Drones and data: automatic monitoring and smart integration increases lettuce growers profits
LetsGrow.com and Corvus Drones launched their new collaboration at GreenTech 2023 in Amsterdam. In this collaboration, the data files and photos collected by the fully autonomous Corvus Drone will be made insightful in the LetsGrow.com platform. The collaboration starts for covered lettuce cultivation in greenhouses.
Structural staff shortages, nursery operations becoming progressively complex and the increasing acreage of greenhouses every year are just a few of the current challenges greenhouse horticulture is facing. A transformative technology like drones is becoming a more common solution in this day and age. Through the automation of various tasks, drones will make the lives of growers easier in more ways than one. Corvus Drones fly fully autonomously through the greenhouse and are able to collect data and photos regarding the following topics: crop behavior, diseases and pests, harvest prognosis, germination, growth, and yield and deviations. The following step is to retrieve this data and give growers easy and effective insight into the condition and growth of their crops. This is where LetsGrow.com comes in.
With this new collaboration, Corvus Drones and LetsGrow.com are making the important next step towards fully autonomous flying drones and converting the collected data into useful information for the grower. The goal is to link growth data of lettuce to climate data inside the growing environment in order to centralize, visualize, analyze and eventually optimize the growing strategy.
Co-founder of Corvus Drones, Frans-Peter Dechering: "Data-driven cultivation is embracing every grower. Manual data collection is increasingly a thing of the past. And how do you combine data sources and avoid a data jungle? That is the core of the cooperation between Corvus Drones and LetsGrow.com. Drones collect crop data fully automatically and in the LetsGrow.com dashboard it is clearly presented. First up is Corvus Lettuce, the lettuce application, where growth and, for example, disease detection is insightful. "
Martin van Tol, Sales Manager at LetsGrow.com, emphasizes the importance of this innovation, in particular for the future of horticulture: “I believe that the collaboration between LetsGrow.com and Corvus Drones exemplifies the power of synergy. By combining LetsGrow.com's expertise in data driven growing with Corvus Drones' cutting-edge drone solutions, innovation takes flight in the horticultural sector. Together, we are building a better future for growers by achieving efficiency, sustainability and higher yields for lettuce growers worldwide.”
