WayBeyond Offering New Tool to Assess Plant Growth in Greenhouse Vegetables
February 22, 2023 
The Plant Balance Indicator gives a real-time graphical view based on crop registration data, environmental sensor data, and plant biology information. Photo: WayBeyond
Horticultural technology provider WayBeyond has introduced a new resource to provide growers with an advantage for maintaining optimal plant growth without any guesswork by moving from a subjective to an objective approach.
The Plant Balance Indicator is the latest FarmRoad Agronomy Insights feature – a smart digital tool that displays the state of the plant, starting with tomato crops. With this information, growers can influence plant growth depending on how they wish to progress.
“Plants can be in a state of vegetative to generative based on their interaction with the environment. Vegetative is when more energy is used to produce the structural parts of the plant like leaves, stems and root systems, and generative is when more energy is utilized for creating more fruits and flowers,” says Dr Tharindu Weeraratne, WayBeyond Director of Crop Science & Agronomy. “When growers are able to understand the current state of their plants, they are empowered to make decisions based on that data to positively impact harvest and ultimately their profit margin.”
“One example is if plant growth requires slowing down due to low market pricing. Average daily temperature, humidity, or EC in the root zone can be manipulated to slow the plant’s development long enough for prices to recover,” Weeraratne says. “Conversely, should fruiting or ripening need accelerating to meet contractual agreements, labor availability, or to take advantage of better market pricing, those parameters and others can be adjusted to achieve that. Both courses of action require growers to have a clear grasp of the current state of the plant to avoid over-stressing it.”
Leveraging proprietary statistical models, the Plant Balance Indicator gives a real-time graphical view based on crop registration data, environmental sensor data, and plant biology information. Additionally, a plant balance chart displays historic plant balance status over time.
WayBeyond Chief Technology Officer Sean Tindale notes that creating successful agricultural products isn’t just about the technology.
“Successful horticultural technology is built from a comprehensive knowledge base for data modelling, alongside additional information provided by the growers. We make this knowledge and data relatable to growers as agronomy insights and tools that enable the right actions to be taken at the right time to improve crop outcomes,” Tindale says. “We are incredibly fortunate to have six years of data collected from tomato producers and experienced partner growers around the world, that give validity to our solutions. As we continue to explore the use of artificial intelligence and build even more sophisticated models, tools like the Plant Balance Indictor will be just one of many options growers will have to optimize their production.”
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