Measuring seeds day and night without additional manual labor
Source: VFD.com
The Sendot Sample Station is designed to get more out of the technology and to prevent the scanner from sitting idle. If a plate is measured every two hours, the scanner is active for about two minutes and then sits idle for 118 minutes.
Without automation, most of the available measuring capacity goes unused. A station with 100 plates of up to 96 seeds each, for example, can automatically monitor about 9,600 individual seeds.
The Sample Station thus combines high throughput with the detailed information needed for quality control, breeding and research into priming, coating, seed treatments, dormancy and aging, among other topics. Sendot can be found from 22 to 24 September at Seed meets Technology, the seed technology trade fair at Vertify in Zwaagdijk-Oost.
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.
