Key Takeaways:
- Haygrove collaborates with Ostara to integrate sensors and automation into its Advantage Tunnel.
- The partnership aims to improve crop performance, reduce losses, and strengthen farm profitability.
- Ostara’s platform uses real-time data and forecasts to automate venting decisions.
- Trials showed automated Haygrove tunnels maintained optimal conditions 25% more often.
- The collaboration will be highlighted at Fruit Attraction in Madrid, September 30–October 2, 2025.
Haygrove Launches Collaboration with Ostara
Haygrove has announced a partnership with Ostara to integrate sensing and automation technologies into its Advantage Tunnel with mechanised venting. The collaboration is designed to help growers adapt to increasingly variable weather, tighter operating margins, and limited capacity to monitor crop conditions.
Automation in Haygrove Tunnels
The Advantage Tunnel includes mechanical venting for field-scale use, while Ostara’s software links with environmental sensors tracking temperature, humidity, PAR, and VPD. Using forecast data, Ostara’s automation system can close vents ahead of storms, frost, or heavy rainfall.
Cristi Marmandiu, International Lead Technical & Operations Advisor at Haygrove, said: “Ostara enables us to maximise the performance of our polytunnel mechanised venting with a level of precision and timing that exceeds what human management can achieve. This not only delivers consistently improved growing conditions and higher yields but also allows us to manage a larger area more effectively, providing benefits well beyond labour savings – it is truly comparable to glasshouse-level control.”
Results from Field Trials
In trials using Haygrove’s EZvent tunnels, those equipped with Ostara automation remained within the optimal VPD range up to 25% more often than non-automated tunnels. This resulted in an average 11% improvement in maintaining optimal growing conditions.
