Smart Crop Irrigation By WaterBee

Demonstration Of Smart Crop Irrigation By WaterBee System

Good Crop Irrigation is really a tough problem to solve from starting. It involves right amount of water at right time. But now there have been advancements in technology which could benefit irrigation practices. One such advancement is WaterBee smart irrigation and water management system. 

It allows farmers use their smartphones with an app to not only switch on the water where and when it’s needed, referred to in the field as irrigation scheduling. The app gathers data remotely via sensors in the farmer’s field. The state of play is then crunched by maths equations, which relay back to the app how much water should be released by the sprinkler systems. 

The WaterBee Irrigation System

The problem is that inefficient water irrigation wastes a great deal of water. “About 70% of the water withdrawn from rivers and ground water by humans is for agriculture,” Andrew Thompson, a plant scientist at Cranfield University, UK, said. He is working to save water using maths, technology and farming intelligence. The plan is to achieve water savings of 40% while improving crop quality too. In this case, WaterBee tries to cut the water bill by making a detailed study of fields and figuring out which bit needs how much water.

WaterBee is a complete, resilient, cost-effective Smart Irrigation and Water Management system, that empowers growers, vineyards, golf clubs, public authorities and landscape managers to optimise their commercial and sustainable environmental operations.

WaterBee is made up of a series of modular smart sensors distributed over an area that monitor soil moisture and other environmental factors that affect crop development and plant health. The output from these sensors is fed through a ZigBee wireless sensor network and from there to a GPRS gateway, which goes to a central web service. This service uses an intelligent software package to analyze the data, make models, and provide farmers and other users with advice based on their particular needs. The end result is fed back to an “easy-to-use” app on the user’s smartphone or tablet.

WaterBee System Layout

According to the developers, this reduces water use by allowing farmers to precisely schedule where, when and how much to irrigate as well as improving plant health and crop yields with lower operating costs. They also say that the modular components are easy to install and the system is also very flexible and is able to adjust to changing conditions. Estimated water savings over conventional irrigation are in the neighborhood of 40 percent.

WaterBee system has been installed and is in use at 14 reference sites across Europe in Estonia, Malta, Italy, Spain, Sweden & the UK.

ADVANTAGES OF WATERBEE SYSTEM

• Greater control over your irrigation needs and earn more profit per acre through the efficient use of water and other inputs
• Accurate and complete information on crop and field conditions
• Easy-to-use Smartphone and Web Apps to support crop irrigation decisions with real-time data
• Full service, with no worries about software support or equipment maintenance
• Lower operating costs, great yields and higher quality crops

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Write by: RC - Wednesday, July 17, 2013