Top 6 Technologies in Agriculture for Yield Enhancements

In recent years, the adoption of technologies in Agriculture has been enabling the farmers to treat crops and manage fields more efficiently for a better yield. Agriculture technology has changed the way of farming and made it more profitable, efficient, safer, and simple. Among other popular new agriculture technologies, farmers have picked the following 6 farming technologies as the efficient systems:

1. Remote Sensing Technologies
2. Software Applications
3. Communication Systems using ICT
4. Telemetrics positioning technologies
5. Hardware & Support System
6. Data Analytics Solution for Agriculture

As a result of adopting the technologies in Agriculture, along with the large scale commercial farms the small, medium and marginal farm producers also get significant benefits from the ever-evolving digital agriculture systems.

These benefits include

• Reduced consumption of water, nutrients, fertilizer.
• Reduced negative impact on the ecosystem & better efficiency.
• Reduced chemical runoff into the natural water resources.
• Reduced production cost and many more.

Thereby, Agriculture tech makes the farming business cost-effective, smart, and sustainable.

Let’s discuss the,

Top 6 Technologies in Agriculture:

1. Remote Sensing Technologies for Agriculture:

Remote Sensing Technologies for Agriculture involves multiple Sensors, Tools, gadgets and systems for various applications.

Yield Monitoring Sensors – like the "GPS sensors" mounted on harvesting equipment that fetches spatial coordinate data. Yield monitoring data is combined with the coordinates to create yield maps. Yield Monitoring systems are placed on crop harvesting vehicles such as Wheat or corn harvesters. They provide the essential crop data such as crop weight yield by time, distance, or GPS location measured and recorded to within 30cm.

Variable Rate Fertilizer application tools – Automatic Fertilizer Application tool uses yield maps to determine plant health by colouration to control the crop input – granular, liquid, and gaseous fertilizer materials. Variable-rate controllers can either be manually controlled or automatically controlled using an onboard computer guided by a real GPS location.

Weed Mapping – Weed Mapping device currently uses operator interpretation and input to generate maps by quickly marking the location with a GPS receiver and data logger. The weed occurrences can then be overlapped with yield maps, fertilizer maps, and spray maps. As visual recognition systems improve, the manual entry will soon be replaced by automated, visual systems mounted to working equipment.

Variable Spraying controllers – Automatic variable spraying controllers turn herbicide spray units on and off and customize the amount of the spray applied. Once weed locations are identified and mapped, the volume and mix of the spray can be determined.

Topography and Boundaries maps – can be recorded using high-precision GPS, which allows for a very precise topographic representation to be made of any field. These precision maps are useful when interpreting yield maps and weed maps. Field boundaries, existing roads, and wetlands can be accurately located to aid in farm planning.

Salinity Mapping – is done with a Salinity Meter on a sledge towed across fields affected by salinity. Salinity mapping interprets emergent issues as well as changes in salinity over time.

Guidance Systems – can accurately position a moving vehicle within 30cm or less using GPS. Guidance systems replace conventional equipment for spraying or seeding. Autonomous vehicles are currently under development and will likely be put into use in the very near future.

1. Software Applications:

The Role of Smartphone Apps in Agriculture Technologies:

Many smartphone applications have begun to incorporate the Internet of Things (IoT), data aggregation, and bring up-to-date actionable information to small farmers regarding seeding, weeding, fertilizing, and watering. These applications gather data from handheld sensors, remote sensors, and weather stations, creating in-depth analyses and valuable recommendations. Farmsio has developed several Digital Applications related to Technologies for agriculture specifically targeting small-scale farmers.

Disease Detection and Diagnosis: Photos taken of suspect plants can be forwarded to experts for analysis.

Fertilizer Calculator: Soil sensors and leaf colour can determine what nutrients are needed.

Soil Study: Capturing soil images, as well as pH and chemical data from sensors, allows farmers to monitor and adjust to changing soil conditions.

Water Study: Determining Leaf Area Index from photos and brightness logging can help farmers determine water needs.

Crop Harvest Readiness: Camera photos with UV and white lights accurately predict ripeness.

The application of Modern Technologies in Agriculture can significantly improve farm productivity by analyzing soil, crop, weed, and pest variables, as well as offer valuable feedback for agricultural decisions, the small farmer’s quality of life, can noticeably improve.

1. Communication Systems: ICT

ICT in Agriculture helps in the growing demand for new approaches. It also helps in empowering the rural people by providing better access to natural resources, improved agricultural technologies, effective production strategies, markets, banking and financial services etc.

• Widen Market Access
• Strengthen and empower the farming community

ICT Initiatives For Agricultural In India:

• Agrisnet
• Digital green
• Digital Mandi

1. Telemetrics positioning technologies:

Telematics – the new technology in agriculture is a method of monitoring tractors, trucks, equipment and other assets by using GPS technology and onboard diagnostics (OBD) to plot the asset’s movements on a computerized map.

Components of Telemetric System:

• GPS location
• Speed
• Mileage
• Trip recordings
• Drive times
• Time on location
• Fuel usage
• Driving related behaviour (in case of harsh driving)
• Other data related to vehicle utility
• Driver-related details

Telematics systems improve productivity and overall operational efficiency.

When coupled with another telematics-related tech, the black box can track fuel consumption and engine performance. Such features enable companies to track and minimize instances of engine idling which is the leading cause of unnecessary fuel consumption.

In addition to that, FPO’s can follow up with timely vehicle maintenance, which improves vehicle longevity and prevents expensive maintenance costs by tracking performance in real-time. Such vehicle telematics features cut operational costs by cutting unwanted expenses and enhancing the productivity of vehicles and overall operation.

1. Hardware & Support System

The IoT in Agriculture is developing and being popular day by day. It has been estimated that there will be an interconnection between billions of objects in the world. Therefore, a smart Farming embedded with an IoT system could deliver more Agricultural service based on an expert?s skill or understanding. The expert system helps the farmer by providing an efficient crop management system.

The (IoT) Internet of things is transforming the agriculture industry like never before by helping the farmers in different ways.

• The IoT based expert system makes use of the input gathered in real-time.
• It allows the farmers to take prior measures to reduce the loss caused by insects/pests and climate change.
• This increases the productivity of crops.
• The sensors are deployed inside the agricultural area to collect data regarding the environment.
• The data collected by different sensors are sent to a server, where the expert system is deployed, which processes the data and analyses the data and gives suggestions about the crop to the farmers.

The overall Decision Support System comprises hardware and software elements. ICT equipment is employed for gathering the data, a platform was utilized for storing the information and an Android application was developed for formulating and presenting the most crucial results back to the user.

Additionally, as far as the outcomes are concerned, the Decision Support System has been fully developed and formed, according to the comprehensive and detailed system design, composition and arrangement of the various components. Complete testing of the system in actual farmlands and with farmers or farming consultants

1. Data analytics Solution for Agriculture:

Smart farming using data analytics solutions :

Smart farming uses data analytics solutions to gather information from multiple farming practices to create algorithms that can be utilised by different farms to create a crop yield that is both fruitful and sustainable.

Farmers are using data to calculate harvest yields, fertiliser demand, cost savings, and even identifying optimisation strategies for future crops. Smart farming uses data analytics solutions to gather information from multiple farming practices to create algorithms that can be utilised by different farms to create a crop yield that is both fruitful and sustainable.

With this knowledge, farmers will be able to better predict activity on the farm and utilise methods that are not only better for their crops but more environmentally sound.

Conclusion:

In today’s growing world, the Small, Medium to Micro or Marginal farmers is not much aware of technologies in agricultural practices. The proposed system can help the farmers to take preventive measures to reduce the losses in agriculture and increase productivity in crops.

Today’s farmers can predict crop yields with surprising accuracy, before planting a single seed. The insight provided by Farmsio’s data analytics in the technology for agriculture allows farmers to start and harvest their crops at an optimum time, which maximises crop yields, minimises stress and maximises profitability.

To know more about the trending or the upcoming new technologies in agriculture please Contact Farmsio.

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