How much fertiliser does a lettuce field need?
It sounds like a simple question. In practice, the answer can change from one part of the field to another. Plants grow unevenly, soil conditions vary and applying the same amount everywhere can mean using more nitrogen than the crop needs.
This was one of the questions researchers brought to the SOI Technical Days 2026, held in Bari on 10 and 11 September. The event gathered researchers, agronomists, students and industry representatives to examine where sensors, artificial intelligence and robotics might fit into everyday horticulture.
Organised by the Working Group on Sensors and Artificial Intelligence in Horticulture (SAIOF) of the Italian Society for Horticultural Science, the two-day programme combined research presentations with technical discussions and live demonstrations at the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”. Read more about the event.
AgRibot’s Italian partners — the University of Bari (UNIBA), the Polytechnic University of Bari (POLIBA) and the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) — arrived with both a research paper and a robot.
Mariadomenica Corsi, a PhD student at UNIBA whose research programme is co-funded by AgRibot, presented the partners’ work on the robotic monitoring of lettuce for nitrogen fertilisation. Her presentation was named the best contribution by a young researcher at the event.
Outside the presentation room, visitors could see the research in motion. The team demonstrated the robotic platform developed for AgRibot’s Italian pilot, drawing interest from researchers, students, agronomists and industry representatives.
The robot moves through open lettuce fields and records differences that are difficult to judge consistently by eye. Its cameras and sensors measure the plants, while AI models use those observations to estimate their growth and condition. The resulting picture could help farmers decide where fertiliser is needed — and where it is not.
That distinction matters. Nitrogen helps crops grow, but any excess can be lost from the field, entering groundwater or being carried into rivers. The European Commission identifies agricultural nitrogen as one of the main causes of water pollution in Europe. It is also money spent on fertiliser that the crop may never use.
The promise of AgRibot’s work is therefore quite practical: fewer blanket decisions, less time spent inspecting fields and better information before fertiliser is applied.
The award in Bari recognised the science behind that idea. The robot demonstration showed what it might look like on the farm. Now comes the more difficult test — proving that a machine reading rows of lettuce can give farmers information they can trust and use.
Discover AgRibot’s work on robotic fertilisation management.
