Holland’s Source.ag, which provides AI solutions for vegetable growers, has announced a new partnership with Bayer to help growers worldwide improve productivity.
Founded in 2020 by Rien Kamman (CEO) and Ernst van Bruggen (CPO), Source.ag has brought together a team of experienced engineers and plant scientists to build advanced AI solutions. These tools aim to simulate plant behaviour for defining and implementing optimal cultivation strategies, taking into account millions of data points on climate, biology, and resources.
The idea is that by predicting plant growth under various conditions growers can create an exact virtual replica of their operation to simulate thousands of potential strategies in thousands of potential seasons with AI.
This moves risks traditionally associated with greenhouse growing to the virtual world, enabling growers to determine the best course of action.
The new partnership will support internal trials at Bayer’s De Ruiter Experience Center with the Source Plant App and Source Track to enable high-quality data analysis.
The De Ruiter Experience Center is a demo glasshouse near Rotterdam, the Netherlands. New and existing tomato and cucumber varieties are grown at the centre using the latest technology in both lit and year-round environments. The centre helps Bayer showcase testing and showcasing exciting new products and sustainable techniques.
“In modern horticulture the use of data, hard facts, is crucial. We as Bayer vegetable seeds were looking for a partner to collect and track data from our varieties, with the best possible data visualisation,” said John van der Knaap, operational lead at De Ruiter Experience Center, Bayer.
“This initiative aligns with both Source.ag’s and Bayer’s commitment to continuously innovate to address some of the most pressing issues, including access to healthy diets for our society while respecting planetary boundaries,” said Rien Kamman, CEO and co-founder at Source.ag.
Source.ag has also welcomed Magnus Hilding as new CTO to drive its technological innovation. “Source.ag’s vision of creating a perfect digital twin for every farm and crop is as bold as it is vital,” Hilding said. “Over 3 billion people do not have access to sufficient fruit and vegetables, and we’ve been working to change it.”
