The business world nowadays is spinning around new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) which provides endless possibilities.
Agriculture industry is facing challenges to fulfill demand and at the same time stay transparent and sustainable. Therefore, the recognition from agriculture corporations for innovations and modernization of their productions become very noticeable. The main reason for that is because using modern technology and innovations is the best way to ensure higher productivity and profitability in a sustainable way.
Yield Loss Due to Insect Pests and Diseases
Research shows that each year crop yield loss is equal to 20-40% due to various insect pests and diseases. results depend on many factors, such as climate changes, weather conditions, inappropriate farm management. One example of how inappropriate farm management affects productivity is basing practices on beliefs and gut feeling rather than real data.
Many farmers are still spraying the fields “in advance” in specific phases of growth, to prevent possible damage. Not only these protection treatments are expensive and dangerous for the environment, but often not efficient in a certain period or applied on the bigger field area than needed.
Digital Agriculture as a Solution
Luckily, digital agriculture, which day by day is gaining more enthusiasts, might help to determine the anomalies, even those invisible to the naked eye. Here are few ways how to detect crop anomalies by using digital :
Pest alarms – insect pest and disease warning system with algorithms including weather forecast, location of the fields, crop type, and weather conditions that trigger pest occurrence.
Weather stations – used to determine the best time for crop treatment based on accurate tracking of the weather conditions such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed and others. That way, one can create insect pest and disease forecast models to monitor specific parameters for the crop.
Soil sensors – wireless and easy to install tools requiring low maintenance, uploading information to the database, and notifying farmers about real-time changes of soil parameters. This allows them to forecast the timing of insect pest emergence from the soil but also release of disease spores.
Satellite and drone imagery – used for capturing soil and crop conditions to translate them with algorithms into useful information or colour-coded maps to give the information about the crop health. It gives an insight into the changes of plant chlorophyll due to early insect pest or disease attack while plants do not show any visible signs.
Variable rate technology (VRT) – used to apply adequate doses of chemicals over the field to avoid under or over spraying, based on canopy structure and foliage density at a certain moment through the real-time or map-based treatment.
How AGRIVI Can Help to Increase the Yield?
AGRIVI has built-in alarms based on the weather forecast which inform farmers about possible occurrence of insect pests and diseases on their fields.
In addition to that, AGRIVI offers various set of Vegetation Indices which help with tracking changes in the plant biomass, crucial for the successful plant growth and healthy and quality yield. Thanks to that, farmers can easily scout a specific location in the field and protect the plants on time.
Moreover, there is a way to connect AGRIVI with the weather stations and sensors to have all the detailed and important data from the field in one place.
With that data, farmers can plan treatments better, according to the temperature, wind, the rain and other weather conditions favourable for pest occurrence.
By combining all these modern tools inside AGRIVI Farm Management Software, farmers can accurately plan, monitor and analyse entire crop production.
Having the insight into data-based decisions, farmers manage pests and disease easily, thus experience higher and quality yields along with an increased profitability.
