Ferme Marseni is an indoor farm located in Eastern Ontario which focuses on growing culinary herbs and lettuce. The heart of this controlled environment agriculture project is the large Gigrow rotative geoponics machines in which the plants grow. In rotative geoponics, the plants are mounted in a drum-like structure that rotates around a single, central light source. Ferme Marseni adopted this methodology because it minimizes the amount of light and irrigation required to produce a large volume of crops.
“We want to boost the aroma profile and essential oil content of our culinary herbs as much as possible,” explains farm manager Maxime Gagnier. “The rotational geoponics machines eliminate any friction or bruising to the leaves that could be caused by wind or rain that many outdoor farms can’t stop. It also reduced the number of lights and drippers needed, compared to other conventional interior farms.”
Ferme Marseni was looking for a solution that would enable them to track large amounts of environmental data, monitor the EC (electrical conductivity) of the nutrient solution, as well as flag any changes, all from a single pane of glass.
“I didn’t want to have to check three or five different sources to get my information. I needed a system in which I could track my crops, and monitor any changes to the temperature, humidity, and CO2 within the farm,” says Maxime, Ferme Marseni’s farm manager.
When Ferme Marseni approached Canobi AgTech, they were also looking for harvest, workflow, and supply chain management tools that would provide timelines, procurement, and sales support. Ferme Marseni made the decision to implement the Canobi.ONE platform and Canobi Smart GROW monitoring package, running on Canobi Smart CORE hardware.
It was one of our more challenging installations, simply because of the heights involved and getting the sensors in the right places so that they could collect the data we needed. Since Ferme Marseni is a local customer, we were able to give them some hands-on assistance.
Robin Vincent, CEO, Canobi AgTech
Canobi monitors the parameters of the environment of the farm in real time, which is crucial as they experiment with new crops to find the optimum conditions for growth.
In an environment where we can control everything, knowing what to control and in what proportion, is crucial. That way we can ensure a good harvest, maximizing our environment for the plants.
Maxime Gagnier, Farm Manager, Ferme Marseni
Ferme Marseni is using the Harvest Management module of the Canobi.ONE suite of business tools to keep track of when seeds were planted, when they were transplanted, and when they will be ready for harvest. They are also using Canobi.ONE’s supply chain management features to track their seed stock and ordering scheduling.
With Canobi I get alert every time my germination room, production room, harvest room, or any room in the farm, gets below or over a certain threshold. That way I am hyper alert to the changes within the farm and that lets us maximize our production while responding quickly to any drastic changes.
Maxime Gagnier, Farm Manager, Ferme Marseni
Maxime explains that in traditional field agriculture, environmental changes can easily go unnoticed that end up having long-term impacts on crop yield. “The ability to spot problems early, and avoid issues that could lead to expensive crop failures, means that we will recoup our investment in the Canobi system quickly.”
