ADI operates in the Dutch horticultural sector, bringing together biology and technology to create innovative solutions to plant growth and development. We are developing a range of state-of-the-art greenhouse monitoring systems which will play a strategic part in the full automation of greenhouse horticulture in the coming years.
Our ‘smart eyes’ concept started when we were students experimenting with drones in the greenhouse environment. We realised that an ‘eye in the sky’ systematically observing and monitoring the crops in greenhouses would be a vital tool for many growers. Our monitoring systems enable the growers to observe plant health, crop growth and scout for disease and pests. William Simmonds, CEO of ADI explains,
As greenhouses in the Dutch horticultural sector get bigger and bigger, the challenges of monitoring the crops manually is getting more and more difficult. Our ‘smart eyes’ technology can collect data, analyse that data and give useful actionable insights to the grower’.
We are currently testing and developing three MDCs (Monitoring Devices for Chrysanthemums) in assocation with colleagues at Delphy (a dynamic research organisation) and our friends at Zentoo Chrysanthemums.
Lucien Fesselet, CTO at ADI offers this technical summary, ‘Phenotyping is an essential tool in the process of monitoring, reacting and predicting the growth of a plant. It becomes disproportionately difficult when it needs to be applied on a large scale. The Monitoring Device for Chrysanthemums, or MDC as we like to call it, is a monorail equipped with sensors to collect the base information needed to extract phenotyping characteristics from chrysanthemum plants throughout the growth cycle. These characteristics will help growers to achieve optimum growth patterns, whilst ensuring quality for customers, as well as reducing waste’.
