Wim Roest, branch manager at RedStar, received his ticket to the future from Andreas Hofland, General Manager at HortiKey. With the trade fair promotion during the Fruit Logistica in Berlin earlier this year, the Berg Hortimotive subsidiary has actively engaged in making known the great advantage of the daily automated and very accurate determination of the crop estimate.
The Plantalyzer works fully automatically, and the images are made and analysed on the spot. The results are subsequently displayed on the grower’s screen. This makes the Plantalyzer the ultimate sensing instrument for tomatoes. In this way, the Plantalyzer is able to measure large areas of tomatoes, counting both quantity and maturity. The system does that tirelessly every day, and always in exactly the same way. The fact that determining an accurate crop estimate has great advantages for tomato growers is demonstrated by the greater delivery performance and thus a better determination of the selling price.
Ticket to the future
HortiKey is one of the enthusiastic partners at the GreenTech in Amsterdam from 12 to 14 June and on Wednesday 13 June it announced the winner of the new iPhone X. Determining quantities and of course, more certainty in the crop yield is also being sought after in the tomato profession. This new method of determining the crop estimate is the ticket to the future, involving an increasing amount of automation and digitization. ‘It was a conscious choice to raffle the iPhone X. It used to be an exclusive privilege to own an iPhone, but nowadays many people cannot do without one. By raffling the newest iPhone version, we want to show that what now still appears to be exclusive, will in the foreseeable future be indispensable in tomato nurseries’, according to Andreas Hofland of HortiKey.
The Plantalyzer runs fully autonomously and is equipped with the Greenhouse Positioning System so that it always knows its location. Thanks to this latest technology from Berg Hortimotive, the grower gets a clear insight into the stock of tomatoes at each specific location in the greenhouse. The Plantalyzer also uses BergDrive, the new operating system that coordinates all logistics movements in the company.
The Plantalyzer in practice
The automated crop estimate of the Plantalyzer seems to be indispensable in the daily processing of tomato greenhouses. The use of this robot trolley, which is equipped with cameras and sensors, is also regularly being further optimised in these nurseries and specifically tuned to the grower’s application and requirements. At the end of 2018, the Plantalyzer will take care of the accurate counts in various greenhouses. Are you also interested in the possibilities? Then contact HortiKey and learn more about the ticket to the future of crop estimates.
