LumiGrow debuts early disease detection through Scanit Technologies partnership

LumiGrow, a smart horticultural lighting company announced today that they’re launching a new product-line of early disease detection sensors and services.

“Our partnership with Scanit Technologies marks a major shift in how crop disease will now be managed,” said LumiGrow CEO Jay Albere II. “It all starts with empowering growers to take preventative action towards disease management rather than being forced to issue treatment actions when it’s often too late.  We’re now calling for growers interested in joining our partnership to develop custom strategies for their cultivation environments.”

The LumiGrow SporeCam sensors (powered by Scanit Technologies) which are available to order from LumiGrow today, can capture, inspect, and classify harmful airborne spores for diseases such as powdery mildew and Botrytis. The result is growers can optimize disease management practices, minimize yield losses, and monitor the effectiveness of their treatments.

“Scientists have investigated the promise of light to reduce plant pathogen pressure since 1997," Melanie Yelton, LumiGrow's VP of Research, said. "Our growers have also long reported a noticeable reduction in the incidence of fungal and fungal-like pathogens in their crops under our smart LED fixtures.  Recent publications are now confirming this age-old hypothesis, and LumiGrow is bringing these unique lighting disease suppression strategies to market.”

The way the new system works is through the LumiGrow wireless lighting control system named smartPAR.  At the first notice of disease from the SporeCam, your wireless control system adjusts the LumiGrow smart LED fixtures automatically to a spectrum targeted for disease suppression. The grower then has the potential to gain time to implement a comprehensive disease management strategy.

The new feature is called smartPAR Rapid Response and has also been made available to order from LumiGrow as of Oct. 30.

“By integrating our SporeCam airborne disease sensor technology directly into the LumiGrow platform, we take a large step towards Scanit’s vision of a pro-active disease management solution.  This will be transformative for the indoor horticulture industry enabling sensing of early disease activity and dynamically suppressing spore activity,”  said Glenn Wanke,  the Chief Commercial Officer at Scanit Technologies.