When dirt meets data: ScottsMiracle-Gro saved $150M using AI

How a semiconductor veteran turned over a century of horticultural wisdom into AI-led competitive advantage For decades, a ritual played out across ScottsMiracle-Gro’s media facilities. Every few weeks, workers walked acres of towering compost and wood chip piles with nothing more than measuring sticks. They wrapped rulers around each mound, estimated height, and did what company President Nate Baxter now describes as “sixth-grade geometry to figure out volume.”Today, drones glide over those same plants with mechanical precision. Vision systems calculate volumes in real time. The move from measuring sticks to artificial intelligence signals more than efficiency. It is the visible proof of one of corporate America’s most unlikely technology stories.The AI revolution finds an unexpe [...]