Agriculture 2.0: new technologies enter the field
Agriculture has for many years been considered a low-tech activity with little need for the latest modern advances. But today connectivity is gaining ground and more use is being made of GPS precision-guided tractors, sensors that regulate the amount of irrigation water down to the last drop, pest surveillance from the air and farms hooked up to big data.
Benalúa de las Villas, Granada
José Antonio Rodero, Agronomic Consultant, S.C.A. San Sebastian de Benalua de las Villas
“We have been including all the new technologies in olive farm management for the past 10 or 15 years. Technology is fundamental because it’s the only way to deliver real and optimal farm productivity. We are currently using aerial scans, temperature, humidity and chlorophyll sensors, and leaf, soil and water analyses. The technology allows us to take samples and extrapolate the results to the crops but we don't really know where the problem is or how to define the zones.
“Until now efficiency in our area has been very low, with low productivity. We can’t keep doing it this way, making generic recommendations for an area or a farm and applying it across the board. When you have a population of trees, you have trees that act differently depending on the lay of the land, the climate, the state of the tree and the type of soil”.
“Crop-Scan has been a blessing for us. It lets us identify and analyse each of the trees”.
Mauro Bernal – Technical Officer Responsible for Crop-Scan at Bioibérica
“Crop-Scan is an early diagnosis service, a form of remote sensing that allows us to get an early look at plant stress. It is operated from a manned aircraft flying at different heights, depending on what we have to measure, and produces four indices that allow us to see the particular stress in the plants”.
José Antonio Rodero, Agronomic Consultant, S.C.A. San Sebastian de Benalua de las Villas
“It involves treating each tree separately. Each plant is an individual. Until now we had to work on a generalised basis so a lot of efficiency was lost. Now we can greatly boost production and spend a lot less.”
Mauro Bernal – Technical Officer Responsible for Crop-Scan at Bioibérica
“Bioibérica has also recently developed an app called Plant Stress Management. For the farmer, it’s like having an office in the field. The app lets him keep abreast of weather reports at all times and alerts him to having to manage plant stress”.
José Antonio Rodero, Agronomic Consultant, S.C.A. San Sebastian de Benalua de las Villas
“Precision agriculture and remote sensing tools that provide farmers with real crop information is the future”.
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