Measuring plant nutrition with Metiris
The short version
- Metiris reads nutrient status directly from the leaf — non-destructive, no lab, no waiting.
- One scan returns eleven nutrient and stress readings in under five minutes.
- With no per-sample fee, you can map variation instead of averaging it away.
- Validated on 700+ plots at ~81% agreement with the lab.
Every fertilising decision is, underneath, a measurement problem. To put the right amount on at the right time, you first have to know what the plant actually has — and for decades that has meant clipping leaves, shipping them to a laboratory, and waiting. Metiris is built to close that gap. It is a handheld sensor that reads nutrient status directly from the leaf, in the field, in minutes.
Metiris is a spin-off of Ghent University, born from the plant-phenotyping and remote-sensing research groups of Prof. Kris Audenaert and Prof. Wouter Maes. The idea is simple to state and hard to engineer: instead of relying on soil samples, lab tissue analysis or a trained eye, give the grower a direct, real-time view of the plant's nutrient balance.
How it works
You rest the sensor on a leaf and take a reading. A built-in spectrometer measures how light is absorbed, transmitted and reflected by the leaf — its spectral fingerprint. Nothing is cut, bagged or destroyed; the leaf keeps growing.
That fingerprint is where the real work begins. Deep-learning models, trained on thousands of chemically validated leaf samples, translate the spectrum into actual nutrient concentrations. Because the models are tuned to the crop and the growth stage, the same handheld device adapts from a vine in June to a greenhouse tomato in February.
What it reads
From a single scan, Metiris estimates the macro- and micronutrients that drive crop performance, plus early stress signals — eleven readings in all:
- Macronutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg)
- Micronutrients: iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), boron (B) and more
- Early stress signals that shift before a deficiency is visible to the eye
Why it matters
The point of measuring on the plant, in the field, isn't only speed — though going from 3–21 days to under five minutes changes what's possible. It's that a fast, non-destructive reading removes the things that quietly limit good agronomy: cost and lag.
| The old way | With Metiris |
|---|---|
| 3–21 days for a result | Under 5 minutes, on the spot |
| €25–200+ per sample | Included in the subscription |
| Destructive sampling | Non-destructive, in situ |
| A few composite samples | As many readings as you want |
When a measurement is effectively free at the point of use, you stop rationing it. Instead of trusting one composite sample to speak for a whole block, you scan across rows, parcels and growth stages and start to map variation rather than average it away. And because spectral signatures shift before chlorosis or stunting appear, you can catch a problem while the fix is still cheap.
We strongly believe that more universal access to reliable nutrient measurements can transform how fertiliser decisions are made.
Built on research, proven in the field
This isn't a lab curiosity. Metiris's nutrient models have been validated across 700+ Champagne vineyard plots, where readings reached roughly 81% agreement with laboratory measurements — validated in the region, on the variety, in real growing conditions. The same platform now extends to greenhouse, orchard and open-field crops, with paid and pilot deployments running alongside partners including Veuve Clicquot, CIVC, Ardo, Inagro and PCfruit.
Every scan also adds to a chemically validated, multi-crop dataset gathered in real field conditions — the foundation for Metiris to become a trusted ground reference for agronomy as a whole.