Enabling modern, resilient nursery operations through integrated AgriTech

Joel van der Schyff, Co-Founder and CGO at AgriLogiq.

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Imagine a commercial nursery reducing fertiliser use by 75% while improving growth rates and enabling remote management. Across Africa, nurseries and commercial growers face rising input costs, unreliable power and water supply, climate volatility and skills shortages. AgriLogiq and NEC XON have formed a strategic partnership that combines advanced agricultural technology with large-scale digital, energy and connectivity capability to deliver end-to-end solutions for modern, protected, data-driven farming.

Integrated partnerships between agricultural specialists and digital infrastructure providers are essential to achieving these outcomes at scale. “Across nursery and propagation environments, systems like this have demonstrated 40%-70% productivity improvements, depending on crop type and growth stage, alongside lower operational risk and more predictable outcomes,” says Joel van der Schyff, AgriLogiq Co-Founder and CGO. The following case study demonstrates what AgriLogiq has already delivered. NEC XON will add the scale, reach and delivery capability to extend these benefits across the continent.

A 30-year-old retail nursery in the Western Cape (which supplies a major garden-centre chain) had grown organically, adopting multiple generations of climate, irrigation and fertigation systems. As often happens, these systems were installed incrementally by different teams, using varying designs and technical rigour. The result was a fragile, tightly coupled environment:

• Climate systems were energy-intensive, difficult to manage during power interruptions and lacked remote visibility.
• Water filtration required constant manual intervention, with filters cleaned several times a day during peak season.
• A custom fertiliser delivery system caused reliability issues and inconsistent nutrient application.
• There were no consolidated analytics to diagnose problems, optimise inputs or plan improvements.

As challenges compounded, staff spent more time “firefighting” while yields, predictability and confidence in the systems declined.

Rather than a piecemeal approach, the nursery decided on phased modernisation built around integrated control, sensing and analytics. At the core of the AgriLogiq solution was a centralised, zone-based control system managing multiple climate zones across propagation and hardening-off areas; more than 20 irrigation zones and 30+ valves; and fertigation fully integrated into irrigation workflows.

This was supported by distributed environmental sensing, wireless field hardware and a cloud-based management platform. Together, these components provided real-time visibility into environmental conditions and equipment status – from pumps and fans to greenhouse openings – accessible remotely through a single interface.

Chris Duvenage, Business Unit Manager Digital at NEC XON.

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Modernisation extended beyond software and controls. Supporting infrastructure, including misting systems, filtration equipment, motors, valves and electrical and plumbing components, was rationalised and upgraded to create a coherent, end-to-end system rather than a collection of standalone components.

The outcomes were material and sustained:

• Fertiliser concentrations reduced by approximately 75% through precision delivery based on in-field measurements.
• Energy consumption decreased as high-pressure, energy-intensive systems were replaced with lower-power alternatives.
• Manual filter maintenance dropped from multiple times per day to roughly once per month.
• Growth rates improved to the point where production had to be deliberately slowed to match available space.
• Remote access and analytics eliminated unnecessary site visits and enabled proactive, data-driven decision-making.

Says Chris Duvenage, Business Unit Manager Digital at NEC XON: “While this example reflects a single nursery, its relevance extends far beyond one site or geography. It demonstrates what becomes possible when modern agricultural technology is delivered as part of an integrated solution.”

Together, AgriLogiq and NEC XON bring:

• Deep expertise in controlled-environment agriculture, automation and analytics.
• Enterprise-grade power, connectivity, sensing, security and data infrastructure.
• The ability to deliver turnkey solutions under a single accountability model.
• Access to large-scale government, donor-funded and multinational programmes.

In emerging markets, reducing farming risk is key to unlocking finance, enabling participation and delivering measurable economic and social impact. As agriculture moves towards hybrid and protected production models, the need for resilient, end-to-end solutions will only grow.