Collecting data for healthy trees

Tree nursery Fleuren collects as much data as possible to know as much as possible about its trees. "We would much rather know right away if the plants are getting stressed and we do that by collecting data. If you don't do that, it's a bit silly."

Healthy soil and healthy trees

Tree nursery Fleuren is one of the largest fruit tree nurseries in the Netherlands. Its apple, pear, cherry and plum trees are sold to fruit growers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and Norway, among others. "If there is one bad spot in our plot, it means huge financial losses," he said.

So 3 years ago, the company employed someone to collect as much useful data on the trees as possible, namely Yannick Smedts. He is a specialist in precision agriculture. With a long black plastic sled with GPS receiver and sensor, he measures the condition of the soil. This way, the company knows exactly what the soil looks like and which tree thrives best on the ground. In fact, no plant goes into the ground until they know what is best for the tree.

Future

But in addition to scanning the soil, Yannick has developed other data collection stuff, such as a weather station. With drones, the company is experimenting to eventually identify diseases in trees. In the future, Fleuren sees an expansion of measuring data. He cites an example of pairing a plant with electrodes to see at what temperature a plant produces less oxygen and absorbs CO2.

Source: NRC