Datagronomist
I’m Rosario — plant biologist, agronomist, and founder of Anthea. I write about agriculture, data, open science, and what it means to do research that matters beyond the lab. Learning in public, at the edge of soil and code.
What Knight Rider can teach us about AI in farming
It started with a grow tent and a Raspberry Pi. I was sketching out a small automation project — sensors, smart plugs, a language model agent to read the conditions and nudge things overnight. Nothing fancy. But somewhere in the middle of it I started thinking about what it would actually mean to hand control of a growing system to an algorithm, and I went looking for what the literature says. It turns out a lot of people are thinking about this, and they mostly disagree with each other. So this is me trying to map the field — and I’m going to use a 1982 television car to do it, because it works embarrassingly well. ...
Frostwächter: a free inversion frost predictor for Halle (Saale) — and the science behind it
Spring in Halle is a negotiation. The city warms up fast — Saxony-Anhalt sits in one of Germany’s most continental climate pockets, and by April the days can feel genuinely summery. Then a clear night arrives, the wind drops, and by 4 am your tomato seedlings are dead. The weather app said +3 °C. This happened to me last year. And to my neighbour. And, I suspect, to most people growing anything in this city. ...
Seeds, Code, and What We Pass Down
My son will be born in a few weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been spending evenings in the cellar, setting up a small automated growing system. A Raspberry Pi running Mycodo, a BME688 sensor tracking temperature, humidity, pressure and air quality, a handful of Tasmota smart plugs controlling the lights, a heater, and a humidifier. I’m starting this year’s garden seedlings from down there, in the dark, before spring arrives. It’s a modest setup. But building it has felt significant in a way I didn’t fully expect. ...