In a previous blog, we showed just how deeply technology is entwined with modern agribusiness – even at the smaller scales of horticulture.
When we implement horticulture data platforms for our clients at ICT Strypes, we often find these businesses are very technologically aware – often, the first day of a project feels like meeting new friends with whom we share interests! (Making it perfect for our Nearsurance model, which puts ICT Strypes teams both on-site with our client and in-office at our European coding hub.) So while we have different backgrounds, the two sectors have a lot in common.
Like software, horticulture is a business full of strange terminology: microgreens, herbal aromatics, charismatic flora, ornamental exotics. It’s also dense with acronyms, like CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture). And both disciplines can seem organic in the way they work: nudging and coaxing small features into life one-by-one, so everything is ready for “harvesting” (product launch) on the right date.
In fact, many of the best coders say software is more farmed than manufactured!
But just as plants need air and sunlight, horticulture software platforms only thrive if they’re fed too – and their “feed” is data. So in this blog, we’ll move on from the software itself to the information that flows through it – and see how a focus on data can improve outcomes for specialised agriculture businesses across Europe.
Let’s harvest some insights on data-driven horticulture.
Horticulture and technology: a match made in data
The similarities between tech and horticulture businesses are closest when you think about datacentres. Both use large, climate-controlled buildings that need steady management. Both are packed full of resources to be transformed through effective workflows. Both are big consumers of energy where costs must be controlled. Both are hubs of larger ecosystems, with long supply chains and customer journeys as inputs and outcomes.
And most of all, both operate in a fast-changing global market where one wrong decision today could make a huge difference to the business a year later.
So let’s look at horticulture’s tech stack from the ground up: a set of mission-critical resources to be nurtured and valued.
Seeding the field: gathering sensor data
Like many software platforms, a horticulture tech stack starts with hardware. In greenhouse operations, that means sensors connected to the IoT (Internet of Things). They’re often small and simple, collecting a single metric at set intervals. They don’t cost vast amounts of money or consume huge bandwidth – and that’s the point. When something is low-cost and benefits from scale, you can use it everywhere.
Today, a single greenhouse can contain thousands of sensors in dozens of formats. Air sensors measure humidity and microclimate over each planting bed, even individual plants. In-soil sensors measure acidity and alkalinity; cameras monitor valuable plants for security. Add in sensors for temperature, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, and more, and you can create a complete picture of the local environment as plants develop.
But of course, data alone is useless unless you put it to work. And that’s the other half of sensor data: pumps, switches, and actuators that guide it back to balance. Let’s list a few.
#1: Climate control systems in the greenhouse
Among the simplest factors are temperature and humidity. One device can open a window if it gets too hot, or turn on a fan to improve airflow. But that’s just the start.
Combining internal sensor data with external weather data lets a data platform make smart decisions that save the business money. Ultraviolet lamps are energy-intensive; if the sun’s shining brightly, they can be switched off. If storms are forecast, it’s time to clam the glass closed. And across a large glass estate, these micro-decisions can be made many times each minute, for different parts of the greenhouse.
It’s data-driven horticulture at its simplest – but often its most effective.
#2: Large-scale irrigation and fertigation systems
Drip-feed irrigation has been around for decades – and sensor data can deliver precisely the right amount to each plant, saving water (which often isn’t cheap in agricultural contexts). What’s newer, though, is that other resources can now be delivered.
In European greenhouses today, pipes and feedlines are delivering fertilisers, pesticides, and even beneficial gases to plants. (The Netherlands – where many of our clients are based – is home to a rare CO2 pipeline, since carbon dioxide promotes growth.)
But like any other resource, it must be used precisely and proportionately for maximum return. Becoming data-driven is how you do it.
#3: Cost-saving energy optimization systems
Sunlight and rain may be free, but today’s horticulture makes use of grow lamps, heat panels, shading blinds, and air circulation – and that needs more energy. The role of data here is to make the best use of it.
In many of the horticulture software platforms we build, the goal isn’t to minimise energy use but to make it more effective. That may mean using it only at night when electricity is cheaper, or calculating when sunlight can substitute for UV and IR, or testing out ideas for getting a tastier (or more Instagram-friendly) plant.
The thought here: not reduction, but optimisation.
Mixing the inputs: operational data yield optimisation
The greenhouse is, after all, a business. And a business goal – making more profit, producing more plants in one bed, choosing what to grow – may be improved by using more energy, or water, or other resources in the right way. That’s the purpose of data yield optimisation: using data to find out what you could do better.
Raw data alone can’t tell you – but when all your sensor data, gathered over time, is collected in one place where applications can make use of it, you’ve got a software platform for horticulture you can use for future success. Perhaps it leads to four growing cycles per year instead of three. Maybe it results in larger, higher-value plants that delight customers. But to make those decisions, you needed the data first.
Building the base: a horticulture data platform
A data platform – distinct from a dataset – is an integrated set of technologies, tools, and infrastructure for turning diverse data into a manageable whole. The data may come from different places and be stored in different databases – but a data platform provides a friendly front-end to make it accessible across your organisation.
A horticultural data platform is the enabler of all that data from your greenhouses, weather forecasts, resource usage, supply chain, even suppliers and customers – giving you a “single pane of glass” (!) view of your entire data landscape. Often built from well-tested software components and well-known programming languages – to keep it future-proof – but tailored for your specific situation.
That’s the sort of thing we build at ICT Strypes. Think of data at the bottom, flowing upwards into the data platform, and becoming visible to your people so they can use it to manage operations. But there’s one more layer above that.
Using greenhouse data analytics for business gain
Data-gathering is rear-view-mirror work: you’re looking at what happened before. But data analytics looks to the future – using past events to inform decisions about what you do next. That information comes from graphs and charts that tell you what that data is saying, and show you insights and trends as time goes on.
That’s the top layer: the application that makes data-driven horticulture truly usable.
It’s often customised for you, giving you a huge competitive advantage. It lets you manage multiple greenhouses with thousands of plants at scale. And it acts as a horticulture decision support system, giving you evidence that justifies your decisions and showing you the results over the growing cycle and beyond.
Grow that tech stack with ICT Strypes, and your business will grow too.
CONCLUSION: let’s grow your horticulture data platform together
The most fertile field for your business to grow in is a field of data, customised for your precise mix of plants and resources. Effective data-driven horticulture lets you grow more effectively, use resources more efficiently, and make decisions with higher returns.
And – of course – you get to enjoy the harvest!
If that’s planted a seed in your mind, contact ICT Strypes: