ICT International managing director Peter Cull designed the plant monitoring system after years of work in cotton fields.

“The world wants it because it allows producers to monitor plant water use and plant stress,” Mr Cull said.

Representatives from Kenya, Uganda, Sarawak, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore took part in a workshop about the technology on Tuesday.

In Uganda, coffee farmers need the monitoring system to do mixed forest cropping between coffee and shade trees.

Exporting roses into Europe is an issue for Kenya, while Indonesia wants to develop more resilient oil palm plants.

The agriculture technology measures the litres of water moving through the stem of a tree every ten minutes.

”A typical eucalyptus might use 50 or 60 litres a day, in the middle of the day it might use five or six litres,” ICT International’s Peter Cull said.

“In many ways it’s about having enough water and managing it very carefully.

“With variations in climate, some days a tree uses a lot of water, others it won’t – it’s about knowing when to water it.”

Ugandan Forestry Institute representative Joel Buyinze said farmers in his region need the technology to learn to integrate shade trees with coffee crops.

“Recently we realised that most farmers have small land plots, a quarter of an acre to two acres – and that piece of land is being dug on by seven members of the family,” Mr Buyinze said.

“We see that there’s a lot of competition, there’s a lot of degradation of the land.

“We feel there is need now for us to make sure the farmers use the tree to fertilise the soil.”

The monitoring devices have been ten years in the making, ICT International’s Peter Cull said. “We worked with leading scientists around the world, these are unique instruments,” he said. ”They’re fundamental to this aspect of managing our planet.” First designed for use by scientists, the data can be simplified so farmers and communities can see the information in real time.