Cooperation agreement between Computomics and LemnaTec for exclusive world-wide distribution of CropScore

Date:07-29-2020

LemnaTec and Computomics signed a cooperation agreement for an exclusive world-wide distribution of CropScore, a scalable decentralized camera system for continuous imaging.

This partnership combines LemnaTec’s expertise in plant phenotyping and Computomics’ power of machine learning–based bioinformatics to address phenotyping demand in research and industry, with applications from labs over greenhouses to vertical farms.

CropScore is a ready-to-use, large-scale plant phenotyping platform without moving parts — neither plants move to sensors, nor sensors move to plants. Instead, an array of sensors is distributed across the planting area. This has two key advantages: we avoid mechanically moving parts, and we keep all plants under constant, simultaneous surveillance at any time. Avoiding moving mechanical parts minimizes construction effort and saves cost for mechanical automation. Classical plant-to-sensor or sensor-to-plant phenotyping systems have motor-driven transporting mechanics, imaging cabinets, or other automated components. All these parts are omitted in the CropScore system, where an array of cameras is mounted in a way that plants are in the field of view of at least one camera. Therefore, measurements can be taken simultaneously and in a predefined frequency at any time point. This makes it possible to have much more detailed time series, in particular when diurnal processes or highly dynamic responses are investigated. CropScore is a fast, highly reliable, affordable phenotyping platform that complements LemnaTec’s plant-to-sensor and sensor-to-plant phenotyping systems.

In this cooperation, LemnaTec will be responsible for the distribution of the CropScore camera system, whereas the image storage and control platform, named the CropScore Web Interface, will be licensed by Computomics. Modular image analysis technologies can be deployed on this open platform.

The agreement has been signed by Juergen Kreis (CEO LemnaTec GmbH) and Dr. Sebastian Schultheiss (Managing Director Computomics GmbH) and is effective since June 1, 2020.