The HortPlus MetWatch Platform provides practical and easy-to-use tools for digital decision support. The MetWatch Platform provides a framework for data-driven IPM decision-making.
MetWatch is highly extendable and can be customised to your organisation's needs to integrate with existing infrastructure, on-property hardware, and business intelligence systems for a central point of truth.
HortPlus has strong working relationships with leading scientists and researchers in a range of institutions in New Zealand and internationally, including Plant & Food Research as well as experts in agrichemicals, entomology, crop monitoring, and irrigation.
We have a proven record delivering practical pathways for activating research and extension, as well as being a key partner with industry in the journey towards integrated production initiatives and sustainability.
We strive to understand the underlying challenges that are being faced by growers and organisations and have been trusted to deliver technology solutions for over fifteen years.
HortPlus collaborates closely with research institutions such as Plant & Food Research.
Our platform is based on powerful science and data models to enable insight and inform management decisions for individual growers and agronomists, while also providing high-level overviews of regions and historical trends for managers and industry organisations.
We use a modular system architecture and design process to customise the MetWatch Platform to specific business and industry challenges. We are able to quickly build dashboards for new concepts and iterate projects to be responsive to changing needs and requirements, such as Integrated Production Programmes and GLOBAL G.A.P.
Our systems are cloud-based and highly secure and developed for ease of use with the latest in responsive web technology.
We have developed a network of scientific and research-grade weather stations located in key growing regions throughout New Zealand for current & historical weather, as well as using the power of the IBM Weather Company, MetService, and other vendors to enable highly accurate localised forecasts in New Zealand and globally.
Connect your own weather station hardware and networks of stations to enhance insight in specific locations.
The MetWatch Platform is compatible with a range of weather station providers and sensor equipment, including Harvest Weather Stations.
We can integrate with your existing tools, user management and business intelligence systems and processes to connect data including spray diaries, irrigation monitoring, and property information.
The Kiwifruit industry approached HortPlus. PSA had presented a major challenge to the industry and they wanted to implement an interactive PSA Risk Model for growers. We took them through our design process to develop and deliver a digital solution.
The immediate need was to create a PSA risk model for growers. We also identified a need for other tools, including a Chill Unit Calculator and weather forecasting tools to further enable decision making.
We worked with Plant & Food Research and Kiwifruit Vine Health (KVH) to ideate the implementation of the project and build a timeline and roadmap for delivery of the solution, including the installation of new weather stations.
We developed and successfully launched the project, integrating it with existing Industry web tools. We have continued to work with both Plant & Food Research (science) and KVH (industry) to refine and evolve the tools and models.