Exhibitor news

A unique AI technology that allows growers to tune into the early warnings of disease, pests, nutrient deficiencies, and water stress that plants communicate has received €1.8 million of funding from ePlant and Astanor Ventures.

How does a tomato plant uses its energy throughout the season? For the first time, the intrinsic tomato developmental changes over a full commercial crop cycle were monitored and revealed. This is done by the Swiss company Vivent, active in commercial plant electrophysiology. With long-term monitoring of electrical potential in growers located in Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands, Vivent was able to track how plant electrical activity changed between February, when seedlings were planted in the glasshouse, and October 2021, when the plants were removed. A graph shows how the electrical potential in the plant change over time.

The ‘Fitbit of plants’, Vivent’s PhytlSigns device has been certified as a B Corp – a Certified Benefit Corporation – after meeting rigorous social and environmental standards which represent its commitment to do business in a meaningful way, by pursuing purpose as well as profit. "Vivent’s technology leads to increased yields, improved crop protection effectiveness, and encourages the adoption of environmentally preferable protection solutions – so more food, less chemicals," the Vivent team explains. "With recertification every three years, Vivent has embarked on a process that aims at ever higher standards and continuous improvement."

The Swiss company Vivent, pioneer in electrophysiology, has decided to use those signals in order to provide producers with crop monitoring solutions through biosensors. Already implemented on greenhouse crops for cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, and in open fields for vines, Vivent is now conducting trials on lettuce, asparagus, strawberries in polytunnels, as well as sugar beets and potatoes.

Modern crop protection practices combine classical disease control with plant resistance induction to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Such stresses might be plant pathogens or extreme weather conditions including drought or heat. One way to induce plant resistance to crop diseases is the use of biological or synthetic solutions, so-called plant defense inducers (PDI). Various biochemical and molecular biological assays have been developed during the 1990s to discover new structures and profiles from known classes of defense inducers1.

Living organisms are constantly sending out electrophysical signals. Plants use these electrical signals to detect stress when attacked by pests and diseases. The Business Unit Greenhouse Horticulture and Flower Bulbs of Wageningen University & Research investigate whether sensors can recognize electrophysical signals.

Ecoation and Vivent have signed a partnership agreement to bring a real-time crop stress monitoring to the North American market. To further the partnership, Vivent has installed real-time crop sensors at HORTECA, a North American Horticultural Technology Center & Academy (HORTECA). The 2-acre Demonstration and R&D facility is located in Ruthven, Ontario, right in the heart of the biggest greenhouse production cluster in North America.

Vivent’s innovative biosensors detect stress signals in the plant’s internal network long before visible symptoms appear. Monitoring crop health in real-time shows when plants are growing productively or when they are stressed and underperforming, adapting to disease, pests, or other suboptimal conditions. Growers can now receive real-time alerts directly from their crops when their plants are stressed using Vivent’s biosensors.

Een waar huzarenstuk, naar verluidt niet eerder vertoond: het uitzonderlijk hoge kascomplex (14 meter!) dat wordt gebouwd op de internationale Floriade Expo 2022 in Almere. Het architectonische hoogstandje is volgens de Westlandse makers mogelijk de hoogste kas ter wereld.

In late 2020 Valoya and Hohenheim University embarked on a 3-year-long research partnership aimed at better understanding how light affects the cannabis plant. Due to regulatory restrictions, it has been very difficult if not impossible to study cannabis in most places around the world, up to the recent times. Even though cannabis is slowly being decriminalized and is entering the mainstream, there is very little scientific data on any aspect of its cultivation, processing and use. This ambitious research partnership is focused on changing that by conducting 6 scientific studies over the three-year period studying plant morphology and chemical composition under varying growth conditions.

Printed media, radio and television journalists as well as (press) photographers are more than welcome at Floriade Expo 2022 though only after registering and with the communications departments’ permission.

CO2 Gro Inc. has been on a long road with its technology for improving the use of greenhouse gas in greenhouses.

CO2 GRO is pleased to announce a commercial feasibility of a CO2 Delivery Solutions™ system with a major E.U. based greenhouse vegetable grower that wishes to remain unnamed ("the customer"). Once installed, the commercial feasibility will continue for a period of twelve months. This is GROW's largest potential customer to date with nearly 1,000 hectares (approximately 100 million square feet) of greenhouse grown vegetables.

The new technology provides farmers with an insight into crop stressors prior to visual symptoms appearing. Bayer researchers will use the technology to accelerate discovery of innovative crop protection chemistry.

Swiss-based technology company Vivent announced today a new partnership with Bayer which grants the company access to the system PhytlSigns.

Ceres Greenhouse Solutions uses passive solar design principles coupled with plant sensing to provide growers real-time information on how to optimize growing conditions.

Valoya’s high end LED grow lights have been available in the Spanish market for over a decade, thanks to a Barcelona based, horticultural consultant and supplier, Buresinnova. Part of the Bures family of businesses with more than 50 years dedicated to the service of agriculture, seedbeds, substrate production and gardening, Buresinnova offers a portfolio of brands rigorously selected for their solid track record in research.

A three year long research partnership on Cannabis sativa has been kicked off with the first experiment, running since October last year. The goal of the research partnership is to advance our understanding of the light spectrum and lighting technology effects on flower yields and quality of multiple strains of cannabis. These results will also help develop even more efficient lighting protocols for professional cannabis cultivators.