Crop Advisor: Your Solution to Irrigation Uncertainty
Flooding in Brazil and Texas, a brutal heat wave throughout the Philippines, record temperature in Africa and India, and that’s just in the past month! Extreme weather has devastating effects around the world, and guess who usually gets hit the hardest? Farmers!
Farmers' lives are packed with challenges that require their constant attention and swift decision-making. At the heart of these challenges is irrigation scheduling. Decisions about irrigation involve data on soil moisture, plant status, weather forecasts and more. Every drop of water counts for their crop profitability. And when the weather is out of control, the task of optimizing irrigation and fertigation becomes more challenging than ever.
That is why we developed Crop Advisor, a real-time irrigation decision-support system and an indispensable part of GrowSphere™, an intuitive all-in-one platform that helps farmers manage daily irrigation and fertigation activities from planning to execution to validation.
The crop models take various parameters into account to determine the optimal timing and amount of water and fertilizer application. These parameters include climate data, soil texture, crop development stages and associated parameters, irrigation strategy, hydraulic limitations, soil, tissue, and water analysis, and actual irrigation amounts. Once these parameters are updated and the growing season begins, the model runs every midnight to update recommendations based on changing climate conditions and feedback from the field.
The bottom line? Crop Advisor simplifies farmers’ decision making. It replaces the juggling between different systems and platforms, the complex calculations, and the uncertainty, with real-time insights and irrigation and fertigation recommendations.
How do we know it works?
Well, we’ve been doing this for a very long time. Behind Crop Advisor is Netafim’s legacy of pioneering agricultural innovation and decades of experience in both agronomy and irrigation. Crop Advisor’s recommendations are grounded in innovative crop models developed by Netafim's leading agronomists and honed over close to 60 years of global irrigation experience.
When we developed Crop Advisor, we conducted validation trials for each crop to test, validate, and calibrate the crop model. These trials also assessed the system's complementary methods and monitoring capabilities, to build comprehensive crop models for each crop. To Validate the effectiveness of the model, a local best practice irrigation method was chosen as a control treatment for the GrowSphere crop models. Over 30 field trials and observations were conducted to assess the performance and reliability of the models.
And the results?
Our field trials and comparative studies with crops such as coffee, cotton, potatoes, onions, and at least a dozen more demonstrated the ability of our crop modeling to enhance crop productivity and contribute to improved farming outcomes. In most cases, the use of our crop models resulted in significantly higher yields with less water or nitrogen usage compared to the control plots.
Why potato farmers in Vietnam like Crop Advisor
Farmers around the world are starting to reap the benefits of Crop Advisor. For example, PepsiCo, a multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation, has been expanding its potato cultivation project to the Central Highlands (Tay Nguyen) and North Vietnam. On one of its 6-hectare potato farms, PepsiCo has recently implemented GrowSphere™ along with Crop Advisor. The decision to adopt GrowSphere's technology was primarily driven by the need to optimize irrigation by helping farmers know when and how much to irrigate.
Cuong Doan, a Netafim agronomist who has led the Crop Advisor implementation on this farm, explains: “Farmers here appreciate Crop Advisor because it's easy to receive recommendations on a daily basis directly from their mobile app. They use Netafim’s irrigation and fertigation protocols and apply minor adjustments based on their crop variety and weather conditions.”
The impact of using GrowSphere™ on productivity is still being evaluated. However, the immediate advantage of daily, accurate irrigation guidance has been clear, “This tool significantly enhances operational efficiency. It helps us make smart decisions involving our operations. Even small adjustments can lead to substantial improvements in farm management.”
What’s next for Crop Advisor?
As the head of digital agronomy, I understand that the successful implementation of any digital tool relies heavily on users experiencing its benefits firsthand. Just a few weeks ago, we held two GrowSphere™ seminars in Mexico and Brazil, which brought together the agronomic and digital farming teams from across Latin America including: Colombia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Mexico Argentina, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and Guatemala.
The seminar spanned three days and included teaching sessions, hands-on experience, and practical training, as well as a field day with a customer who has implemented the GrowSphere system. The opportunity for hands-on experience and knowledge sharing proved invaluable.
Looking ahead, we are already forging new collaborations with leading sensor companies and broadening our integration with diverse platforms and monitoring devices. Our roadmap includes expanding our fertilizer models and harnessing the power of AI and machine learning to enhance location-specific crop modeling.
There's so much more on the horizon for Crop Advisor. This is just the beginning of an exciting journey toward a more efficient and productive future in farming.
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