Data Driven Autonomous Growing (DDAG)

Data Driven Autonomous Growing

The global horticulture sector is making huge strides by both companies and governments investing heavily in developing innovative greenhouses, optimising existing facilities and increasing cultivation knowledge. These investments are necessary to meet the growing demand for high-quality food, partly due to the rising global population. At the same time, the need for efficient and advanced cultivation methods is increasing.

One of the biggest challenges facing the sector is the shortage of skilled growers. To bridge this gap, the focus is shifting to data-driven autonomous growing, or Data Driven Autonomous Growing (DDAG). At Tomatoworld, we work closely with several partners at the forefront of technological innovation to support growers worldwide with this new approach.

At the end of 2023, a major project was completed that resulted in the full integration of DDAG into Tomatoworld's greenhouse. With this experience as a basis, we decided to further develop the greenhouse into a Fieldlab and Learning & Demonstration Centre, combining DDAG with the Growing by Plant Empowerment (GPE) method. This unique concept allows us to show thousands of international horticultural contacts how to apply DDAG in their own greenhouses. In addition, the greenhouse acts as a training facility for growers and investors, allowing them to experience in practice how the system works and the benefits it offers. Here, Tomatoworld plays an important role in connecting partners, facilitating cooperation and organising training and demonstrations.

Although DDAG is currently mainly theoretical in nature, it is being applied in practice for the first time by Hoogendoorn and Let's Grow at closed sites. The great added value of the Fieldlab at Tomatoworld is that it provides a publicly accessible place where knowledge and expertise from various companies come together. This makes the Learning & Demonstration Centre a unique environment for developing and sharing knowledge, without the commercial or research restrictions usually found at other locations.

In addition, it is often difficult for individual companies to offer a complete cultivation concept because they only provide part of the puzzle, such as technology, crop protection or breeding. At Tomatoworld, we combine this expertise, allowing us to present a holistic cultivation concept. This helps accelerate knowledge transfer and training of students, growers, advisers and researchers, a crucial step to meet the challenges of the future.

At Tomatoworld, we remain committed to working with our partners to strengthen the learning curve and innovate the horticultural sector using Data Driven Autonomous Growing.

This project ended in late 2023, but has resulted in Tomatoworld's greenhouse running entirely with Data Driven Autonomous Growing (DDAG).