Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge 4th Edition

We are doing it again! We are organising a 4th edition of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge: the challenge for sustainable vegetable production with AI. This year’s crop is dwarf tomatoes. Are you passionate about sustainable greenhouse production? Are you an AI expert? Then form a team and join our AGC Community!

Earlier editions of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge have been carried out at Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands, during 2018-2022, with teams growing cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and lettuce crops autonomously. During these editions we have shown that computer algorithms can increase greenhouse crop production, save energy, and yield higher net profits. We have demonstrated that artificial intelligence could be superior to human intelligence, and could potentially control indoor farming in the future.

Wageningen University & Research works on autonomous greenhouses, climate control, crop modelling, use of sensors, data, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and robotics. We develop new technology and new algorithms for and together with industry. These technologies facilitate growers to produce higher quality, healthy crops in a sustainable way and using less resources.

The Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge is sponsored by Tencent and David Wallerstein (CXO Tencent). The Challenge is open to national and international teams.

The Challenge set-up

1.Online challenge and Hackathon event (April to June 2024)

Online competition: use your machine learning algorithms and our greenhouse and crop models to grow dwarf tomatoes virtually. Teams additionally show their computer vision skills using image analysis algorithms on provided plant pictures. Goal: Recruitment of international teams and scouting of talents, selection of top 5 teams for greenhouse growing experiment.

2.Greenhouse growing experiment and International Autonomous Greenhouses Event (August 2024 to January 2025)

The selected top 5 teams compete against each other and a group of growers who will operate a reference greenhouse compartment. Each team gets their own compartment at WUR’s greenhouse facility in Bleiswijk, the Netherlands. We’ll provide the plants, greenhouse, data platform, standard sensors, and cameras. You develop the machine learning and computer vision algorithms needed to grow the dwarf tomatoes remotely and autonomously. Goal: Selection of winner of the 4th edition of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge.

This event is organised by Wageningen University & Research and is sponsored by Tencent. We also thank the following companies: Quantified for providing substrate sensors, Biobest for being partner in pest detection and biological control, Fluence for providing LED lamps, Lensli Substrates for providing sustainable substrates and Pöppelmann for providing recycled pots.

Important dates

1 Nov 2023 - 20 Feb 2024 Call for teams, subscription open

20 Feb 2024 Subscription deadline

29 Feb 2024 Notification of teams on eligibility

2 Apr – 31 May 2024 Online Challenge

6/7 Jun 2024 Hackathon event

Sep-Dec 2024 Greenhouse Growing Challenge

Jan 2025 International Autonomous Greenhouses Event