Idroplan is an innovative system that supports irrigation planning. It allows the optimisation of water, saving both energy costs and more than 40% of the water supply. Idroplan revises the irrigation plan at constant intervals and assesses the quantity of treatments needed. It involves various applications, among which the integration with predictive models of primary and secondary main pathogens, establishing itself as the reference for the digitalisation of the management of the operations to be carried out in a field. It allows for the monitoring of the environment for all types of crops in order to obtain data on soil and air humidity. Starting from these data possible irrigation treatments are calculated, which are customisable according to the type of crop, soil and objectives involved, with a saving of 10%. If we take vines in consideration, the monitoring is further enriched by the prediction of the presence of pests. In this case, indications concerning cycles that address certain phytopathologies are elaborated, such as: downy and powdery mildew, botrytis and black rot.
The service can be personalised according to one’s objective for each crop, the size of the field that need to be monitored and the type of crop. These parameters determine the hardware that needs to be installed, which will then send data to the network from the survey stations scattered around the fields.
Idroplan has already been installed on over 12,000 acres (5,000 ha) of fields, involving around 230 companies. It is also possible to test new crops, including potatoes, onions, spinach and soy.
Idroplan has been developed by Neoruralehub (see https://it.neoruralehub.com/innovation-center-giulio-natta), a hub where research concerning circular economy for agro-food industry is done, and which exploits land and labs available within Innovation Center Giulio Natta in Giussago, near Pavia, in Italy.
Image: Neoruralehub
