Improving Efficiency, Reducing Risk: Making Sense of Uncontrolled Environments

Horticultural crop production is an inherently risky business, and farmers have long wrestled with understanding a seemingly chaotic number of environmental variables which impact crop productivity on a daily basis. The advent of computerized systems, and more especially recent advances in sensor technology, analytical software tools and the development of web-based interfaces is allowing farmers a greater understanding of underlying relationships associated with their own farming practices. These include mechanisms associated with plant-available water, soil type and hydrology which all impact irrigation and fertility management. Measuring daily changes in environmental conditions then links this information to crop water use, growth and yield. The ability to also alert growers about non-normal conditions not only increases crop security, but can greatly increase the ability of farmers to make timely decisions -- from frost protection, to timing and targeting agrochemical applications for maximum efficacy (using pest and disease incidence models) and enabling the automation of routine tasks, such as irrigation.