Webinar Highlights: Smart Sensing Strategies for Precision Farming and Fruit Monitoring
On 24 July at 12 PM CET, the STELAR and CrackSense projects co-hosted a joint webinar titled From Orchards to Orbits: Sensing Strategies in Agriculture. The online session brought together researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders from the agrifood innovation community to discuss how remote sensing and proximal sensing technologies are being applied to improve monitoring, forecasting, and management practices in agriculture.
Dimitris Skoutas on STELAR: Advancing Remote Sensing for Agriculture
Dimitris Skoutas from the Athena Research Center introduced the STELAR project, which is developing a platform for publishing and discovering metadata about datasets in the agrifood sector. The platform connects datasets with data processing workflows for machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), improving access to tools that help researchers, policymakers, and farmers make informed decisions.
Dimitris emphasised the importance of ensuring datasets are not just collected, but also discoverable, reusable, and connected to workflows that translate raw information into practical insights. In this way, STELAR directly supports the uptake of data-driven agriculture and strengthens decision-making at farm and policy levels.
Victor Alchanati on CrackSense: Innovation in Proximal Sensing
Victor Alchanati from Volcani introduced the CrackSense project, an EU-funded initiative that develops proximal sensing technologies for fruit monitoring. He explained that fruit cracking and surface damage represent major challenges for growers, often leading to post-harvest losses. CrackSense equips producers with tools to detect cracks early and manage them effectively.
Victor highlighted how this approach addresses a concrete industry need by helping farmers reduce waste and secure market value. The project illustrates how targeted sensing technologies can have a direct, positive impact on the fresh produce sector.
STELAR Presentation: Remote Sensing for Precision Farming
Following Dimitris, Solveig Blöcher and Silke Migdall of VISTA presented STELAR’s Pilot B on remote sensing for precision farming. They explained how satellite imagery and ground-based data can be combined to optimise farm management. Satellite data enables monitoring of crop growth patterns at regional scale, while local ground measurements provide validation and detail.
They illustrated how merging these data streams improves irrigation planning and enables early detection of crop stress – advantages that reduce resource use while increasing yields. This work underlines STELAR’s commitment to sustainable agriculture, ensuring that research outputs are translated into practical tools for farmers and advisors.
CrackSense Presentation: Proximal Sensing for Fruit Monitoring
Manuela Zude-Sasse from ATB expanded on CrackSense by showing how in-orchard sensors monitor fruit development in real time. This capability enables growers to optimise harvest timing, reduce waste, and deliver fruit of consistent quality. She stressed that by tailoring technologies to growers’ needs, CrackSense ensures innovations remain practical and accessible.
The project demonstrates how smart sensing in orchards can significantly improve outcomes for producers, from lowering losses to supporting more resilient supply chains.
Q&A: Practical Adoption of Smart Sensing Tools
The webinar concluded with a Q&A moderated by Marina Arnaut Stefanović. Questions focused on practical aspects of deploying sensing technologies: affordability, farmer training, and data accessibility. Participants discussed how integration of remote sensing and proximal sensing must go hand-in-hand with capacity building so that end-users can fully benefit.
Conclusion
The session highlighted how remote sensing and proximal sensing complement each other in advancing precision farming and improving fruit monitoring. Both STELAR and CrackSense demonstrate how EU-funded projects can create real-world impact by supporting data-driven and sustainable agriculture.
For those who could not attend, the full recording of the webinar is available below. Make sure to connect with us on LinkedIn and visit the STELAR blog section to find out more about precision farming.
