Phenospex, a Netherlands-based agriculture technology company, aims to revolutionize the product development process to accelerate the pace of innovation for more sustainable food production.
A novel tool for objectifying data
Phenospex develops digital solutions that capture crop data and translate it into actionable information for a variety of applications, including plant breeding and variety selection, crop protection product development, and indoor and outdoor farm management.
Over the past ten years, Phenospex has reimagined plant phenotyping with its sensor technology, PlantEye. PlantEye F500, the first sensor widely adopted by companies in the agriculture industry, used a 3D and multispectral sensor designed specifically for agriculture applications to generate objective, reliable, standardized data about a plant’s growth, size, and health regardless of the weather conditions or growth environment. PlantEye scans plants to detect crop diseases and plant growth much sooner and with far more precision than the human eye.
3D Wheat model - health visualization
3D model of tomato seedlings
The PlantEye’s capabilities were celebrated by plant scientists, breeders, and farmers who can generate more valuable, reliable, and relevant data from a single measurement than from multiple measurements using traditional phenotyping methods. The technology works seamlessly across a variety of applications, for example, in lettuce harvesting machines to coordinate robotic arms and in indoor farms to automate time-consuming plant measurements.
“We believe that digitalization will be a major driver towards more sustainable agriculture, and PlantEye is the first step in the process of plant assessment. At last, we have a sensor that’s more than fit for the task and worthy of recognition as the standard throughout the industry,” explains biologist, co-founder, and CEO of Phenospex, Dr. Grégoire Hummel.
Improving on the gold standard in phenotyping technology
Despite the F500’s success in the agriculture community, some applications still demanded more speed, higher resolution, and more precise plant health measurements. Phenospex scientists and engineers created the next iteration, the PlantEye F600, to address those challenges. The latest sensor features quality 3D imaging merged with optimized color measurements. Active lighting and smart algorithms reduce color variations caused by shadows or changing light conditions. This technology transcends the F500’s capabilities and delivers actionable data while reducing the labor requirements and associated costs for product development pipelines.
“The PlantEye F600 is the sensor I always dreamed of,” says Hummel. “We pushed the boundaries even further by increasing the sensor resolution and the scanning pace to expand the number of applications we can automate.”
PlantEye technology is used by companies in the seed, crop protection, and indoor agriculture industries and is ideally suited for both indoor and outdoor plant phenotyping applications. The latest F600 technology adds more user flexibility and supports faster, more accurate, and consistent decision-making.
For more information:
Phenospex
www.phenospex.com