A DEVICE which can identify different malt barley variety types in under three minutes will be made available to Australian growers for the 2020 harvest.
ZoomBarley is a rapid, low-cost barley variety identification technology which utilises artificial intelligence, computer vision and the Internet of Things (IoT).
It was developed by Argentinian company ZoomAgri, which chose to initially focus on the malting industry due to the importance of maintaining variety segregation through to the malting plants.
ZoomBarley is able to identify, via a hardware device, malting barley variety on a single kernel basis in less than three minutes.
Over the past six months Australian cereal breeder InterGrain has joined forces with ZoomAgri to develop the technology for the main Australian barley varieties.
InterGrain chief executive officer Tress Walmsley said they were deploying the machines into Australian grain accumulators, traders and maltsters.
"We have invested in this technology as a tool for improving end point royalty (EPR) compliance," Ms Walsmley said.
"With that in mind, we will be offering the ZoomBarley service free to growers in 2020, to create awareness of the technology.
"It can differentiate between La Trobe, Bass, Compass, Flinders, RGT Planet, Scope CL and Spartacus CL, with Maximus CL ready to be added to a future version."
The ZoomBarley device consists of high-end scanners which take an incredibly high resolution image, about 150 mexagpixels, which is about 10 times better than what can be taken on the latest iPhone or Samsung device.
The database is made up of more than 11 million single kernel images of barley and those images train the device to identify which variety is which.
ZoomBarley is not available for sale and is instead given out on a loan basis for a hire fee.
ZoomAgri business development manager Nicolas Martelli, who is based at InterGrain's offices in Western Australia, said for maltsters, it was extremely important to have purity of barley varieties because each variety behaved differently during the malting process.
"The machine has been developed to analyse grain from trucks on-site and in real time," Mr Martelli said.
"In Argentina, growers need to deliver 95 per cent purity or above according to the ZoomBarley machine.
"Previous methods used to take up to two weeks and cost about $150, this machine works in less than three minutes and we charge about $12 per scan."
The machine works by taking a small sample of grain and placing it on a small grid made up of almost 400 holes, which needs to be about 85pc full.
The lid of the machine is then closed, the theoretical variety is selected and a button is pushed to start the analysis, with a result spitting out the top two varieties contained within the sample - or just one variety if it's 100pc pure.
Mr Martelli said the barley device was already commercially available and they have a few clients around the world who have contracts and were using it.
"In WA, along with InterGrain, we're mainly working with grain handlers and maltsters, so CBH Group has one machine in trial at the moment, while Boortmalt also has another they are testing out," he said.
In the past year ZoomBarley has been used in 10 countries worldwide including Uruguay, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, India, the United States and Australia, with a total of 140 devices and counting.
The next countries where the technology will be launched are Brazil, Denmark, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Russia/Kazakhstan.
After ZoomBarley, ZoomAgri is in the process of developing other solutions and one is to do the same variety recognition in wheat for the Australian market, called ZoomWheat.
"We're building up the database of images for the ZoomWheat device and for that we have the support of InterGrain, AGT (Australian Grain Technologies) and LongReach Plant Breeders which are sending us samples from around the country for us to scan," Mr Martelli said.
"Malt barley has less varieties with only seven of them, while with wheat on the other hand we're trying to get 17 to 21 varieties.
"That takes a lot more time to do, it makes it harder for the device to distinguish between varieties and it is possible the machine will take ever so slightly longer to decipher between 20 varieties compared to seven."
ZoomAgri and InterGrain are hoping to have a ZoomWheat in trial by December but it will not be commercially available until further down the line.
To launch ZoomBarley in Australia, InterGrain is offering growers a free barley variety ID service for the first 1000 samples received, at a maximum of four samples per grower.
Growers need to download and complete a form and, depending on where they're located, send a sample and form to either Perth for WA growers or Horsham for eastern Australia growers.
The form and postal addresses for samples can be found on the InterGrain website.
