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Greenhouse growers are under increasing pressure to boost efficiency, maintain crop health, and reduce input costs, all while working with limited resources. In this environment, even small metrics, such as stem width, can have a significant impact on plant health. Stem width is a critical yet challenging metric to collect, offering insights into how plants respond to environmental factors like light, temperature, and irrigation. However, as greenhouse operations scale, traditional manual measurement methods are becoming insufficient, leading to unreliable data that may miss subtle changes in crop performance.
Measuring stem width on a regular basis, ideally 2-3 times per week, is essential to a data-driven approach. Manual methods, while still widely used, are time-consuming and often limited to a small subset of plants, making it difficult to capture a full picture of crop health. Automation provides a solution, allowing growers to monitor a larger portion of their crops more frequently, increasing the accuracy of data collection and enabling more informed decision-making.
In today’s industry, where efficiency is everything, these manual methods simply can’t keep up with the demands placed on modern greenhouse operations.
For many growers, stem width is one of several key metrics tracked in crop registration, providing valuable insight into plant vigor, which directly affects crop yield and quality. Traditionally, measuring stem width involves using calipers or string to record the thickness of a plant’s stem near the flowering truss—typically a few centimeters above or below the first flowering truss or the setting truss. Due to time constraints, this process is usually limited to 10-20 plants out of thousands and is recorded manually into a spreadsheet or app on a tablet.
While growers have long relied on this approach, the manual process has its limitations. It’s labor-intensive, often inconsistent, and results in small data sets. In the fast-paced world of greenhouse management, this lack of real-time data can leave growers reacting to problems instead of anticipating and preventing them. The insights gained from manual methods are valuable but fall short when it comes to optimizing operations across an entire crop.
Growers know that improving crop health starts with accurate data, but the question remains: how can they increase data accuracy and coverage without dramatically increasing labor costs?
Here’s where automation comes in. By integrating advanced tools like IUNU's LUNA platform, growers can automate the measurement of stem width and other critical crop registration metrics. This not only increases the accuracy of the data but also expands coverage—gathering information from a much larger portion of the crop, think thousands of plants, every day, without the need for additional labor.
LUNA’s AI-driven system captures stem width data through machine vision technology, eliminating the need for manual measuring tools. With automated monitoring, growers can collect data from up to 15% of their crops daily, compared to just 0.016% through manual methods. This comprehensive view of plant health enables faster, more informed decision-making, allowing growers to anticipate issues and adjust resource allocation in real-time.
Stem width data has enabled growers to identify and correct crop imbalances, resulting in improved generative growth and up to a 10% reduction in fertilizer use. Others have adjusted their deleafing practices, reallocating labor to increase leaf load when promoting vegetative growth. These examples highlight how stem width monitoring can help growers reduce input costs while enhancing overall crop performance.
As greenhouse operations scale and margins tighten, relying solely on manual methods will leave many growers playing catch-up. Automated systems like LUNA AI offer a more comprehensive, accurate, and efficient way to monitor plant health, helping growers stay ahead of potential issues and make decisions with confidence. Automation isn’t just an alternative to manual methods—it’s a necessary step to future-proof greenhouse operations.
If you’re a grower interested in learning more about stem width or how to measure plant balance, feel free to reach out for free training on manual or automated crop registration.
