We hear so much in the media about artificial intelligence and how it impacts our lives and businesses, not to mention the threats it presents. Until recently, its impact on gardens and horticulture had felt fairly limited to me. But I have now had my eyes opened to just how much potential it holds for our industry.
AI is already transforming mainstream retail. From loyalty schemes that use customer data to deliver more personalised offers, to virtual assistants handling customer enquiries and predictive analytics helping retailers forecast demand and manage stock, technology is changing how retail businesses operate and serve their customers. Environmental horticulture has much to gain from these developments, but the opportunities extend far beyond the garden centre shop floor.
In early October, I visited HTA’s FutureGrow Expo at NAEC Stoneleigh, where the future of environmental horticulture took centre stage. This was not simply a showcase of bigger, faster or more efficient machinery. Exhibitors and speakers demonstrated how robotics, automation, precision technology and AI are beginning to reshape plant production, with the potential to improve productivity, sustainability and resilience.
The examples are compelling. Autonomous robots thatidentify and target weeds with precision, reducing reliance on conventional herbicides. Drones and advanced sensing technologies that help monitor crops, while AI-powered analysis of individual leaf images can help growers identify stress and disease earlier than regular human intervention allows. Precision dosing and smarter irrigation systems canalso ensure that water, nutrients and crop protection products are applied more efficiently and exactly where they are needed.
Seeing these technologies in action brought home an important point: the real value of AI lies in combining data, scientific understanding and practical expertise to support better decisions.
Many technologies developed for broad-scale agriculture have not, until now, been practical for our sector because ornamental production operates on a smaller scale and involves a huge variety of crops. AI could change that. Its ability to adapt systems to different plant physiology and cultivation models, while processing vast amounts of data, could help lead to healthier plants, less waste, more efficient production and, ultimately, a stronger and more competitive environmental horticulture industry in the UK.
Technology is just one of the six pillars in HTA’s Nursery of the Future vision. Alongside AI and automation, the report highlights the importance of water resilience, growing media management, integrated plant protection, a skilled workforce, and world-leading plant health and biosecurity. AI has a particularly valuable role to play in connecting these priorities, turning information into insight and enabling more precise, sustainable production.
Of course, innovation requires investment, skills and the confidence to embrace change. As an industry, we must ensure that businesses of every size can explore and benefit from the opportunities ahead. FutureGrow gave us an exciting glimpse of what is possible. Our challenge now is to turn that glimpse into reality, ensuring that all areas of UK environmental horticulture remain innovative, productive and ready to grow into the future.