Saving water

Dear readers,

 After a time with no posts here I am to talk a little more about agriculture.
It has been a challenging task to work with technology, internet of things (IoT), electronics, data transmission and etc.
But it's also very rewarding when you see in less than a week a farmer halves the consumption of water and energy.

The system sends real-time data to the internet every 30 seconds on soil water status. Such data generate information that is essential in decision making, which is: To irrigate or not to irrigate, if the answer is yes, for how long?
During these days I also observed with my partner the behavior of the soil at different times of the day, for example, the drop in humidity during the hottest hours and the return to humidity at nightfall, even without irrigating the soil. In the warmer hours the soil loses its surface moisture by evaporation, but with the fall of the night, the humidity of the deeper layers "rises" (capillarity) to the superficial layer.
All this has led us to choose the best times to do the irrigation, to avoid the hotter hours because this water is lost very fast by evaporation and the plants in general at these hotter hours close their stomata diminishing their perspiration.
In a few words, it can be said that this water is not much used by plants.
In the photo above we have a solar power station where the humidity sensors are connected to the ground. In the photo below we see in detail the sensor accompanying the irrigation system.

Finally, we still have a lot to develop in irrigation management, but the results were very satisfactory. I can say with no fear that the future of agriculture passes through the use of technology in the field, thus making production increasingly sustainable.

 That's all folks!
Kind regards.

 Medina

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From the forests to the lab

Image
Analysis of GCMS (gas chromatography with mass spectrometry) in different eucalypt clones in southern Bahia. These analyzes are time-consuming and sometimes complex, but they are very interesting because they show how the body's metabolism is in relation to some experimental treatment, natural event or etc. In the case it was studied how different clones of eucalyptus behave against very humid soils. This analysis is also used in studies even in humans. In a next post, I'll tell you a bit more about the technique used (GCMS), in few words this technique separates the molecules present in a sample, in case the samples were leaves. Examples of molecules present in the leaves are sugars (glucose, futose, sucrose and etc.), amino acids (tryptophan, alanine, phenylalanine and etc.), organic acids (Krebs cycle compounds) and other molecules (Some day in the future I'll talk about them). As for eucalyptus clones, there are many differences between plants that make them mo...
Read more

Are you afraid of transgenics?

Image
Producing food is not easy Probably many of you have seen this yellow triangle with this T inside, well, it is a product made with some transgenic ingredient (probably corn or soy). Have you heard anyone say anything about these foods? Did they good things or bad things about them? Better yet, have they told you why these plants are transgenic? To return to the subject, as it is in the heading of this text, to produce food is not easy and is expensive, there are diseases that attack the plants in the field, pest insects that cause enormous damages, there are also the invading weeds and many other factors they play against. Believe me, there is a lot that hinders the production of food. Many of the transgenic plants have artificially inserted genes that give them tolerance to diseases, reduce the attack of insect pests and make these plants tolerant to herbicides. Why tolerant to herbicides? Think of the extraordinarily simple scenario, there are 2 plants, one I want because...
Read more

Citrus borer in the farm! Antibiotic in the pharmacy.

Image
What powder is that? One of these days, I got these pictures from a friend, the guy has a very nice blog about health ( Portal esfera humana ), and he had a doubt: Medina, we've lost 2 orange trees here, what is this powder, what is it? It is a pest, a larva of a beetle (family Cerambycidae) that makes galleries inside the trunk and the branches of the plants, causing death to the plant when not controlled (and produces the sawdust). In addition to attacking the citrus (orange, lemon and etc.) it also attacks plants of avocado, plum, pear, peach, cherry, fig, guava and others. When it attacks the branches ( Diploschema rotundicolle ), one of the main control measures is basically to cut off these branches and burn them. So focus on the plants, if you have any branch drying, showing those holes and saw dust falling, eliminate them by burning them. Beware that the smoke produced by the burning of citrus plants can cause allergy in some people, as...
Read more