"At a certain light intensity, the plant starts to protect itself from too much energy"
Source: VFD.com
"This is mostly a monitoring tool," says Daniel Bånkestad, R&D Manager at Heliospectra, describing the fluorescence sensor at the centre of this approach. "It's protective mechanisms that the plant uses to protect itself when it absorbs excess light, excess energy." As he put it: "At a certain light intensity, the plant starts to protect itself from too much energy." Three ways to find the peak Heliospectra identifies the fluorescence peak using three separate methods, each suited to different conditions.
"We're looking at fluorescence as a function of incident light over a longer time span, during the whole morning from 8 to 14." The third method is LUEt tracking. "They open their stomata and capture CO2 during the night and store it as malate," Daniel says.
A monitoring tool, for now Asked whether the volume of physiological data being collected might eventually run without grower input, Daniel was measured. "We can monitor the plant, we get information about the plant and the physiology of the plant that can serve as input to the grower and to the lighting and climate strategy that is set by the grower." Full automation, in his view, remains some way off.
Why this matters: For operators, this is a water-management story. The useful signal is that direct substrate measurements can help cut drain loss materially without giving up yield or fruit quality, which is exactly the kind of controllable efficiency gain a facility can build on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does substrate sensing matter in free-drain strawberry systems?
Because drain percentage tells a grower what already happened, while substrate moisture and EC data show root-zone conditions directly. That makes it easier to cut water loss without guessing.
What is the operator takeaway from this trial?
If the thresholds are understood well enough, growers can reduce drain water materially while protecting yield and fruit quality, which makes sensing an operational tool instead of a reporting tool.
