Outdoor vegetable growing involves a wide variety of technologies. This includes sweetcorn, some legumes and seed production. Although their cultivation technology and machine requirements are much more closely related to field technologies, the requirements of irrigation and the processing industry behind them also require controlled cultivation.

The more common cultivations of vegetables, such as onions, carrots, potatoes, root vegetables, asparagus, tomatoes, and peppers, require constant attention from the farmers from sowing / planting. Seedbed preparation and proper soil moisture in the root zone can determine the quality class of the mature plant when sowing. This is especially true for onions and beets, as the root system reaches its full length within a few days of emergence and stops or branches when exposed to a drier layer.

For crops that can be effectively cultivated by continuous nutrient supply, such as carrots, asparagus, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, watermelons, and melons, it may be important to monitor soil conductivity (EC) continuously. This is necessary not only to always have nutrients available to the plants but in the event of poor nutrition or excessive transpiration, salts can accumulate in the soil and damage the root system.

It is worth designing the AgroSense system to measure soil and microclimate parameters per irrigation cycle or crop. Such a distributed design enables the irrigation to be optimised. The simplest linear solution also costs £3.90 – £4.50 / ha per mm of application. In our experience, monitored and properly parameterized irrigation results in 10-15% irrigation savings.

Air heat / humidity measurement, supplemented with leaf moisture data, makes it possible to make plant protection forecasts, for example, for tomatoes or potatoes.

Produce beautiful vegetables with AgroSense!

SweetVeg – Maturation prediction and optimization in the sweetcorn