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What is plant balance?

Plants tell us about their health and how they are using their energy through morphology and growth patterns. Plant balance describes how a plant is allocating its energy between vegetative growth and generative growth.
  • Vegetative growth includes stems, leaves, and overall plant structure.
  • Generative growth includes flowers and fruit.
Understanding the plant’s vegetative and generative state enables growers to make decisions to steer the plant to use its energy and resources to grow more fruits and flowers, grow more stems and leaves, or maintain a balance between the two. These decisions help growers meet their production goals. For a quick overview, watch our video below.

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What decisions can I make when I know my plant’s state?

When you know whether a plant is more vegetative or more generative, you can make crop steering decisions with more confidence. That may include decisions to:
  • encourage more fruit and flower development
  • support more stem and leaf growth
  • maintain a more balanced plant state
  • respond earlier to signs of plant stress
Knowing the plant’s state helps growers take proactive measures and increase their control over outcomes.

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Plant balance categories

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Weak generative

(Synonyms: More generative) Plants spend more energy to produce generative plant parts and less on vegetative plant parts resulting in poor growth and weaker plants


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Weak vegetative

(Synonyms: Vegetative) Plants spend relatively more energy to produce vegetative plant parts while maintaining adequate generative growth resulting in good growth. ”Weak” refers to weak vegetative growth of the plants
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Strong generative

(Synonyms: Generative) Plants are inclined to spend relatively more energy to produce generative plant parts while maintaining adequate vegetative growth resulting in good growth and strong plants

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Strong vegetative

(Synonyms: More vegetative) Plants spend more energy to produce vegetative plant parts and less on generative plant parts resulting in too much vegetative growth. ”Strong” refers to strong vegetative growth of the plants

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How can I start using FarmRoad Plant Balance?

To access Plant Balance, contact WayBeyond here. Plant Balance is easy to get started with using FarmRoad’s data collection tools. To use Plant Balance, you must collect:
  • Fruit Number Per Plant
  • Flower Number Per Plant
  • Leaves Per Plant 
  • Head Density
  • Growth
  • Stem Diameter
  • Leaf Length
  • Leaf Width
WayBeyond also recommends growers collect:
  • Top to Flowering Truss
  • Truss Height 
  • Environmental data using Folium
  • Harvest (yield data)
  • Set Fruit Per Plant
  • Fruit Weight 
  • Fruit Diameter
Data must be collected at minimum once per week to receive weekly Plant Balance assessment.

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What can I learn from plant growth habits?

Plant growth habits are an indicator of plant balance, general plant growth, and plant health. A weak plant may indicate that it is under stress, such as from drought or disease. A vigorously growing plant with long, thick stems and large leaves is generally an indication of a vegetative plant. On the other hand, a plant with a higher fruit load, many flowers, a thin stem, and small leaves indicates a generative plant. During growth and development, crops respond to vegetative and generative actions or triggers by allocating their assimilates to vegetative or generative plant parts. For example, in fruiting crops, lower temperatures and higher humidity can reduce the pull for assimilates by actively growing parts and fruit, which can result in more leaf and stem growth and a more vegetative response. At higher temperatures, plants may produce a higher fruit load due to higher activity at the growing tips. This can result in a weaker vegetative structure as more assimilates are consumed by the higher fruit load for development. Plants are subjected to vegetative and generative triggers daily and throughout the season. That is why growers need to monitor plant parameters consistently and use field-specific insights early enough to take proactive measures and steer plants toward balance.

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Why measure plant growth?

By measuring plant morphology using growth parameters, growers can identify vegetative and generative trends and take actions to steer the plant toward a more balanced state.