Saint-Gobain Cultilene and 30MHz sign agritech partnership

New online dashboard gives growers granular real-time insights into root environment

Cultilene, supplier of rockwool-substrate solutions and high-quality diffuse glass, has joined forces with smart sensing technology provider 30MHz to give growers more insights into the root environment of crops. Using real-time sensory data, Cultilene can now offer agronomists an additional tool to optimise their irrigation- and EC management, taking production and crop quality to the next level. The two companies signed the partnership agreement on March 1st 2018. The dashboard, which was designed for ease of use, is currently being tested by a Dutch tomato grower, and will be made available later this year.

The online dashboard was developed to help Cultilene drive growers’ success beyond offering the best substrate solutions for contemporary horticulture. The company wants to support growers in optimising their growing strategy, and recognizes that maintaining a healthy root environment —which affects water and nutrition absorption— is crucial to this success. Cultilene recommends continuously monitoring five key metrics (“the Big Five”) during cultivation: soil moisture level, EC, pH, oxygen and temperature.

Pooling knowledge to help growers

This partnership brings together Cultilene’s 35 years of expertise in rootzone management and the real-time data captured by 30MHz wireless sensing technology, augmenting decision-making capabilities for growers. The 30MHz ZENSIE dashboards provides an intuitive way to visualize sensor data alongside other data sources, including climate computers and loggers.

Practically, this means that multiple sensors are placed in the roots of plants, and data captured by these sensors is displayed within the ZENSIE dashboard, which growers can access with their smartphones, tablets or laptops. Customers can view heat maps, graphs, visualizations and alerts on changing crop conditions in real-time.

Precise adjustments

Once collected, the grower doesn’t have to analyse crop data. Cultilene’s agricultural expertise is translated into graphs which area available to the customer in the same dashboard. Growers see soil moisture and EC distribution, mat saturation and drain. Crop data is compared with daily target values, much like in Framework (a breeding manual for substrate cultivation).

In this way, growers maintain a complete overview of their crop environment, and know precisely how to adjust their irrigation strategy, with support from Cultilene when needed. “The new online wireless dashboard gives the grower clear and real-time insight into what’s happening inside the rootzone,’ says Lucie Paulet, Cultilenes Innovation manager. “It serves as a decision-making tool for optimise crops, better productivity and improved quality.”