featured in a report by the Supporters of Agricultural Research (SoAR) foundation. See page 32 in their report. From the article: ” Thirsty plants have stunted growth, lower disease resistance, and produce less fruit and grain. At the same time, overwatering can reduce the quality and even kill crops. The trick […]
Jun 18, 2018
FloraPulse awarded $600k USDA SBIR Phase II award for “In-plant probe of water potential”
Cleartail Admin
FloraPulse just received an USDA Phase II SBIR! Thanks to the awesome team that made it happen — shout out to Alan, Abe and Justin. And thank you everyone who provided letters of support! USDA – FloraPulse will make you proud. The holy grail of water sensing… coming soon to a vineyard near you.
Nov 11, 2017
Soil water status measurements
Cleartail Admin
As in plants the basic difference in measurements is between soil water content and water potential. Again, they are generally correlated but the relationship is unique with every soil. Unfortunately, the relationship is not linear and has some rather sharp changes when the water potential the plant senses can change rapidly with only small changes […]
Oct 16, 2017
Why measure plant water potential with FloraPulse
Cleartail Admin
Water Content versus Water Potential With any wet material such as soil or plant tissue, there are two important properties related to water. Water content is how much water the material holds, expressed as 30% water or 0.3 grams of water per cubic centimeter of soil. The other is water potential, or how tightly the […]
Jul 11, 2017
FloraPulse Awarded $225k Grant from the National Science Foundation
Cleartail Admin
Small Business Innovation Research Program Provides Seed Funding for R&D Davis CA, July 11, 2017 – FloraPulse Co has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $225,000 to conduct research and development (R&D) work on a high resolution measurement system of water status for precision agriculture. FloraPulse’s patented […]
Jun 18, 2017
FloraPulse Awarded $100k Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Cleartail Admin
Small Business Innovation Research Program Provides Seed Funding for R&D Davis CA, June 18, 2017 – FloraPulse Co has been awarded a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $100,000 to conduct research and development (R&D) work on an implantable probe for measuring and managing water status in fruit and […]
Feb 06, 2017
In the news: Water sensor moves from basic research to promising business
Cleartail Admin
FloraPulse has been featured in the Cornell Chronicle. Check out the article here: http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2017/02/water-sensor-moves-basic-research-promising-business