Bosch Komkommers
- Beatrix Büte
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Cucumber
At Bosch Komkommers in Berkel en Rodenrijs, Daan van den Bosch is responsible for crop protection. In the spring of 2024 he decides to try something new: PATS-C. This is an advanced camera system that monitors moths at night, particularly the Tomato looper (Chrysodeixis chalcites). Not a luxury, as this pest can cause serious damage in cucumber cultivation. At first, it’s just the leaves that are eaten, but with increasing pressure, young fruits are also affected, rendering them unsellable.
Daan is used to keeping a sharp eye out for signs of pest pressure. But caterpillars are only visible when it’s already too late. He knows that in biological crop protection timing is everything.
With tools like Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) and parasitic wasps you can be effective, but only if you know exactly when the caterpillars are hatching. The younger they are, the better the treatment works. Interventions at a later stage are less ideal and can harm beneficial insects in the greenhouse.
From the very first moment that PATS-C is running in the first greenhouse, Daan notices the difference. While he still sees nothing himself, the system is already detecting adult moth activity. What really convinces him is that with the system, using flight activity data, he and PATS together predict, with an accuracy of just two days, when the first young caterpillars will appear. And the prediction is spot on.
Armed with that knowledge, Daan inspects selected plants and there they are: tiny caterpillars, found just in time. He can immediately deploy the right biological agents.
As the season progresses Daan builds trust in the insights from PATS-C. He learns how to read the data, understands the patterns, and notices he can act much more precisely. The two greenhouses, each two hectares, turn out to behave very differently from a biological perspective.
They are really two separate ecosystems, which makes separate monitoring essential. That’s why Daan decides that in early 2025 both greenhouses will be permanently equipped with a PATS-C system.
“It gives peace of mind,” he says. “I now know much sooner what to expect. And I don’t have to rely as much on gut feeling.”
Every evening and night PATS-C monitors moth activity. As soon as the first moths are detected, Daan starts counting down: just over ten days later, the first caterpillars can appear. Thanks to this predictability, he can optimize his crop protection, work more preventively, and at the same time preserve the biological balance.
Meanwhile, PATS is working on an automated recommendation model, so that growers in the near future can respond even more easily to insights, ultimately needing less experience or guesswork.
A future where precision and sustainability go hand in hand. For Daan, that future has already begun.
