Smart greenhouses are a growing market. Greenhouses are key for supplying safe, fresh and healthy food. Tomatoes are the biggest crop within vegetable growing. As the acreage for tomatoes is increasing, the question is how all these new greenhouses will be managed. There is already a shortage in growers today. Therefore it is time to introduce digital assistance to growers. With digital assistance they are able to increase their span of control and thus to manage a larger area of greenhouses.
by Andreas Hofland
Human capacity per definition is limited. Digital assistance outperforms humans in certain precision tasks. One of the main current challenges is to gather objective reliable plant data from the greenhouse. For correct analysis, the quality of the data needs to be excellent. The saying related to analytics is ‘garbage in is garbage out’. In other words, you need good quality data for good quality analyses for good quality decision making. Analytics don’t solve bad quality data. If we want to develop towards automatic decision making, then quality requirements for data will become higher and higher.
On request of HortiKey, Wageningen UR developed algorithms to classify tomatoes automatically. This classification is done with tomatoes that are still hanging on plants in the greenhouse. The tomatoes are classified independent from lighting conditions. It is a feature which a human being is not capable to achieve. With these algorithms new data is generated from the greenhouse in a way never shown before, together with algorithms for automatic counting. It is the basis for the Plantalyzer: an autonomous driving platform from Berg Hortimotive with sensors and software to analyze the tomatoes. Prognosis software from Letsgrow.com analyzes the gathered data to calculate an accurate crop estimate.
The Plantalyzer is a good example of how algorithms can help growers to improve their performance. The gain is higher customer satisfaction, more control over the price-making process, more stability in planning and thus, a contribution to company continuity.
For more information:
HortiKey
Burgermeester Crezeelaan 42A
2678KZ De Lier
Nederland
T +31 (0)174517700
hortikey.nl
HortiKey
Burgermeester Crezeelaan 42A
2678KZ De Lier
Nederland
T +31 (0)174517700
hortikey.nl