Botany and Aris set up joint venture PhenoVerius
PhenoVerius: sales, service and further development Cirillo counting systems
Botany from Horst-Meterik and Aris from Eindhoven have created a new joint venture: PhenoVerius.
PhenoVerius focusses on sales, service and further development of observation systems for plant-related pests and diseases. The management of PhenoVerius is formed by Peter Korsten and Rien den Boer.
Uniting expertise
For the past 2 years, Aris and Botany have been working together in the field of automated insect detection using artificial intelligence. Aris has beenactive for 25 years in the field of vision technology for plant phenotyping purposes. For several years, Aris has been using "Deep Learning" in its products. Botany is specialized for over 15 years in the development of products for professional greenhouse horticulture, open-field horticulture and indoor farming. The joint venture PhenoVerius combines Botany and Aris' expertise in vision, artificial intelligence and phenotyping. By joining forces at this time the companies achieve a broader market which fits the strategic direction of both organizations.
Cirillo
Cirillo is PhenoVerius' first automated system. Cirillo makes it possible for product developers in plant protection and resistance breeders to automatically count specific growth stages of insects. The Cirillo system consists of a camera setup that allows digital images to be made of plant parts with an insect infestation. The insect population present in these images is classified by a neural network and presents the counting of the different growth stages of the individual insects. Cirillo is the first system that can automatically classify insects by egg stage, larval stage and poppae stage. The system thus makes it possible to carry out high throughput countings at an uniform manner for the development of new (biological) plant protection products and resistant seed varieties.
Rien den Boer, Director Aris: "This collaboration in PhenoVerius is an example of combining specific knowledge of both companies. As a single company, we would never have been able to achieve what we can do in this combination: combining technology with specific domain knowledge."
Peter Korsten, CEO Botany Group: "With the joint venture of Aris and Botany, we are taking the next step to useartificial intelligence for innovative developments in the cross-over between plant and technology. The two companies are highly complementary to each other and are both highly innovative. Aris and Botany's years of experience in their own field of horticulture allow customers to build on the services of strong partners in this, relatively, new field of knowledge. We are therefore delighted with the start of PhenoVerius and are going to have a bright future with an enthusiastic group of new colleagues."
PheonVerius was officially established on 24 December 2020.
