“Due to the unique nature of our architecture, over 32 trillion data points flow through our systems each year which would be one of the most substantial collections for indoor agriculture to date. Data is king when it comes to innovation but what you do with it is the key,” says CEO Darryn Keiller.
Darryn Keiller at the AutoGrow head office
“The tricky part is, like most systems, a lot of the data generated contains noise. To date, our processing algorithm has filtered and stored over six billion data points which are then ingested by our state-of-the-art data pipeline, and analyzed by our scientists for our customers.”
“Our strategy is to orchestrate the data to make it meaningful for our growers, giving them deeper insight into their crop environments’, revealing critical factors of crop cycle and seasonality, to enable smarter decisions and better outcomes.”
Data is currently sourced from Autogrow’s MultiGrow, Aphaea, IntelliDose and IntelliClimate control systems and, depending on the system being run, collates microclimate data every 3-5 seconds including air temperature, humidity, light levels, CO2, pH and nutrient levels as well as local macroclimate data.
The data spans a vast array of produce, floriculture and arboreal plant nurseries in greenhouses, urban farms and protected cropping systems in over 40 countries.
Each grower can access their own data via the cloud or the controller at any time with enterprise level security in place, but the biggest challenge for the grower is seeing past the large quantity of data to the quality insight.
Autogrow’s Director of Crop Science and Agronomy, Dr Tharindu Weeraratne notes that information gathered gives a true reflection of how the plants are responding to their environment and what the optimum levels are for increased yields with high quality and consistency.
“All the factors involved including external and internal climate, plant biology, nutrient requirements, technology usage and how everything interacts together is vital. Add in the effects of consumer needs, geopolitical factors and climate change, and those leafy greens or tomatoes are more complex than most consumers realize.”
“There are a few factors that can’t be controlled with crop production but by gaining knowledge and understanding of those factors you do have control over, it’s really the first step to true innovation and business growth.”
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Autogrow