Finka: 'Crop Controller makes work much easier'

Finka has a total of 52 hectares of tomatoes and cucumbers divided over three locations: Finka, Finka San Antonio and Finka Incubados. Finka and Finka San Antonio have high-tech glass greenhouses with a total of 31 hectares. Finka Incubados uses plastic greenhouses. This is where Humberto Rojas works. “As a grower I am responsible for 21 hectares. We grow four different varieties of tomatoes”, he says. “When we bought this location, there were already plastic greenhouses. That is why we don’t use glasshouses here like we do at the other Finka sites.”

Finka Incubados is also the location where Crop Controller has been used for several months now, in connection with the Priva Connext process computer. Crop Controller is an advanced AI-driven system designed to autonomously optimize and control climate and irrigation in greenhouses. By integrating seamlessly with existing installations via climate computers, it optimizes daily operations, executing unique crop strategies into precise actions. Rojas started using Crop Controller in the Spring of 2024.

“As a company, we are always innovating and we want to try selected new technologies, and developments. That’s why we decided to work with Blue Radix at Finka Incubados. We have been working with various intelligent systems throughout the company, so we can compare them and find out what works best for our situation.”

Optimized growing strategies

Rojas is very positive about working with Crop Controller. According to him, Finka was able to optimize the existing growing strategies step by step because of Crop Controller and with support of Blue Radix’ Autonomous Greenhouse Manager. “Finka Incubados has nine greenhouses with different planting dates, so each greenhouse grower must make its own strategies. Crop Controller processes data, optimizes the outcome and executes on a 5-minute level, 24-hours a day. This is exactly what we need, while my time as a grower is limited. It helped me to regain control of my time schedule, it reduced the need for constant manual adjustments, ensuring consistent optimal conditions for our crops. Now I can spend more time in the greenhouse.”

Best calculations with data connections

What Rojas particularly likes about Blue Radix is that they always try to find out exactly what Finka finds important and how we want to grow our crops, he says. “At Finka we are looking for a balance of energy, water, and assimilated substances in the plant. We want to optimize our way of growing based on the climate and I see data and algorithms help us with that.” That’s why it is important the Priva climate computer can exchange data with Crop Controller. “The AI system can perform the best calculations using all available data from the Priva API to autonomously steer the installations in the greenhouse.”

More grip on your crops

Rojas is happy working with Priva, he says. “Their system is more solid system that says ahead of the curve. You can use it in a very easy way, especially now with the connection with Crop Controller. In this way we get more grip on our crops.” The fact that Priva has opened its system for applications from partners such as Blue Radix can also meet with his approval. Through this, Priva’s climate computer, cloud services and API-connections are smoothly connected to Blue Radix’ steering algorithms of Crop Controller. “It’s so much better and valuable to integrate and apply all greenhouse data. It makes everything much clearer than when you have to switch between different systems all the time.”

‘Makes work easier’

Blue Radix was introduced at the beginning of the Mexican summer. “During summer we have to deal with higher temperatures and low humidity. Using Crop Controller has helped us controlling those problems.” Rojas is looking forward to using Crop Controller during the winter season. “With Crop Controller, I see we can achieve even more positive results during the winter when temperatures drop. Blue Radix helps us saving on using gas by giving good insights, optimizing the strategies and providing a precise and high frequent execution, as they have been doing this past summer.”

Overall, Rojas states Crop Controller makes his work much easier. “Crop Controller reduces the complexity. In the beginning I was still busy checking all the automatic changes in the climate. It was hard to let go of that control. But at some point, you will let go of that and start trusting the system to make the right decisions.” Rojas is convinced Crop Controller will contribute to saving more and more resources. “That’s why I look forward to implement the new irrigation module to help us manage the water in a better way and improve our performance even further.”

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