Automated plant monitoring systems and methods

Abstract

Systems and methods for managing operation of plant growth zone(s) are presented, the management system comprising: a storage device comprising a database that stores data indicative of plant characteristics for each plant in the plant growth zone, the plant characteristics comprising plant spatial and environmental characteristics and plant location in the plant growth zone; and a data processing unit comprising a database manager configured to create a new, or update an existing, database entry record corresponding to a plant in the plant growth zone, in response to sensing data being received from sensing system(s), the sensing data being part of visit data indicative of a visit by the sensing system(s) to the individual plant, and create a data retrieval record in response to data request input with respect to plant(s) in the plant growth zone, the database manager comprising: a sub-plant features extraction module configured to identify in the visit data spatial sub¬plant features of each plant sensed during a visit, and a plant structure data generation module configured to generate plant structure data corresponding to the identified spatial sub-plant features, the database manager being configured to create the new, or update the existing, database entry record, to store said plant structure data in the database, and identify, in the data request input, each plant, and utilize the plant structure data stored in the database to create the respective data retrieval record; the plant structure data is configured such that contents of the database entry record and/or the data retrieval record comprise a virtual representation of the corresponding plant's structure in accordance with locations of the spatial sub-plant features and their dimensions matching a real structure of the plant.