Smartwell showcases AI-driven strawberry cultivation
Source: VFD.com
Smartwell's controlled environment agriculture platform is not a simple greenhouse monitoring system, but an intelligent agricultural operating framework built around "sensing, AI models, decision-making, execution, and feedback." The system continuously analyzes crop status inside the greenhouse using sensors, environmental data, crop imagery, and growth-stage information, and applies the results of that analysis to guide irrigation, fertilization, ventilation, supplemental lighting, and other cultivation actions. Project implementation and results In traditional protected agriculture, growers typically rely on manual greenhouse patrols to gauge changes in temperature and humidity, manually adjust ventilation and supplemental lighting, schedule irrigation and fertilization by experience, and make manual corrections whenever readings such as air temperature, humidity, soil temperature and moisture, and CO₂ fluctuate.
By contrast, Smartwell's approach on the strawberry project was to first deploy environmental monitoring equipment, high-definition intelligent imaging equipment, multispectral capture equipment, ventilation control equipment, lighting control equipment, automated irrigation equipment, and precision fertilization equipment within the greenhouse, then connect all of this equipment to the CEA system. After the system went live, greenhouse operations changed markedly: temperature, humidity, lighting, irrigation, and fertilization management that once required repeated manual inspection is now continuously monitored and automatically adjusted by the system; localized corrections that once relied on experience-based judgment are now real-time decisions based on environmental data, crop imagery, and growth stage; and greenhouse management that once required manual, item-by-item operation has become a visualized, recordable, and traceable standardized process.
On the results side, follow-up assessments of strawberry cultivation at projects the company has completed and put into operation over the past three years (Client 1: Beijing Xingyan Agricultural Cooperative, August 2025, project value CAD 145,259.2; Client 2: Beijing Jinhuinong Agricultural Cooperative, August 2023, project value CAD 214,794.6; Client 3: Chongqing Lingli Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., September 2023, project value CAD 353,000) indicate an average effective yield increase of approximately 16.7%, water savings of approximately 53%, fertilizer and pesticide savings of 23% to 28%, and a reduction in labor input of approximately 76%. Each greenhouse covers about one mu (roughly 667 square meters): a greenhouse that used to sell for CAD 15,000 can now sell for CAD 17,500, after saving CAD 1,500 in water, electricity, fertilizer, and other input and labor costs." "Strawberries are just one commercial application within Smartwell's library of crop models — over the past three years we have served a cumulative total of 5 companies growing strawberries.
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.
