Today we’ve been at Ortogourmet, to test our solution for smart irrigation on soilless and greenhouse crops: let’s discover what technology can do!

Thanks to the SOILLESS GO project “Environmental sustainability, process and product innovations for the competitiveness of soilless crops in Puglia – Operational Group” we were able to learn more about protected and soilless crops and discover what technology can do for them!

As the experimental activities at Ortogourmet get started, in collaboration with CNR-ISPA, we want to show you what we’re creating!

Automation of irrigation on setpoint for soilless crops

Can technology really boost greenhouse and soilless production? 

The experimental activity starting today on Ortogourmet (leading company in microgreen production) aims to answer to that question.

In fact, we will test two different irrigation strategies to prove the effectiveness of technology: the classic one, based on farmer’s knowledge, and an innovative one (called “irrigation on setpoint”) using the infrastructure designed by Sysman and CNR-ISPA.

 

The system collects input data from the ground, compares them with pre-set thresholds (set points) and starts irrigation through the electric pumps in the greenhouse.

 

The infrastructure consists of:

 

  • gateway control unit
  • IoT soil sensors
  • data processing algorithm

 

The control unit – gateway designed acts as a data centralizer and irrigation manager: it collects the data sent by the wireless sensor network and activates irrigation.

 

Some technical info: the control unit has been designed on open-source hardware and the communication with wireless sensor network uses Lora protocol.

 

The soil sensors continuously collect data about soil conductivity, water content and temperature, and transmit them to the control unit.

All these data are used by an algorithm that compares them with the thresholds and comands irrigation in the whole greenhous or where needed.

The result is that each plant receives exactly the amount of water and nutrients it needs!

Some useful links

To know more about SOILLESSGO

To know more about progetti Bluleaf

To know more about Ortogourmet 

To know more about CNR-ISPA

Wanna know more?
Watch this (italian only)