AI-Driven Irrigation Management Tool

Current irrigation practices among growers involve the manual operation of their irrigation pump that is based on ‘guesstimation’ or a timer that runs the irrigation system at a specified time. This lack of precision irrigation often leads to overwatering/underwatering, poor crop yield, and fertiliser loss due to drainage and leaching. It is well known that the use of soil moisture sensors is important when it comes to precision irrigation. However, due to the complexity involved in analysing soil moisture data, many farmers and growers refrain from using moisture sensors for their irrigation management. This explains why the global adoption rate for soil moisture sensors is only 20%. We developed a hardware-agnostic software solution to improve the value proposition of soil moisture sensors and the data. It uses volumetric water content readings from moisture sensors to provide various irrigation-related recommendations, such as root zone activity detection, water deficit in the root zones in mm, daily plant water uptake, soil's water holding capacity, and refill point. Such a tool enhances a farmer’s ability to make better irrigation decisions based on a scientific approach