Powered by Scanit’s AI-enabled SporeCam™ platform and deployed with ag services partner MaxAg, the new service continuously tracks local airborne pathogen pressure ahead of disease outbreaks
DES MOINES, Iowa — July 1, 2026 — Airborne crop disease starts as a microscopic threat. It builds in the air long before it shows up in the canopy, sometimes weeks before symptoms of infection are spotted in the crop, leaving growers and agronomists with an incomplete picture of potential disease risk. Scanit Technologies has launched the Iowa SporeWarn™ Network to shed light on key disease pathogens in local fields, allowing any user to track the underlying, unseen pests behind yield robbers like corn tar spot and soybean white mold.
At the heart of the network is SporeCam™, Scanit’s AI-enabled, autonomous airborne pathogen-detection platform. Deployed in fields throughout central Iowa, each SporeCam sensor acts like a smoke alarm for disease — sampling the air around the clock and catching the invisible spores that signal a building risk of outbreak. Weather-based models can tell growers when conditions might favor disease, but not if the pathogen is actually present or how fast pressure is climbing.
The SporeWarn Network closes that gap by measuring the pathogens themselves, in local fields, in real time — showing where pressure is rising across the area so growers know where to focus first. This can turn the season’s biggest spray decision into an informed one: focus scouting and treat where pressure is climbing toward high risk, or hold off when it stays low and potentially save a pass.
Iowa SporeWarn Network subscribers can access reports refreshed daily through an online portal that features summarized pathogen pressure data for each disease, a rolling 7-day history, risk and trend analysis, and heat maps to visualize pressure across the area. There is also a daily morning report delivered by text message that provides a quick read on changes in pathogen presence and disease risk.
Altogether, the service includes access to area-wide monitoring for five corn and soybean diseases of concern to central Iowa growers — tar spot, gray leaf spot, Northern corn leaf blight, and Southern rust in corn; white mold in soybeans — across roughly 500,000 acres of corn and soybean plantings in Story, Marshall, Polk, and Hardin counties. Because airborne disease pressure is constantly shifting across the region, growers in and around these counties can use the network’s daily readings to understand what could be present or moving into their fields.
MaxAg, an innovative, independent ag services provider based in Maxwell, Iowa, has partnered with Scanit to deploy the Iowa SporeWarn Network across its service area in central Iowa — selecting monitoring locations, maintaining the network, and sharing agronomic insights.
“Scanit’s technology could completely change how agronomists scout for disease and help our customers be proactive with treatment,” said Patrick Sheets, Agronomist at MaxAg.
Iowa SporeWarn Network – Site installation with MaxAg
Because pathogen pressure is a new kind of data for most growers, the SporeWarn Network service is built to make it usable from day one — with plain-language reports, local context from the field, and blog articles that explain what the numbers mean for spray and scouting decisions.
Access to the Iowa SporeWarn Network is available now for the 2026 growing season. Through July 15, growers can subscribe for season-long access for only $60 — half the regular $120 price — by entering code IOWA26 at signup. This is a one-time fee with no recurring charges. Growers can preview the network and sign up at www.scanittech.com/sporewarn.
Scanit also offers a SporeWarn Business Tier for agribusinesses, retailers, NGOs, drone operators, and other organizations seeking network-scale pathogen intelligence for the growers they serve. As the industry leans harder on forecasting tools to anticipate disease risk, SporeWarn data complements existing crop-disease models and internal tools by measuring the actual airborne pathogens in the field — not just the conditions that favor them.
“We’ve monitored challenging disease environments all over the globe, including millions of corn and soybean acres, and each season we are listening to growers, agronomists, and university experts to understand their needs from an airborne pathogen monitoring service. The Iowa SporeWarn Network is us putting that knowledge to work,” said Jaydeep Rane, CEO and Co-Founder of Scanit Technologies.
“Central Iowa is a great place for us to introduce a publicly available, accessible pathogen monitoring service to a wider audience of growers and industry stakeholders, so they can sign up and see what disease pressure is around their fields in a few clicks. This is just the start, and we’re already exploring expanding access to cover more acres in more regions.”
Listen to an interview with Rane and French to learn more:
Scanit Technologies - Jaydeep Rane and Ryan French 17:37
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About Scanit Technologies, Inc.
Scanit Technologies, Inc., based in Fremont, California, develops AI-enabled autonomous airborne pathogen detection technology for agriculture. Its SporeCam™ platform continuously captures, images, and analyzes airborne particles to give growers and agribusinesses an early, data-driven view of crop-disease pressure. The Iowa SporeWarn™ Network, launching for the 2026 season, is the company’s first subscription service for individual growers in the United States. Learn more at www.scanittech.com.
About MaxAg
MaxAg, Inc., of Maxwell, Iowa, is an independent, family-owned agricultural services provider that has served farms across Iowa and the Midwest for more than 25 years. Grown from a multigenerational family farming operation, MaxAg pairs hands-on agronomy with a track record of putting new technology to work in the field. As the deployment partner for the Iowa SporeWarn Network, MaxAg installs and maintains the network’s monitoring sites and combines the data with local agronomic insight for growers. Learn more at www.maxag.us.
Media Contact
Ryan French
Market Development & Sales Lead, Scanit Technologies, Inc.
rrfrench@scanit-tech.com | 515-410-4402