Working with local salad grower PDM Produce at their site near Shifnal, Cranfield University and the Universidad de Córdoba deployed a range of wireless soil moisture, crop, climate and water resource sensors. Combined with the farms’ legacy weather stations these provided the building blocks for the Irrigation Management Information System (IMIS). This app-based decision support tool helps farm businesses to better manage the components of their irrigation in an integrated way, helping to improve water productivity whilst reducing water and energy costs and reducing the environmental impacts of irrigated production.
Following field evaluation, PDM Produce expect to see marked improvements in water productivity linked to better irrigation management through timely, data driven decision making, ensuring water resources and irrigation are scheduled to optimise crop growth and development. Providing an integrated perspective on the importance of irrigation within the crop production system can only be enabled through the exploitation of advanced wireless communications, when used in conjunction with high levels of in-field management.