Trends enable growers to fine tune their programs and optimise their irrigation strategy

Worldwide computing costs have reduced by 50% every 18 months for the last 40 years, but these gains have yet to be fully realised in greenhouses. BumperCrop’s goal is to help greenhouse growers get the best from their crops by making advanced technologies affordable and easy to use.

Adam Forbes started BumperCrop after seeing that precision agriculture technology and its benefits were being made inaccessible by the high cost. “Eventually I want to make it feasible to monitor and optimise the conditions perfectly for each plant in every greenhouse.”

Adam worked for over 10 years at technology companies in the United States including Honeywell and Dell. He returned to New Zealand and decided to combine his technology expertise with his passion for agriculture.

“I believe that as the world’s population grows and land becomes more scarce, highly efficient greenhouse growing will become the mainstay of food production. Precision agriculture and data analysis technologies will help greenhouse growers to achieve greater efficiency in their production.”

His company, BumperCrop, has deployed advanced technologies that are helping greenhouse growers to remotely monitor their crop and optimise their irrigation strategy. Growers can continuously track substrate Water Content, EC, substrate temperature and other parameters, allowing their greenhouse to be monitored from anywhere.

Water content, EC and Tempersture sensor

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Growers in New Zealand are using BumperCrop in different ways to maximise their yield. One grower uses BumperCrop to monitor substrate water content levels and optimise irrigation where no solar automated irrigation system is present. Another customer is keeping track of key parameters while they are away from their site. It acts as a reliable insurance policy with its ability to send text and email alerts when key thresholds are crossed.

With readings taken automatically every 15 minutes the resulting trends enable growers to fine tune their programs and optimise their irrigation strategy. By knowing the WC and EC trends of the substrate, it is possible to determine what time of day to turn on and off irrigation. This can be continuously fine tuned to achieve daytime and nighttime targets as the crop grows and environmental factors change. Reducing unnecessary irrigations also saves costs and extends the lifetime of equipment.

Image above shows horozontal reading with sensors' inserted in top third and bottom third of stonewool slab/substrate

Graph above example showing the average Water Content %

An online demo of the data gathered by BumperCrop can be viewed here. BumperCrop can be setup within 5 minutes and doesn’t require any wiring or internet connection.

If you are interested in using a BumperCrop at your greenhouse, a special 20% off discount is being made available to the first three Grower2Grower readers.

Standard Pricing

Prices exclude GST

Ph, humidity and solar sensors are also available upon request.

BumperCrop Hardware

Water content prope

For more information or to place an order contact Adam Forbes:

E: adam@mybumpercrop.com

PH: 027 3512 512

Web: https://mybumpercrop.com/