Smart sensor helps greenhouses boost yield

Wireless smart sensors are now invading the greenhouse, giving operators microclimate data to improve yield, quality and decision making.

Autogrow’s Folium sensor gathers environmental data including temperature, humidity, CO2, PAR, RAD and barometric pressure, which growers can view on a heatmap, and immediately see differences across their grow areas. The sensor gives greenhouse operators unlimited depth of environmental analysis, as the number of sensors is completely scalable.

“We’ve advocated for a long time in the industry that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and the decisions you make are only as good as the sensor technology gathering the data,” said CEO Darryn Keiller in a statement. “Folium will go a long way to giving growers actionable data using state-of-the-art heatmapping technology. It reveals what the eye can’t see.”

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Autogrow is targeting the Folium sensor at large greenhouse growers who, simply by the size of their operations, require high density climate data to ensure all areas of their facilities are providing the optimal environment for growth.

“We’ve been lucky to work with some fantastic growers throughout the development of Folium who have shared their time, knowledge and grow operations to ensure we are solving some of the pain points they experience when dealing with microclimates,” added Jonathan Morgan, chief technology officer of Autogrow.

“With the way our technology has been designed, we can easily introduce new features that continually support growers. They can also add more Folium units as their business grows, and being connected to our cloud platform gives them access anywhere at any time.”