Grownetics Open Sources their Smart Farm Software
Boulder, COLO – Nov. 12, 2019 – If the global indoor farm and vertical farming industry is going to keep up with bullish market projections growers need a comprehensive, ‘plug and play,’ highly adaptable software platform to run all aspects of their smart farm..
And they need it fast.
That’s why the team at Grownetics Inc., a Boulder, Colorado smart farm ag-tech, and greenhouse automation firm, decided to open source their one-of-a-kind, hardware agnostic, open sensing and automation platform.
The Grownetics’ team recently launched the first step of their move to open source, starting with a community chat room and invitation to developers, engineers and researchers who would like hacking on sensors, IOT, and crop analytics to collaborate.
“We realized in order for us to move the industry [indoor agriculture] forward faster, we need to open source the core platform,” said Grownetics CEO and Co-Founder Vincent Harkiewicz. “This will give access to every farmer and researcher worldwide. We want to give those brilliant developers and engineers who want to make a difference a vehicle for that.”
The ultimate goal? That anyone will be able to access “Grownetics OS” software. Whether that is a small, home-grower optimizing their own personal greenhouse space, a farmer in a developing country looking for an easy platform to install smart farming technology at a low cost, or a huge indoor farming company like AppHarvest – currently building America’s largest greenhouse in Kentucky.
A Smart Farming Solution for any type of Controlled Environment Growing
The idea for Grownetics was sparked via Harkiewicz’s own experience growing indoors plus recognizing a worldwide need for urban farming operations to produce clean food. While the last six years of developing the software was initially marketed to cutting edge, high-tech indoor cannabis growers, the Grownetics Core system was really created for anyone who’s looking to learn how to grow their plants better, no matter the crop.
Harkiewicz describes the software as “SimCity for growers.”
Or, for the more old-school growers, imagine replacing those messy excel spreadsheets with the seeding, transplanting, water, feeding and harvest dates; plus the third-party operating systems controls for your greenhouse lights, irrigation, heat and humidity controls; and your yield projections and accounting with just one, integrated software platform. Then, link all that data back to your plants, generating best practice systems for optimal yield.
That’s what Grownetics does. It’s an integrated, smart farming platform and the only system available that automatically links sensor data to every plant grown. Plus, it can be interfaced with any existing third-party hardware system letting the farmer choose any cultivation system they like.
“We built it to be farmer/grower first,” Harkiewicz said, “to understand what is leading to the best yields. It’s really a discovery and learning platform.”
With the indoor, and controlled environment agriculture industry just in its infancy, it’s imperative that the growers have access to comprehensive data for analysis.
“Nobody really knows the best way to grow these plants in a controlled environment. Those are the questions that Grownetics has the ability to answer,” Harkiewicz said. And exactly why the company is so excited to launch the open source initiative.
The Grownetics software system can be found in the most advanced greenhouse systems across the United States and will soon be deployed in over one million square feet of hyper-efficient, hybrid indoor farms via a new partnership with multi-state cannabis operator Dr. Robb Farms.
For more information on Grownetics Inc. and our controlled environment agriculture services visit Grownetics.co. For more information about our open source project and to join our chat room please join us on Zulip chat here: Grownetics Zulip Chat Room.
To request press interviews or learn more about Grownetics’ open source move plus upcoming exciting developments, please email us at [email protected].