Description
High productivity in agriculture is often sub-optimal in the use of resources and is accompanied by environmental degradation and reduction in natural biodiversity. The objective of the project is to develop an intelligent system integrated by monitoring systems for the remote control of crop conditions, expert system for the formulation of sustainable agricultural practices and integrating geo-referenced information and automation technologies allowing the real-time management of the fertigation systems. The proposed project optimises the use of water and fertilisers and reduces the nitrate water pollution caused by fertiliser through the implementation of fertigation strategies according to the site-specific needs. The target groups are agricultural cooperatives, farmers and the communities of irrigators. The main outcome of the project is a decision support system that enables the automated fertigation management based on site-specific information obtained continuously and remotely.
Summary of project results
Current agricultural practices are suboptimal in the use of resources and it’s accompanied by environmental degradation. The main objective is to optimise the water and fertilisers use in extensive crops through technologies enabling the implementation of focused and automatic irrigation and fertilisation strategies according to site-specific needs. The assessment of the project results shows a reduction of 16% in water consumption and 32% in fertiliser use. The main outputs are: Web Decision Support Tool with Irrigation and Fertilisation Advisory Services enabling the formulation of site recommendations according to the data collected by Sensing Systems which data can be managed through a dedicated Monitoring Module. Monitoring Systems based on Wireless Network Technologies allowing the online and remote monitoring of the crop conditions. Automation technologies for irrigation and fertilization works based on the site-specific recommendations generated by the Decision Support Tool.
Summary of bilateral results