DEMETER’s aims to put digital means at the service of farmers. With this in mind, we catch up with one of the farmers invovled in our pilot project focused on IoT Corn Management and Decision Support Platforms. This pilot aims to improve improve greenhouse gas emissions and poor water quality that drive business risks in corn production.
Can you tell us more about your farm?
Our farm is located in SE of Romania. We farm 7500ha arable land, including 3000ha irrigable. Our main crops are Wheat, Barley, Rapeseed, Sunflower, Soya, Corn and we practice conservative agriculture using cover crops, TCS (Simplify Agricultural Technics) and always accomplish with best agricultural practices.
What technology (hardware/software) has been installed on your farm?
In our farm, through the DEMETER project, we installed Meteo-station including moisture sensors to help us on the irrigation management.
What has been your experience of using the technology so far?
We are very happy with the system. Beside the possibility to know all the weather parameters we need to, we can measure the soil moisture and this way manage better the corn needs in each period; knowing when and how much to irrigate.
What benefits do you hope to see from using the technology?
Water savings is the first one, because water is a depleting source. Also hope to minimize the irrigation soil compaction and give exactly the correct water needs for our crop; corn in our specific case this year.
