Raising €4.8 million to cut the guesswork out of commercial horticulture
Source: HD.com
Commercial growers can leave as much as 30% of potential yield unrealised, according to hexafarms' own analysis, as growing conditions drift from the optimum, harvest forecasts prove unreliable, and pest and disease damage is only detected once it becomes visible. It combines wireless crop sensing, yield forecasting and autonomous pest and disease detection, bringing together data and insights that growers have traditionally had to manage across separate systems.
The technology is already used by more than 50 growers across 13 countries, including SanLucar, one of Europe's largest fruit and vegetable companies, and grower cooperatives Elo and Royal ZON. hexafarms' wireless sensors capture data on climate, fertigation, substrate, drainage and light every five minutes.
Yield forecasting generates rolling forecasts for each crop and production zone using more than 70 parameters. The operating system's AI models currently cover around 50 cultivars across major greenhouse and soft-fruit crops, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, aubergines and a range of berries.
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.
