Nault explains ‘super system for quality control’
A packed room for a 7 am breakout session was a clear sign of interest in soil testing systems as Day 2 of the Precision Agriculture Conference kicked off.
Jacques Nault of LaserAg joked that he didn’t expect such a large crowd for such an early presentation, but he fascinated farmers and ag professionals with his description of laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS).
Nault explained that he has “spent his whole life in agriculture.” He graduated from McGill University in the 1980s and founded Logiag with his brother back in 1999. The company focused on areas such as fertilizer technology, drainage and erosion control, but his passion currently is LIBS and what it means to modern agricultural production.
LIBS uses a laser pulse to create temperatures of up to 25,000 K, “so the temperature of the sun,” according to Nault. The laser forms a plasma, which atomizes and excites samples. Within a short time, the plasma expands at supersonic velocities and cools. At that point the atomic emission lines of the material’s elements can be observed.
“It’s extremely fast and extremely accurate,” said Nault. “And we end up with a spectral image of the material we are analyzing, so we know exactly what the elements of our material are.”
This “super system for quality control” is used in mining and a number of other industries, but its application to precision agriculture is what had conference visitors up at this early hour.
Nault said LaserAg technology as “fast, fluid, accurate and green.” Similar to other conference speakers, he described his organization as being very strong in software and technology.
Who should pay attention? Agronomy groups, services providers and ag organizations who understand the value of big data.
“My dream is that our laser will one day be mounted on a farmer’s ATV,” said Nault.
“And my hope is that in five years I will be back here at this conference to show you all our ATV system.”