| On Topic
by 75% at IoT
by 75% and gets put under utility surveillance for suspected meter tampering as a result.
which has broadband cellular
uplink connectivity functionality.
The gateway also contains a
Spirent partner Oasis reprogrammable SIM which
becomes the enabler in remote
water provisioning. All soil
moisture data is collected from the
avocado trees into a cloud and
visualised by a presentation layer.
When a tree needs to be
watered, the solution turns the
sprinklers on automatically to get
the correct level of soil moisture for
each tree. It then turns them off
when the correct moisture levels
are reached. The connected trees
are monitored constantly day and
night.
"Avocado trees typically take 4
www.farmingmonthly.co.uk
acre feet (1 acre foot = 326000
gallons) of water per acre per year.
This is not only to supply the
needed water, but also to leach the
salts which build up in the soil,"
says Bantle.
"The soil moisture sensors let
me drastically reduce water usage
by telling me when to water and
how deep to water to push the
salts past the bulk of the rooting
zone. The majority of the roots are
in the top 8 inches of soil so there
is a sensor there and one at 24
inches so I can see when I've
watered deep enough to get the
salts out of the rooting zone," adds
Bantle.
He spent $8,200 for LoRa
stations with soil moisture sensors,
valve controllers Lora gateway and
cellular backhaul to soil moist
monitor and automate, just-in-time
irrigation.
The results proved staggering.
The annual cost of watering his
900 avocado trees was $47,336.
By connecting his trees with IoT
technology, his annual water bill
dropped to just $11,834 ... a 75%
cost reduction. The hardware
investment was recovered within
the first six months.
But the results go far beyond
the world of this pioneering farmer.
It paves the way for millions of
small, medium and large-sized
farms around the globe to emulate
his experiment and slash millions
of dollars off the cost of growing
Kurt Bantle
fruit and vegetables.
The connectivity solution
provided by Spirent together with
its IoT ecosystem partners for
avocado trees applies to every
type of vegetable and fruit farming
including almonds, olives, apples,
oranges and tomatoes.
Spirent's Embedded
Connectivity solution will be
launched during 2016 in a phased
manner so that the commercially
available solution conforms to the
corresponding GSMA specification
releases.
July 2016 | Farming Monthly | 11