Tasmanian technology start-up aiming to make farmers berry happy

Bitwise Agronomy founder Fiona Turner says she hopes her company becomes the “Google of the forecasting world” and helps every berry farmer increase their yield.

The company has developed the GreenView AI system, which utilises GoPro camera footage of berry crops to analyse the different phenological stages of fruit.

It is then paired with ripening curves that have been developed for more than 80 varieties of berries, which can provide a detailed yield forecast of what a fruit producer is likely to pick on any given day.

Ms Turner said it was vital for berry farmers to know what was coming to market.

“They work with their marketing and commercial arms to give that forecast anywhere from one to four weeks in advance to people who are selling the fruit,” she said.

“With an increased confidence of what’s coming, they get a better price for the fruit that’s coming to market and less product being thrown out.

“So basically, they make more money.”

A large part of Bitwise Agronomy’s customers are from overseas, including Chile, Peru, and China, and are often used on large-scale farms that grow berries over thousands of hectares.

Ms Turner said she had the idea for the software around seven years ago.

“About six months after that, when AI was still just something people were playing around with, we decided to build a neural network.

“It then took another couple of years to decide whether we were going to build this into a business and the business has now been operational for five years.”

Ms Turner took over Jinglers Creek Vineyard at Relbia around a decade ago, after previously working in the technology sector.

She said she initially used the GreenView AI system on her grapes.

“But we found that the technology wasn’t the best fit for the wine industry and moved really quickly into the berry industry.

“The technology was built out of my own problems, and with my tech career, I brought those two together.”