{"id":314959,"date":"2021-11-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=314959"},"modified":"2021-11-01T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T13:00:00","slug":"watering-plants-has-never-been-so-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/watering-plants-has-never-been-so-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"Watering plants has never been so easy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The United Nations Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow is being held in the year that the European Union is demonstrably committed to making the continent more sustainable. During the climate summit, Innovation Origins will be zooming in on Italy. This country receives about 20 percent of the money from the Next Generation EU fund that links recovery from the cororona pandemic to sustainability.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this part of the series, we are focusing on a promising Italian start-up.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To improve farming, a smart system enables the measurement of parameters to help monitor a plants’ condition. Diseases can be detected in time this way and irrigation can be optimized too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a farmer means getting up early in the morning all year long. Missing one day might result in detecting a plant disease too late. Skipping plants\u2019 watering could be harmful when fruit is growing. Showing up every day is therefore necessary to keep track of what is going on. In the era of smart systems, what about having remote control over farms too?\u00a0Also, climate change is making us think about smarter management of water and of less extensive use of chemicals. This is an Italian start-up that kills two birds with one stone, offering a system that optimizes resources and makes agriculture smarter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smartisland\u00a0<\/a>has developed Smart Farm, a technology to monitor cultivations remotely. The Sicilian start-up gathers data on the environment and on the soil the plants are growing in. This way, farmers can track the status of their crops, and thereby plan more efficient irrigation and fertilization while predicting plant diseases at the same time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Luisa\u00a0Cinquerrui\u00a0founded the company back in 2014 after graduating as a computer engineer. Since then,\u00a0Smartisland\u00a0ha grown in its development process and has also received several awards. As of today, it employs 12 people \u2013 both on a part and full-time basis.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy family owns a farm and during my time at university, I came up with the idea of developing a technology that could improve agriculture\u201d, says\u00a0Cinquerrui. \u201cSmartisland\u00a0was my graduation project which I decided to develop even further after my studies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combining IT knowledge with experience in the field, the engineer created a system that gathers first-hand data and analyzes it. Users access the information through their laptops, and gain full control over what is going on in their farming.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s more, is that\u00a0Smartisland\u00a0can also assist farmers in the performance of certain tasks. Irrigation, for instance, can be optimized with the data collected by Smart Farm. Growers can improve their production processes this way.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watering cultivations at a distance <\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Smartisland\u00a0created an ecosystem that integrates different devices to be able to gather, process, and apply data.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daiki <\/em>– the name of the sensors nodes placed in the crop robots measure temperature and humidity levels, both in the air and in the soil. Sensors measuring wind and rainfall can also be integrated. The multispectral cameras embedded into the sensor nodes record visual information, which offers a new method to look at crops.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the information is transmitted to the data hub, where the system manages all of it. The unit carries out an analysis that is capable of distinguishing between different kinds of information, and sets different priorities when it comes to the crops. Users access an interface where they can find all that information.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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