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Towards an autonomous Greenhouse

Greenhouse horticulture plays an important role in the year-round production of fresh, healthy and high quality products. The production has to be economically viable and sustainable in the use of natural resources, such as water, nutrients and energy. The area for protected cultivation is increasing around the world. The limiting factor is becoming the availability of sufficient highly qualified staff with knowledge of cultivation of a high-quality product, who can oversee all aspects of an efficient production system with minimal use of resources. More automation is therefore required.

In AGROS, we work on the realization of the ‘autonomous greenhouse’ in which cultivation is controlled remotely via intelligent algorithms, based on measurements of climate and crop properties collected by an array of intelligent sensors.

The project is divided into three workpackages:

  1. Understanding crop physiology in response to changing environmental conditions
  2. Translation of data from sensors to crop parameters and crop responses
  3. Autonomous greenhouse control through (climate-plant) sensor-driven-intelligent algorithms

For more information see “Workpackages”

Invitation to the network and knowledge event AGROS: “Data and intelligence in horticulture, arable farming and dairy”

Date:      Wednesday April 5, 2023 Time:     13:00 – 17:00 Venue:    WUR Greenhouse Horticulture, Violierenweg 1, Bleiswijk, The Netherlands Complexity of systems in greenhouse horticulture, arable farming and dairy is increasing, and society demands sustainable production systems. Current farming systems can only meet this demand to a limited extent. The way forward involves [ … ]

AGROS project enters exciting phase: applying autonomous control in cucumber

Wageningen University & Research (WUR) business unit Greenhouse Horticulture recently planted three cucumber crops as part of the AGROS project. The cultivation of these crops is controlled in different ways: in one greenhouse operational decisions are taken by a group of crop and irrigation experts, while the other two greenhouses are controlled remotely by a [ … ]

Sensor for crop light interception

PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation, 400 – 700 nm) is the driving force for photosynthesis and thereby also for crop growth and production. Light interception by the crop is an important trait. In general, growers aim to maintain such a leaf area that the crop has (nearly) full light interception. In order to estimate this, they [ … ]

Model-driven greenhouse cultivation is getting shape

Being a grower is becoming an increasingly complex task, especially since cultivation areas have increased considerably over the last decade. More and more is at stake and the number of factors to take into account increases. Autonomous cultivation can then be a welcome support. Autonomous cultivation implies that an algorithm takes care of daily cultivation [ … ]

First meeting AGROS – Exchange between the three sectors

On May 31, 2022 representatives of the 3 sectors were invited to share experiences within AGROS. Some 20 participants listened to the visions that are the basis for the activities per sector. Renske Landeweert (IMEC-One Planet) kicked off with their vision on the developments in data use. IMEC-One Planet works at the forefront of chip [ … ]

The AGROS program

The AGROS programme is a collaboration between Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and 29 private partners, with funding provided by two of the Top Sectors programmes: Agri & Food and Horticulture & Starting Materials. AGROS stands for ‘Evolution to sustainable AGRicultural Operation Systems’. The main goal is to develop tools that can support production that is based on natural, biological and ecological processes and thereby steer production towards sustainable use of inputs like energy, water, plant protection, products and labour. The knowledge obtained from the research and experiments, and the professional guidance provided will benefit the participating arable and dairy farmers, greenhouse growers and technology companies. Over the next four years, the business community and the government will invest more than €6.5 million in this programme.