Within “Technology for crop care of the future” our aim is to do research and benchmark technology for crop care in arable farming crops (potatoes), as well as perennial fruit crops (pears). In potato crops, adequate control of Phytophthora infestans is necessary and more than ever is setting the bar for high quality deposition patterns in the crop. The same is true for pears, with infections of scab and canker where adequate spray deposition is required on fruits, twigs and leaves. Additionally, our team will work on mechanical weeding and spot spraying for effective weed control. Our activities centre around the benchmarking of precision crop care. In this activity, the technical and agronomical performance of the crop protection activities will be monitored and reported. One of the tasks is to provide proper as-applied maps and digital information such that in the first years the trials and in the later years the farmers practice provide trust to the end users and society at large. The effective optimal precision crop care is the linking work package bringing together the multidisciplinary aspects of future crop care. The project will not only optimize high quality precision application technology, but also integrate new emerging technologies. This will be done while considering the farmers business model which impacts on the ways we perform optimal crop care. A third work package has the aim to provide proper sensor technologies and digital tools to be integrated on top of current precision application technologies in the market. Finally, our societal and economical aspects work package is aimed at helping the farmer and the supply chain with value creation based on the process in the other work packages.

Our aim is to reduce the inputs needed for crop care in arable farming crops, as well as perennial fruit crops by improved spray technology adaptation.

Our project fits in the KIA, because the objectives and impacts are aligned with the key technology developments. We align with the Smart Technologies in Agri-Horti-Water-Food. We align on the topic of advanced decision making based on data driven solutions and improved human machine interactions to take optimal control decisions. In the PPP the topics of digitalisation, generating data and treating them with artificial intelligence and autonomous robots, topic 2 smart and light equipment for autonomous management. By developing of management supporting algorithms for crop protection, the link is made between data and decision in the fields, aligning with topic 1 sensor technologies for accurate measurements.
Our project is unique as it specifically focuses on implementing sensors, intelligence and robotics as mentioned in the MMIP and knowledge and innovation agenda. By replacing manual decision making in multidisciplinary crop protection approaches, we contribute to the topics of robotized and automated actions in agriculture. The developments of technology in the pillar of key technologies links to the topic of circular agriculture and food security, where we work on the additional topics of reduced inputs of crop protection chemicals and increase of biodiversity and societal accepted primary production.

The project will deliver an optimal crop care scenario, focused on the optimized use of application technology for the three use cases. Evaluated and benchmarked technology with a reduced input usage, low emissions, while maintaining a high level of efficacy of the treatment will increase uptake of the technology in farmers daily practice.