Will vegetable growers soon be able to create the perfect conditions for their crops using computer models? We plunge into the world of the digital twin, a promising new technique in which WUR researchers are doing cutting-edge work. What are digital twins, what can you do with them and what are the benefits? “If this works, we will be able to save a lot on water, energy and raw materials.”
Imagine you are a tomato grower and you want to know whether you could use less water without it affecting your crop yields. Or perhaps you are considering replacing the glazing in your greenhouses to get more light, but you don’t want to risk an investment that turns out to be pointless. Of course, you could start experimenting to see what happens. But it would probably save you a lot of time and money if you could predict beforehand what the consequences of a particular decision might be. That is precisely the power of ‘digital twins’, a new computer technique that WUR scientists are working in three research projects this year.
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