Dr Vishy Karri says his company Expert 365 was established to answer an agricultural question, “What is the precise amount of water quantity required, per square meter patch of the horticulture farm, for various crops, soil type and age of the plant for healthy yield?”.
Their solutions are built via sensors in soils, to monitor real-time soil moisture, electrical conductivity and temperature. This is relayed to Microsoft Azure cloud-based algorithms to provide irrigation recipes. His solution is being used in farms in NSW, QLD and WA and it is gaining international interest with orders from India and the USA. It has been shown to reduce water usage by up to 10 per cent while also achieving an increase of up to 15 per cent in crop yield.
“We believe this unprecedented technology represents a significant step towards implementing Internet of Things (IOT) in agriculture,” he says. “This revolution in soil sensor technology calculates the precise amount of water required for various horticulture plants based on a myriad of parameters, namely age, soil type, climate and rate of depletion of readily available underground water.”
In spite of the harsh climatic conditions and scarcity of irrigation water, Karri says water consumption by the agriculture industry increased up to 12,780 GL in 2012-14, and is still increasing, accounting for 65 per cent of total water consumption in Australia during that period. While imposing meters for restricted water usage and monitoring are some of the measures proposed, he feels there is an opportunity to save water by identifying precise amounts of water for eachcrop’s need.
Source: http://innovativeengineers.com.au/utilites/dr-vishy-karri