Innovation project Digital Talking Tree

Forecasting models for early recognition of fungal diseases and pests in nurseries.

If you know the causes that cause plant diseases, you can take early precautionary measures
to prevent or limit its spread.
The use of plant protection products can thus be reduced and plant health improved. What already works in fruit crops is now being developed for a number of fungi and pests typical of tree nurseries.

Yookr from Horst (NL) and ISIS IC from Wesel (D) are collaborating in this project to use sensors to capture information on tree health in nurseries and on environmental factors, and to develop a forecasting model based on that data, which will allow early detection of increased risk of disease or pest occurrence.
In this way, tree nurseries are enabled to recognise critical situations earlier and respond with countermeasures. Moreover, it combats causes rather than symptoms.

Yookr and ISIS IC get the data for the digital forecasting model from the trials of the innovation project Pro Healthy Tree, in which tree nursery Baum & Bonheur from Nettetal (D) and consultancy firm Compas Agro from Venlo (NL) are carrying out trials to gather information on the correlation between different environmental factors and the occurrence of diseases and pests, and to test the effectiveness of different plant protection measures.

Want to know more about Digital Talking Tree? Contact John van Helden or one of our other colleagues.

The Agropole Innovates project will run until August 2026. In addition to lead partner’s own contributions
Agrobusiness Niederrhein and the other project partners are implementing the project as part of
the Interreg VI programme Deutschland-Nederland and co-funded with €2.025 million
by the European Union, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate (EZK), the Province of
Limburg, and the German ministries MWIKE NRW and MB Niedersachsen.