How Data insights Improved water distribution in a Swedish greenhouse

How data insights improved tomato production in a Swedish greenhouse

2022 is a full of presages, specially in Sweden. From extreme hot weather, a dryness period, high electricity prices, and one of the biggest inflations ever. All this presages pushed businesses to adopt measures if they want to stay in business.

Data is all around us. Our speciality is handling data and produce Business Intelligence insights from it. And we love challenges. This time, the challenge was to mix engineering, botany and Business Intelligence (BI) in order to solve our client problem: "How to improve the tomato production rate".

According to almanac …"Tomatoes take 60 days to more than 100 days to harvest, depending on the variety. Due to their relatively long growing season requirements (and late planting date), most gardeners plant small “starter plants” or transplants instead of seeds after the weather has warmed up in spring. Many gardeners purchase their transplants at a garden center or nursery but you can certainly grow you own from seed indoors. Do not forget…Water in the early morning so that the tomato plants have sufficient moisture to make it through a hot day.".

Our client had a problem. His tomato production, due to the inflating prices and weather, has been decreasing compared to the same period from the previous year. Our consultants had one task - To increase the production.

Risk factors

Nortb consultants analysed the growing rate data collected - from the seeding moment up to harvest - from different periods during the year and concluded that there were two major risk factors that were influencing the data:

1. The water quantity and quality feeded to the plants.

2. The temperature in the room.

Our consultants noticed that the model tomato plant would take 75 days average to produce between 5 to 10 tomato ready to harvest at a temperature between 25 to 30 degrees Celsius. The soil would need a total between of 5.9L to 9.7L of water to influence the ratio of the tomato and rest and dry for 15 days before a new moisturization cycle would start.

While moving the production to a green and glasshouse, with simulated temperature, artificial regulated lightning conditions and production cycles increased the tomato ratio, the most beneficial insight came from a newer watering feed system that increased the total amount of tomato that every plan would produce.

Continuously measurement

Business Intelligence (BI) is a hot topic as of the moment, but the same should be always connected to a proper data warehouse and Data layer. Our consultants were able to solve our clients problem, due to a continuous measurement of the production conditions.

By measuring and providing access to reports and dashboards, business intelligence consultants can facilitate cross-departmental cooperation and come up with real insights that solve difficult problems. By removing individual perspectives, data warehousing and BI solutions improve lead creation, increase efficiency, and enable firms to make decisions that are strategically relevant, resulting in a more effective organization overall.

The business gains a lot from information layers since they can be utilized repeatedly for different analytics solutions and are prepared for any ad-hoc reports that may be needed. This lowers the cost of manual labor and subsequent analysis. Information layers are accessible and cloud-based, allowing for simple sharing, and can also easily feed high-quality data into systems.

Need assistance putting in place a data-driven infrastructure? Speak to a member of our team today for more information on how our skilled team can assist. Visit our other blogs and websites for additional information on our data principles and techniques.