Modular wireless sentinel of water percolation, water potential, soil texture, salts, pH, and nutrients in depth, to reduce water use and energy and optimise fertilization in crops

Introduction

The climate change manifests in longer periods of drought on one hand and extreme overflow of watercourses on the other hand. This will significantly disrupt the agriculture sector, which strongly relies on certain temperatures and precipitation levels.

Water Footprint and Agriculture

The farming choices and the climate will determine the water footprint of agriculture: over-exploitation of water resources is a threat to farming and the environment. This is the origin of the LIFE HYDROSTICK project, which aims at making precision farming easy and accessible by means of demonstrating in real scale a new modular, flexible, autonomous, user-friendly (plug&connect) and customizable IoT solution allowing real-time monitoring of soil data, including:

• Water content
• Water potential
• Temperature
• Conductivity (quality and type of mineral salts)
• Nutrients (N, P, K)
• pH

The goal is to increase sustainability and productivity in the agro-industry sector.

Technology Demonstration

The LIFE HYDROSTICK technology will be demonstrated in real scale to showcase its performance and its ability to achieve substantial water savings and efficiency in the use of fertilizers and fertigation practices.

Validation Process

It will be first validated in a greenhouse, followed by a full-scale demonstration in 4 pilot crops of 2 Spanish locations (Navarra, Extremadura).

Project Partners

The leading entity is FERNANDO SARRIA AGROTECHNOLOGIES (FSA), the inventor and developer of the Hydrostick technology. In this project, it will be accompanied by:

1. AN S.Coop. (AN) - leading the validation process
2. Instituto de Agrobiotecnología (IDAB-CSIC) - responsible for designing and executing a validation plan for the HYDROSTICK in different fields.

Methodology

The methodology consists of 6 work packages (WP) related not only to real scale testing but also to:

• Technology scaling-up
• Dissemination and communication of results
• Design for replication and transferability
• Exploitation of project results

Environmental Impact

Five environmental KPIs have been defined to monitor the impacts that the project aims to achieve.