Interactive Case Study
Bushel Boy
Farms
Optimizing greenhouse production with
automated crop registration.
automated crop registration.
"Plants don't lie, and when you see the data from the plants you know exactly what is going on."Roberto Ramirez, Head Grower at Bushel Boy Farms
Grower Profile
Bushel Boy Farms combines the latest in greenhouse design and technology to grow year-round.
Based in Minnesota and Iowa, Bushel Boy Farms is a top greenhouse grower in the United States. By combining the latest in greenhouse design and technology, they produce and supply fresh local tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, and other vine crops for the Midwest year-round.
Their greenhouses produce up to 30x more, and with less water, than outdoor tomato operations and maintain an ideal climate to produce superior tomatoes, even during harsh Midwest winters.
Challenge · The Problem
Manual crop registration missed the full greenhouse picture.
To steer the crop, growers paired expert observation with weekly crop-registration data — collected by hand from under 0.2% of all plants.
Three problems with the manual method
- Labor intensive. Data was gathered by hand, once a week.
- Prone to bias. Human estimates carry error — hard to trust.
- Blind to anomalies. Events outside the tiny sample went unseen.
"Crop registration is done manually and when we rely on people to take this data it is not always accurate and includes bias. It's hard to trust the data."
Felix Tarrats, Horticultural Consultant for Bushel Boy Farms
LUNA AI Insight · The Signal
Weekly truss height became a production signal.
Bushel Boy uses head-to-flowering-truss height to gauge crop balance. With full weekly coverage, it became a reliable signal. The real gain is timing:
"Leading indicators vs. lagging indicators."
Roberto Ramirez, Head Grower at Bushel Boy Farms
Weekly manual snapshots.
One hand-sample a week — you react after the crop has already changed.
A daily production signal.
Full-coverage data every day lets the team act on climate strategy before problems compound.
Greenhouse View
From small samples to spatial confidence.
Comprehensive crop coverage identified anomalies beyond what the previous small samples captured, enabling growers to steer the crop with confidence.
The comparison shows the shift from isolated weekly manual samples to a greenhouse-wide view of crop balance and anomalies.
Weekly Signal · step through the weeks
Watch the truss height find its range.
Head-to-flowering-truss height against light and temperature. Step through the weeks to watch it build.
After irrigation changes, the crop moved from too vegetative in week 28 back into the target range by week 31.
Crop Steering · The Action
Read the balance, steer the greenhouse.
Head-to-flowering-truss height sorts every bay into three states — the same colors as the chart. Tap one to highlight those bays:
"Based on the metrics, we changed our irrigation strategy — more overnight dry-out, finishing earlier and starting later in the morning."
Roberto Ramirez, Head Grower at Bushel Boy Farms
Impact · The Result
By week 31, the crop was back within the expected range.
Steering irrigation, climate, and fertilizer around what the plants showed brought head-to-flowering-truss height back into range — with three lasting wins:
01
Crop back in the target rangeHead-to-flowering-truss height returned to target — growing generatively again.
02
10% lower fertilizer costRealized after steering the crop back into balance by week 31.
03
A repeatable, proactive playbookThe team now steers on trusted daily data instead of a <0.2% weekly sample.
See what can reveal in your greenhouse.
Automated crop registration turns leading indicators into proactive decisions — greenhouse-wide, week over week.