Lans uses Trap-Eye™ to safeguard 88 hectares of premium crops

Dutch tomato grower Lans has embraced AI-driven smart pest monitoring with Trap-Eye™ to transform pest scouting across seven sites. The automated system has replaced manual sticky trap monitoring, improved data accuracy, and enabled faster, more cost-effective pest control decisions across the company’s 88-hectare estate.

“Trap-Eye™ gives us fast, reliable insights into insect activity without the need for manual sticky trap counting. By showing clear trends in pest populations, it helps us to make quicker and more informed decisions – and stay ahead of potential outbreaks. This smart technology is now an essential part of how we manage crop protection across all our sites.” - Vincent van der Lans, Director of Cultivation & Energy at Lans

About Lans

Lans is a leading family-owned tomato grower in the Netherlands, operating 88 hectares across seven locations, including Westland, Dinteloord, and Rilland. With 60 hectares under LED (artificial) light, Lans cultivates a diverse range of premium tomato varieties. Founded in 1976, the company is known for its commitment to innovation and quality production, always seeking smarter and more sustainable solutions to maintain its market leadership.

The challenges: fewer crop protection products and fewer workers

New regulations have reduced the availability of chemical crop protection products, making it more important than ever for growers to detect and respond to pest problems quickly. This means crops must be monitored frequently, and the location and type of any pest outbreaks pinpointed with precision. 

At the same time, there are fewer skilled workers available to carry out manual scouting tasks. The situation is particularly challenging for growers like Lans, which cultivate crops year-round across a large area. 

There is a growing need for integrated pest management (IPM) solutions that use cost-effective, reliable and less labour-intensive monitoring systems.

Introducing Trap-Eye™ as an automated IPM solution

Lans adopted Trap-Eye™, Biobest’s AI-powered scouting solution to improve its pest monitoring quality and efficiency, and better safeguard its premium crops.
Trap-Eye™ uses small, fixed solar-powered cameras to automatically capture images of sticky traps placed throughout greenhouse crops, with at least 40 devices deployed per hectare. These images are analysed by Trap-Eye™’s advanced AI technology to identify and count insects. Growers can access the results through a cloud-based dashboard on any device.

The data allows early identification of insect population trends, supporting timely interventions. For example, growers can track changes in whitefly populations - a major pest for tomato crops. Trap-Eye™ also monitors beneficial insects, for example, Macrolophus pygmaeus, providing growers with comprehensive information about the insect population dynamic.  

Lans initially trialed Trap-Eye™ on a single hectare to evaluate its effectiveness. As results proved consistent and reliable, the company expanded their use of the system greenhouse by greenhouse.

Today, Trap-Eye™ is used across all seven locations, providing the grower with full visibility into pest and beneficial insect activity.

Installation and daily use of Trap-Eye™

Lans had the confidence to scale up use of Trap-Eye™ across its entire estate because of the system’s reliability and cost-effectiveness.

The system was easy to install thanks to its magnetic plug-and-play set-up. It is also simple to use. Most IPM tools still require manual photography of traps, which demands time-consuming walks through crops. In contrast, Trap-Eye™ operates fully automatically. Its standardized photographs deliver, objective data. This automated process eliminates the need for manual counting of the sticky trap by the grower.

Transitioning from decades of manual trap counts to a digital system required a shift in mindset by the Lans team, but staff fully adapted to Trap-Eye™ within a year.
Today, Lans uses the Trap-Eye™ dashboard once a week to review pest developments. Its team relies on trend data and intuitive heatmaps to detect problem areas early and make its pest control decisions. 

Delivering results and continuous improvement

For a modest initial investment, Trap-Eye™ has delivered significant value to Lans by automating time-consuming manual tasks and enabling better informed decision-making processes. Even with just one count per week, the system helps detect changes to insect populations early enough for the team to act quickly. 

A key advantage is that Lans no longer depends on subjective interpretations of trap counts. With AI-powered analysis and digital images, pest pressure is tracked uniformly and objectively, making it easier to compare data across time and locations.

Another benefit is that Trap-Eye™ continues to evolve. Biobest is continuously enhancing the AI system and dashboard functionality, including expanding its ability to detect less common pest and beneficial species. 

Project Highlights

Lans has fully integrated Trap-Eye™ into its IPM programme across all growing locations. The system has saved time, reduced labour needs, and improved pest monitoring consistency. Most importantly, it has enabled faster, more confident decisions based on clear, visual data. Trap-Eye™ has proven to be a scalable, user-friendly solution for Lans, resulting in a reduction in pest pressure and improved crop quality.

Key takeaways

• Lans has transitioned from manual sticky trap scouting to Trap-Eye™, an AI-powered pest monitoring system.
• Trap-Eye™’s solar-powered cameras and AI-driven technology delivers consistent, objective insect count data via a cloud-based dashboard.
• The system has helped Lans reduce reliance on skilled labour while increasing monitoring accuracy.
• Lans’ weekly dashboard reviews help detect pest issues early using trend data and intuitive heatmaps.
• Standardized image-based tracking enables better comparisons over time and across locations.
• Trap-Eye™ installation was simple, and the Lans team fully adapted within a year.
• The system is scalable and continues to evolve, with new features and pest detection improvements underway.
• Lans credits Trap-Eye™ with reducing pest pressure and supporting consistently high crop quality.

Interested in scaling up your IPM strategy with Trap-Eye™?
Get in touch with our team to explore the right solution for your greenhouse.