The winners of the GreenTech Awards were announced at the start of the Amsterdam exhibition, with Dutch firms Koppert and Blue Radix both successful
At this week’s GreenTech exhibition in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, sustainable solutions provider Koppert picked up the Concept Award for its Digital Assistant, while autonomous growing specialist Blue Radix won the Innovation Award for its Integrated Autonomous Climate & Irrigation Control.
Chairman of the jury for the awards, Egon Janssen, explained the decision. “Artificial Intelligence and data science are developing really fast,” he said. “The winners of the concept and innovation award show that this new technology can help to improve sustainability and reduce labour shortages. The jury was impressed by the scalability of the winning innovation and concept, which can result in a huge impact in the coming years”.
Koppert’s Digital Assistant offers “personalised and context-rich” IPM support by merging data from growers’ own crop management systems and Koppert’s unique IPM knowledge
“The Digital Assistant embodies a revolutionary leap forward, surpassing superficial chat bot interaction,” the company said. “It provides personalised and context-rich support to growers and consultants for unique IPM challenges, by incorporating vital data from grower’s own crop management system (e.g. climate, pest prevalence, treatments) and our unique knowledge of IPM management and agricultural practices.”
“Knowledge of plagues and diseases is widely available in literature,” said Janssen. “The knowledge level of growers varies depending on experience. The initiative to use a ChatGPT-like approach to assist growers can create a huge increase in the average knowledge level of growers.”
Blue Radix’s Integrated Autonomous Climate & Irrigation Control is a Crop Controller that integrates Autonomous Climate and Irrigation Control.
“Managing this is 80 per cent of climate computer work,” the company said. “We now realise this with AI. Blue Radix enhances and integrates its proven Autonomous Climate Control with Autonomous Irrigation Control, leveraging advanced AI.”
The Crop Controller ensures precise climate and irrigation execution, reducing climate computer work by 80 per cent.
“It revolutionises daily greenhouse management, delivering 5 per cent profit increase and 7 per cent yield improvement, 10 per cent less water and fertiliser usage, and 15 per cent energy savings,” Blue Radix stated.
“We have seen many innovations using AI and Data Science to optimise a single process in the greenhouse,” said Janssen. “Since there are many processes which influence each other, the real challenge is to optimise the total operation. Blue Radix combines autonomous climate and water control, which is an important step towards autonomous greenhouses.”
